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And this is the sort of legislation that should be passed by direct referendum, will of the people, and not by representatives who have been bought out by special interest groups. Desperately needed but unlikely to happen.
the country would function so much better if we just sent out ballots to everyone to vote on every bill if they want to
That's how Brexit happened in the UK.
I agree about not trusting the politicians, but not sure I trust the general public much more unfortunately.
The founding fathers didn't either that's why they put a buffer in in case there was a nuance not under stood by the general public. The only problem is I don't think they envisioned a party hell bent on the country's destruction.
The greatest flaw in the founder's reasoning was that they trusted public servants to fight for what's best for the country. They expected public figures to always attempt to do what's best for the country and their constituents and built our systems based on a lot of trust.
They never expected there to be half the country that doesn't care about the rules and only works for their own benefit.
They didn't really... there are a LOT of check and balances in the US constitution.
There were a few holes though. FPTP is possibly the biggest one, yet the easiest to forgive them for because they literally didn't know any better, but FPTP causes bipartism which leads to line-toeing which necessarily weakens the "balance" part of check and balances.
Then there's the almost complete immovability of the US constitution which gives enormous power to the SCOTUS and led to a whole lot of gaps being filled with fragile "tradition" or nefariously repurposed (2nd amendment, citizens united, executive orders, yada yada). This isn't just on the founders for trusting states too much to continuously reform the constitution, but also lies squarely on this frankly insane cult around the revolutionary mythos which made it entirely taboo to reform anything the founding fathers ever did to the point that no meaningful amendment was passed in over a century.
Complain all you want about the founding fathers, but they aren't to blame if a vast majority of Americans would almost certainly, in a hypothetical referundum, vote against even the smallest constitutional reform on the grounds that "it ain't what the Almighty Fathers intended". The very fact that you're talking about the Founding Fathers' intent as is if it has ANY BEARING on today's politics shows just how deeply ingrained this personality cult is.
A two party system was one of George Washington's fear. It breeds division while both sides occupy themselves making us emotional about how much the other side does wrong. Then they get more donations and more power. They don't care if they aren't effective because they know we won't ever go to the other side.
... There's a great Freakonomics episode on the duopoly formed by the Democratic and Republican parties and how they both benefit while stifling the competition from other parties that could provide more varied perspective.
My takeaway - support rank choices voting and elimination of closed primaries (which encourage extremism in candidates).
Just look at your presidential race, sadly I agree
Bad example, Trump lost the popular vote both times. Dang electoral college was responsible for that travesty. Also George W. Bush lost the popular vote in his first election too. Thanks again, electoral college.
People voted for him, those people are fucking brain dead
I don't disagree, just saying it's an instance where direct democracy would have been better than having this representative layer of the electoral college in between.
Well we're on the same page now
That’s because we need a maximum age to vote too.
A maximum age to vote?
Wtf?
So old people should have no voice?
I kind of see what they're saying. If you're on your way out, you probably shouldn't have a ton of sway on how the world operates after you're gone.
But that is a suuuuper slippery slope.
"The law abhors dead hand control."
Voting is a basic human right, though.
I non-sarcastically love your optimism. But part of me really believes that 50% of the country votes however their church tells them to. So I'm not sure it'd be better.
Johnson should have teeth.
Mine doesn't have a mouth though, just a small opening
It's more like one fourth. Half the country doesn't vote at all.
I would be very careful with that. US should try having a more representative government first.
So long as you don't like a functioning economy, sure.
You'd get people voting for all the projects and none of the budget.
You are getting down voted for telling the truth.
It happens. I'm not concerned about it. I've seen that happen first-hand. If people don't want to acknowledge it, they can learn it for themselves.
Stupid take. Nobody thinks rote popularity contest is a good idea. There's too much to know. Too much to regulate. Have to employ experts.
If it were left to popular vote, do you think we would have the Exclusionary Rule? A ban on cruel and unusual punishment? A right to remain silent? Any criminal rights?
Any minority rights at all?
So just vote for the issues that matter to you.
Either way, you get more control than having someone else make the decisions for you.
"Abstain from votes you feel unqualified for while the unqualified radicalized masses vote every time" isn't exactly the winning strategy either. Fact is a large portion of the population has no problem voting incompetently and/or under the influence of malicious talking heads.
I don't see why you think the constituency would routinely make worse decisions than the people they put in power.
What makes you think politicians are exempt from this?
Honestly how old are you?
We have frequent ballot measures in California and as a voter I do a lot of work to understand those ballot measures that many do not have the time or the ability to do. California ballots may have 5-10 questions on them, and these things already take a long time to properly research and understand...Can you imagine the complexity when you're talking about national issues and especially thinking of running the entire government that way?
It's a full-time job. There's no way it's scalable to run a country this large with this many competing interests using direct voting. You'd spend your whole life voting on or researching on voting on things.
Ultimately, you'd wind up with industry writing all of the law proposals and a misrepresented version of those coming across some kind of voting device. We'd still continue our slow slide into some sort of industrial feudalism, just without the politicians to blame for it.
I think proportional representation and ranked choice voting are both better ideas.
How is anything I've posted negated by the fact that corruption exists?