Would this be feasible

[SgtGoose]

I have a question. With the technology we have, would it be feasible to have a true direct democracy where representatives would not be needed and citizens would be able to vote on the laws themselves.

I think if it would be be done, it would probably be through internet/prepaid mail voting to allow access to all citizens. I would imagine we would either use congress to propose bills, or perhaps some regulated system that would allow citizens to propose bills, perhaps through petition's, though I'm not so sure that would be the best way to go about it.

I don't know the logistics of how difficult this would be to run year round, or of how easily it could be tampered with. Also, I'm sure there would have to be regulations on who would be allowed to vote, and how this would shift the liberal/conservative balance of the country.

I think if possibly, this would be a very effective system of government. I've always hated the fact that politics is a paying career for our congress man, thus making politics a business. Don't get me wrong, I still think we should have a three branch government, I just think we may have the technology to have the population replace representatives.

Thoughts?

[Tancrisism]

At 8/5/09 10:19 PM, SgtGoose wrote: I think if possibly, this would be a very effective system of government. I've always hated the fact that politics is a paying career for our congress man, thus making politics a business. Don't get me wrong, I still think we should have a three branch government, I just think we may have the technology to have the population replace representatives.

Thoughts?

Here's the thing - the populous is extremely indecisive. It is, as Congress itself is often referred to, a many-headed monster. A direct democracy is itself inherently flawed in that nothing would get done.

For instance: In a direct democracy, who will decide what is important to focus on or not? Popular passions, true, but who will guide the issues to what is important? No issue would receive the proper focus, everyone would speak out of turn... In all, we would turn into a more populated, more technologically advanced Ancient Athens. If you don't know much about ancient Athens, it's well worth reading about - basically very little got done and only the incredibly wealthy had much true say because they purchased power and votes, and their belligerence got them into a war with Sparta (Yes, Athens were actually the provocateurs, not the victims), which eventually destroyed Greece's power forever.

Read Plato's Republic if you want to know his opinion of direct democracy. Of course, his Republic is very different from ours, but he felt that the military dictatorship of Sparta was actually the closest to the ideal, closer even than the direct democracy of Athens. And this is coming from a man who valued human rights and so forth.

Also, a direct democracy creates a tyranny of a majority.

Representative democracy is, overall, far more favorable than direct democracy. I agree that the US in particular should be more directly democratic in areas, like the election of the president, and that reforms could be made to make Congress less ridiculous, but, like has been said before, it's the worst type of government - except every other form tried.

[TheladiesMan47]

No offense but that is a terrible idea. Average Joe USA has no idea what is going on. Congressmen let alone the president have to be experts on economics, sociology, medicine, the list goes on and on because everything they do has an effect on everything in our lives. Possible? Yes, Preferable? No. I'm not trying to sound elitist, but to be honest the only useful function of democracy is that it prevents tyrants, not because people actually know whats best. That being said, the goal of politicians should be to allow the maximum ammount of civic and economic freedom while maintaining order. It's a tough job, and I don't want some redneck with broke down cars in their front yards deciding how to spend my money, and wether or not I should be allowed the freedom of speech. Same goes to some inner city idiot whos more worried about lil waynes new album, or some hippie bastard and the list goes on and on.

[SgtGoose]

I agree it's not going to be utopia. I don't think there's a "right" system of government. Different people prefer to live in different forms of government. The main point I'm curious about is how the logistics of it would work. Could we run it accurately and affordable? Could we prevent tampering?

I do think that a simple way to counter act the majority tyrant problem would be to have the percentage for a bill to pass to be more like 2/3rds, or perhaps something larger. This way it would not necessarily turn the country on it's head if it was enacted, because it would take a lot of public opinion to change the law.

At 8/5/09 11:19 PM, TheladiesMan47 wrote: No offense but that is a terrible idea. Average Joe USA has no idea what is going on. Congressmen let alone the president have to be experts on economics, sociology, medicine, the list goes on and on because everything they do has an effect on everything in our lives.

This is the main problem I see. When it comes to mathematics and finances of these bills, I have no faith in the average joe. I don't have a solution to this, so Touché

I don't think redneck's and inner city kids will be a large problem in this system, because the truth is, few of them would be voting on a weekly basis. It's tough enough to get them to do it every four years, although apparently it can be done. The majority of voters would take politics seriously to spend that much time, even if they are redneck's or inner city kids.

Is the government able to make an uncrackable web vote?