America should be turned into a democracy

[FrankRep]

IMHO, imagine how many things would be different if the people voted on it, not a minority who DO NOT represent their constituents.

Mob rule. no thank you.

 

[RSLudlum]

the Republic is not the problem, the constituents holding their representatives to the fire inbetween elections is the problem. Everybody gets in a hissy during the "election season" and then are suprised they have to choose the lesser of two evils, instead of keeping their reps informed of what the constituents expect from them during their tenure. Apathy begets apathy to the politicians' advantage.

 

[Theocrat]

I Agree

the Republic is not the problem, the constituents holding their representatives to the fire inbetween elections is the problem. Everybody gets in a hissy during the "election season" and then are suprised they have to choose the lesser of two evils, instead of keeping their reps informed of what the constituents expect from them during their tenure. Apathy begets apathy to the politicians' advantage.

You've made some good points, and they're similar to some of the things I spoke about in Post #45 of this thread.

 

[fj45lvr]

IMHO, imagine how many things would be different if the people voted on it, not a minority who DO NOT represent their constituents.

Thats the WORST thing that could ever happen. Just end the Federal Gov. Let States control themselves.

 

[RSLudlum]

Damn, this thread is still going??? I thought our founders killed this idea quite succinctley eons ago.

 

[SWATH]

If we had a democracy, we would likely have a charismatic socialist celebrity elected president for life, or at least every election cycle. We would have no absolute rights, and we would likely imprison or execute innocent people or at least people who have not been found guilty in a court of law. There would be a multitude of instances where theft is considered "justified" and subjugation would be the norm rather than the exception.


All of the problems we have with our republic are not because of a flawed system, it is because we the people are pussies. When Ben Franklin said "a republic, if you can keep it" he meant "we have given you a form of government where you are so free that if you choose to be free than you have a mechanism to ensure that freedom, but in a conundrum you also have the freedom to enslave yourselves". This is the essence of free will. It is said that suicide is the ultimate expression of free will, you are so free that you are free to cease your own existence. Freedom, free will, and a republican form of government is like a loaded gun, you can use it to great effect for your own benefit or the benefit of others, and you can also shoot yourself.

It is up to you.

 

[Captain America]

"Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty." "Democracy passes into despotism." Plato

Our United States Constitution serving our liberty as Republic, is the closest we can come to utopia in a non automation society.

 

[Truth Warrior]

"The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting." -- Charles Bukowski

 

[hotbrownsauce]

Intelligent grown men can disagree. We don't need name calling.

Fellow citizen, a democracy is bad for the reason that 51% of the people will strip the rights of 49% of the people until no one has any rights. The idea in our republic is that people must be safe from with in and from with out. Everyone is equal and no one has an advantage over another other than what we strive for or are born with. No one knows what is best for you other than yourself so no one will make that decision for you. The government will just protect your right to do it.

in a pure democracy, anything is possible because 51% of the people can rise up and take away your right to choose.

Obviously things today aren't what is supposed to be. This is because of secret manipulation of those in power that scare or lie to the people to get their way. No government or law is 100% fail proof against being altered against what the law's say. Trust of government became too much and dissension to little.

One thing is for sure, the original constitution of the USA was the best ever before or since.

 

[Truth Warrior]

Intelligent grown men can disagree. We don't need name calling.

Fellow citizen, a democracy is bad for the reason that 51% of the people will strip the rights of 49% of the people until no one has any rights. The idea in our republic is that people must be safe from with in and from with out. Everyone is equal and no one has an advantage over another other than what we strive for or are born with. No one knows what is best for you other than yourself so no one will make that decision for you. The government will just protect your right to do it.

in a pure democracy, anything is possible because 51% of the people can rise up and take away your right to choose.

Obviously things today aren't what is supposed to be. This is because of secret manipulation of those in power that scare or lie to the people to get their way. No government or law is 100% fail proof against being altered against what the law's say. Trust of government became too much and dissension to little.

One thing is for sure, the original constitution of the USA was the best ever before or since.

Have you ever read the Constitution of the now defunct USSR?

 

[Vet_from_cali]

i like the assumption of things they think would happen.


my remarks was one that represented my view and belief.

which was, my representative voted the way his/her district viewed issues. which we all know is obsolete.

my point is this, our system is corrupted, and they found its flaw. i'd much rather vote a democracy, than whats going on right now as i see things.

 

[Vet_from_cali]

you cant buy my vote or corrupt me and i hope anyone on this board. i'd go with a democracy, if it was my choice.

 

[sirachman]

Problem is just as our system works in theory democracys only work in theory too for those who take the votes control the outcome..

 

[Truth Warrior]

Diebold Variations
http://homepage.mac.com/rcareaga/diebold/adworks.htm

 

[BagOfEyebrows]

IMHO, imagine how many things would be different if the people voted on it, not a minority who DO NOT represent their constituents.

no.

But that is exactly what they are trying to get people to believe.

Freedom and liberty could not survive (in action) in a democracy. That's why our founders didn't set up our nation as a democracy, but as a Constitutional Republic.

 

[BagOfEyebrows]

you cant buy my vote or corrupt me and i hope anyone on this board. i'd go with a democracy, if it was my choice.

research more on the difference between a democracy and a constitutional republic - those in 'power' want you to believe and buy into this corrupt idea of democracy, but it is not, absolutely not, in your best interest, nor is it in the best interest of liberty and freedom.

