[bdunbar]

"The government is nothing but an employee of the collective and - ideally - everyone agrees with its goals at least so much that they pay the taxes thought to be necessary to accomplish them."

I would love to live in a country where this is actually practiced. Perhaps immigration is in my future - do you have a preferred locale in Switzerland?

In the States we _say_ this is the way things should be, but in _practice_ the people in D.C. are a horde of bandits looting the bank.

Those guys don't like people like me, they don't _trust_ people like me, there is no reason why I should pretend I trust or like them back.

[kyrriana]

Your chances of emigrating to Switzerland are virtually nil. That's why their system works.

[DeepDuh]

Sadly true, it's incredibly hard for non EU citizens (which is the first thing I'd like to change btw., I'd prefer a green card system like in the US). I don't agree with your second phrase however. I don't see why this kind of immigration policy is essential for the survival of this political system. A steered kind of immigration from everywhere, ensuring that those people actually agree with the spirit of that system, would actually make life here even easier.

edit: we have >20% immigrant population without citizenship btw. High crime from some of these groups is what lead to these immigration unfriendly policies. Direct democracy, sadly, doesn't eliminate stupid policies. (However I'd argue that it tends to filter out extremist ones).