[chimeracoder]

> Vehemently disagree. I would much rather take our most contentious issues (abortion, M4A, etc) put them on a national ballot and let the general public decide

The problem with true direct democracy isn't how people would handle high-level issues that are direct reflections on people's basic values and principles, like the two examples you mentioned.

The problem with true direct democracy is that every single person becomes responsible for understanding the intricacies of mundane-but-critical details of administration, like the third-order effects of specific tax policies, or actions that are currently delegated to executive agencies.

Except in the extremely small scale, it quickly becomes prohibitive to reasonably expect all those people to be able to make informed decisions about all the necessary parts.

[rootusrootus]

I'd like a hybrid system like we have in a number of states. A mechanism for nationwide initiative petitions would be nice. Then we can get nationwide consensus on the high-level issues and leave the rest for the people whose job it is to work out the details.

[wing-_-nuts]

Exactly. Stop playing political football with issues. Put them to the people at let the voting public decide, and be done with it.

[lazide]

The worst laws come from direct amendments and petitions because only the stuff no lawmaker actually wants their name on (or could pass) goes there - and it gets gamed to hell.

See the CA propositions - they turn into insane population wide gaslighting competitions.

[wing-_-nuts]

I'd rather have CA's props than an elected congressman who ignores the will of the people

[mothballed]

Why not a mixture of both? CA for instance had their populace vote to ban gay marriage in prop 8, CA then just told the voters to go fuck themselves and tied it up and overturned it in court.

So you can see even if you literally amend the constitution in california by popular referendum, those in power can just tell the populace to go fuck themselves and they won't be recognizing it, no matter that the constitution is the supreme law of the state.

[chimeracoder]

> Why not a mixture of both? CA for instance had their populace vote to ban gay marriage in prop 8, CA then just told the voters to go fuck themselves and tied it up and overturned it in court.

> So you can see even if you literally amend the constitution in california by popular referendum, those in power can just tell the populace to go fuck themselves and they won't be recognizing it, no matter that the constitution is the supreme law of the state.

Your argument would make sense if the courts had overturned Prop 8 on the basis that it was unconstitutional at the state level. But that's not what happened.

The state case against Prop 8 was upheld by the courts. The federal courts ruled against it, in a completely separate case, on the basis of the Equal Protection Clause in the US constitution. Prop 8 amended the state constitution; it did not amend the US constitution.

It's also a moot point, because Prop 8 was also repealed by a subsequent ballot initiative, with 61% of the vote.

[lazide]

So you’re saying popular votes are not sufficient to avoid flip flops on contentious issues, and popular voting also can step on minority groups recognized rights on a whim?

What problem is it solving again?

And notably, California is one of the most consistently gay friendly states and still flip flopped on this exact topic.

The more direct the democracy (and the shorter the timeframes between elections!), the easier it is to game the population or poke people’s buttons and make them vote on things they later regret - or deeply enjoy.

The whole court system and bill of rights is to try to put guard rails, so there aren’t (for example) purges/genocides, removing a little under half the populations rights, etc. etc. but there is only so much rules can do.

There is no free lunch.

Notably, imagine direct democracy and the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_panic]!

Without guardrails on the levers of power, a lot of people would have died. As it is, a lot of lives still got ruined.

[rootusrootus]

So then it boils back down to 'most people are stupid' and the reason we have representative democracy is so we can cultivate a class of elites who are smart enough and have enough skin in the game to make good decisions for the rest of us.

People recoil at the idea, but isn't that sort of what the founders were doing? They had beautiful, lofty ideals on paper, but they were all wealthy, white, male landowners. Their idea of "the People" might have been a wee bit more limited than the generally accepted definition today.

[lazide]

It doesn’t require most people to be stupid. It just requires people to have other things they need to do, and pay attention to, and limited ability to give a shit.

If everyone has to be paying attention all the time (and it would be 150% of the time with modern society), everyone is susceptible to being drowned in bullshit and either checking out or being manipulated.

Even with what we have now, that is exactly what is going on. Direct democracy would be even worse.