Our school systems are so corrupt, they got such a gigantic amount of people to buy into and believe in this 'democracy' garbage, it is going to take quite a bit of educating to get people to understand what happened, how it happened, and why... but it starts here, with Ron Paul supporters...

the word 'democracy' must be the first thing we focus upon, as that is the origin of much of what has gone wrong. The facade of it - the manipulation and push for it.

The day we become a 'democracy' is the day Freedom and Liberty cringe.

 

[BagOfEyebrows]

Yeah!!! Now the majority gets to oppress me instead of the minority!!!

lol

 

[constituent]

government = the problem

it will always be overrun by the biggest wankers in town. there is no way around this, it is a universal truth.

the folks w/ the life experience and moral constitution to lead are too busy living.

 

[Mini-Me]

i like the assumption of things they think would happen.


my remarks was one that represented my view and belief.

which was, my representative voted the way his/her district viewed issues. which we all know is obsolete.

my point is this, our system is corrupted, and they found its flaw. i'd much rather vote a democracy, than whats going on right now as i see things.

I agree there's a huge flaw in our system, but it's not the part about having representatives. Representatives can become quite corrupt if we let them (which is just a symptom of the real flaw, not the flaw itself), but you must remember that in contrast, we have not seen yet firsthand the terrors that direct democracy can unleash upon a sharply divided population...though we have indeed heard of them. Representatives, if held to their oaths by the people, have the potential to make much more informed votes about certain matters, since most people do not have the time to educate themselves on a single issue, let alone all of them. Sadly enough, as stupid as our representatives are, they're actually smarter than most of the people. Besides, representatives are at least needed to write coherent legislation in the first place. For instance, the annual budget can't exactly be written well by a direct democracy...nor do I think any budget whatsoever would please enough people to even pass via direct democracy. Plus, we already have to elect officials to the executive branch anyway, which is the most dangerous branch of all.

As I mentioned in my first post in the thread:

Furthermore, representatives are a corollary of having multiple sovereign state (or even local) governments that are then represented in the federal (not national) government. That was why Senators were originally chosen by the states. In other words, representatives are a corollary of overall decentralization of power, a great idea that has unfortunately eroded over the course of our existence as a nation.​

The closer America comes to more direct democracy, the less people will identify with their individual states. The danger there is that the "we are all one, so we should all share the same laws" mentality has contributed to federal totalitarianism.

So anyway, what's the real problem that corruption is only a symptom of? The real problem is that it's just too damn easy for representatives to make tons of new laws, and it's too damn hard for us to hold them to their oaths! We the people have no reasonably easy or direct way to cast down laws; we have to rely on a federal judge (and every subsequent judge up the chain) or for our state legislatures/governors to say enough is enough when it comes to each and every unconstitutional law, and we've seen this rarely happens. There are several procedural alternatives to this that we could implement, all of which would make this MUCH easier and closer to foolproof. For instance:

• To make laws harder to implement, we could raise the bar for what kind of majority of representatives laws need to pass.
• To make it easier to hold them accountable, we could allow citizens to literally sue the government over a law and have the law's Constitutionality/justness be determined by a jury, rather than giving federal judges the sole jurisdiction over Constitutionality.
• To make it easier to hold representatives accountable, we could even have partial direct democracy via referendums, like in Switzerland. In that case, citizens do not actually vote for the laws at the outset, but we'd be able to create ballot initiatives to vote against existing laws to cast them down. So long as the types of laws this applies to are limited with well-chosen wording, this will prevent the "two wolves and a sheep decide what's for dinner" aspect of direct democracy and other dangers while still retaining the ability for the majority of citizens to veto an existing tyrannical law. I really do not see too much outstanding danger here, since the main problem with direct democracy is when citizens can directly enact arbitrary laws. The procedure to get an initiative on the ballot must be easy, and it must be ingrained into the Constitution in a way that legislatures cannot hike the requirements to save their asses. (Like they do for barring third parties today...)
• The Constitution could even be amended to become enforceable on politicians and allow citizens to press civil or criminal charges against any Congressperson who voted for or any executive who enforced an unconstitutional law, where juries determine their fate and whether the law was indeed unconstitutional. For starters, a suitable penalty is being banned from federal politics forever and being fed a pound of raw sewage once a day for life...or similar creative punishments. (If you can't tell, I'm really damn serious about implementing procedural methods of holding the government accountable.)

In any case though, unbridled direct democracy in which citizens vote on every piece of legislation is not the answer, especially if citizens directly write that legislation. I see few problems with referendums, but direct democracy in its purest form would probably turn into a shitstorm in a large and diverse country like the United States...and since so few people would turn out to vote so often, we could end up being ruled by small numbers of unelected people. Sure, you could say that the laws a direct democracy enacts must be Constitutional (e.g. direct democracy where laws still cannot violate rights), and that's an absolutely necessary requirement, but it might not mean much if most of the population doesn't care. If three quarters of the people want to metaphorically rape the other quarter and think they can get away with it, that immediately discounts the effectiveness of the referendum measure I mentioned above for casting down unconstitutional laws. You said that regular citizens could not become corrupt like representatives, but they can...they are not corrupted by lobbyists, but instead way too many are corrupted by their own greed, general selfishness, and shortsightedness. People in a mob tend to lose their moral compass and sense of decency, and unfortunately, there are enough idiots to make laws enacted by a direct democracy a REAL hazard. Unfortunately, I think the "sheople" would tear each other - and us - to pieces. I could be wrong, but with the alternative possibility of safer procedural checks like some of those I mentioned above, I don't think pure direct democracy is in any way worth the added risk.

 

[Truth Warrior]

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson