Re: I'll believe corporations are people when they let them drive in the HOV lane ...

[Dan White <dwhite () olp net>]

On 02/04/13 18:28 -0500, Stephanie Daugherty wrote:
> I've seen calls for direct democracy as a replacement
> for representative government. There is a serious danger in that, and that
> is tyranny of a majority. Look at Uganda's recent "kill the gays" bill -
> can we really be sure that even something as malicious as that couldn't
> pass here with Faux News cheerleading it on?
>
> Whatever may take the place of congress in the future, we do have to be
> mindful of the "dark side" of democracy - I mean, even in our own history
> we once thought slavery and alcohol prohibition were good ideas...

As far as I can tell, we have 0% direct democracy at the federal level in
the US. We have no legal path to petitioning the government to impeach
federal employee, change law, or to change the constitution. All those
functions are held by representative power (this is not true at the state
level, for many states).

I do not fear the tyranny of the majority. I believe when push comes to
shove that people will make their own selfish decisions, for the betterment
of themselves and their own families. Conflict is not a bad thing, only
poorly executed conflict resolution. Our current system leads to poor
conflict resolution and too many losers, since too many decisions are made
at the federal level.

I would expect direct democracy (that is, voting on congressional bills by
a direct vote of the people) would lead to: 1) no big changes gaining much
consensus and 2) decisions getting pushed down toward the local level where
they belong (and where there are fewer losers). The only way to take money
and power grabbing away from congress is to castrate them.

There are checks against tyranny. We have the constitution and the court
system to hold it in check.

--
Dan White
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