Would a true democracy be a good thing?

Once again I’m not sure what forum to put this in, but it involves an serious and complex question so I picked GD, but the Mods can obviously feel free to move it.

With computers and easy internet access, it is becoming feasible to have a true democracy once again. Everybody could go home, look at the issues of the day on the city, state, and federal level, and vote, getting a true count of what the people want enacting laws based on that. Getting rid of the representative system.
The main problems with this at the moment are, not everybody can afford a computer, so the results would be skewed heavily toward the haves. But lets assume that computer access was universal, and cheating couldn’t happen.
The part I’m interested in is whether people would want this,(or would it be a moral advancement even if you don’t want it).
I have a lot of trepidation to giving the true power to the unwashed, fickle and emotionally reactive masses. The professional senator may be a corporate whore, but at least they have most of their time to devoting to the issues, and hopefully a decent education, rather than unthinking voting in response to the editorial of the day. Now obviously I’m willing to have my own voice heard, but what about my ign’ant redneck neighbor? Do we really want him to have a say?

Thank God we live in a Republic, not a democracy.

I think the idea you proposed would be one of the most oppresive, media driven horrors I could ever imagine.

There is a base assumption in there that the majority must be right, and their decision must be good. From what I have seen of the masses, they are easily swayed by propaganda and are not to sensitive the rights of the other 49%.

I vote HELL NO!!! this is not a good idea.

People are generally not well informed nor competent enough to govern themselves. If everyone took the time to vote for every issue, we would be taking up a good couple of hours a day that could be better spent working or just plain living. Sure, elected or appointed representatives sometimes seem bothersome since we have the general belief that they are all liars and crooks – which is true. However, I’d rather have a representative who tells me what I want to hear and actually do a fraction of the things they supposively promise to do rather than waste 6 or more hours a day just voting on whether or not I want the street sweeper to go down my street twice a week instead of once or how much money we should have for national defense.

The simplest thing to say about a true democracy is that if you you have three people and two of them think that the rape of the third is a neat idea, it is a neat idea.

Tyranny of the majority is what it is called, I believe.


Yer pal,
Satan

[sub]TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING:
Four months, three weeks, one day, 4 hours, 28 minutes and 11 seconds.
5767 cigarettes not smoked, saving $720.93.
Extra time with Drain Bead: 2 weeks, 6 days, 35 minutes.[/sub]

"Satan is not an unattractive person."-Drain Bead
[sub]Thanks for the ringing endorsement, honey!*[/sub]

The problem of getting information to everybody in an understandable form–and in a form that was not slanted one way or another–would be virtually insurmountable. And, as both Freedom2 and Satan point out, in such a system the rights of minorities get trampled. (I can’t tell if wolfman’s scenario contemplates Constitutional limitations on this democracy or not.)

So no, I wouldn’t want it.

wolfman,

remember that some of the best forms of democracy we have are top 40 radio and TRL on MTV. shiver

Whata bucnh of fricken elitists. Since no one else will stand forward I will come forth in favor of complete and utter democracy. And it won’t do to simply control the state through democracy, everything else must be brought under democratic control too. Parks, oceans, cities, workplaces, all means of production, the army, IRS, everything.
Of course I’m a socialist, so you really shouldn’t have expected anything else from me.

Wasn’t it Plato who said that a democracy can only last until the people discover they can vote themselves money from the tresury?

Gee oldscratch, I don’t consider myself an elitist, but I really don’t want to have everything opened up to direct democratic vote. I could not possibly keep up with every state, local, and federal issue, even if I were hooked to the net every waking hour. Even our congressfolks have to divide into committees to try and examine the ramifications of the issues. I’m just one guy. I can’t vote on every issue.

Also, I do not believe it’s a doable proposal. How would we collect and tabulate all those votes every single day? How would we guard against fraud? I don’t object to the idea of having a direct vote on the issues. I object to the practical side of putting some such system in place.

Well the greeks had a democracy like that.

If a system could be set up where only important things were voted on and things like putting up a new stop sign or whatever id agree.

oldscratch writes:

And then, when the people decide that they don’t want control of the means of production, that will finally spell the death of socialism, right? :smiley:

Oldscratch…what happens when the majority decides to round up us atheists and send us to concentration camps for our own good and the protection of society?

No. I am glad that there are many many things that are not subject to debate, the will of the people is irrelevant.

“Congress shall make no law…”

Awww, I’m getting misty-eyed, just thinking of the luminous beauty of that sentence. The more I hear it, the better I like it.

Oh fucking fiddlesticks. You people are TOO much. You expect me to explain my claims now?! Fuck. Do you know who much that’ll cut down on my posting? Hmmm? Do you!?
Anyway. I’m in a weird mood, sorry.

I’m going to have to twist the terms of the debate a little. I’m not sure exactly what I was reading when I posted, but the way iresponded ws slightly off. I’m not nessecarily in favor of direct computer democracy. What I’m talking about is what I mentioned in the post. Namely, still electing representatives, but making them subject to instant recall. Having shorter terms, and having representation based on workplace.

Now this isn’t feasable under our current system. People spend to much time working, and the rich have to much power. Enter socialism, less working hours for peopple, everyone has equal say, blah blah blah. Now we can turn this into a debate on socialism if wolfman likes, but I don’t want to hijack his thread here. you can go start a new one if you want. But basicly my position is this, through the struggle for socialism people find the barriers broken down, ignorance swept away, and generally become far nicer people (hey I’ve got cites. Portugal 1974, France 1968 and 1860, Spain 1936). you’ll find that that ignorant redneck isn’t so bad after all. that the majority is able to figure out whats best for everyone pretty well.
The democracy in Russia, when they actually had it, decided to legalize homosexuality and gay marriages (somethign we still don’t have), give women the right to vote (before the US did), secularize education, on and on. Where as many of you fear the majority, a slippery slope that leads to a not so benevolant dictatorship, I embrace them

Well, I’ve always been partial to a more freewheeling style of representation. I say, let’s get rid of the current system of representation through geography, and let’s adopt subsription representation. Yes, you simply pick who you want to be your congressional representative. No votes, but you can change your pick at any time (well, let’s say you can remove your pick at any time, your new representative will get your vote in a week…something to stop wide-spread gaming of the voting system).

Each representative will have a say in Congress equal to the number of people she represents. If you have 500,000 people signed up, you’ve got about the same level of power as a current representative. Oh…let’s say you can only represent registered voters, no kids, felons, etc. If you have X number of people registered, you automatically have the right to take part in debates in congress. If you, say, only represent yourself, you can vote electronically in the elections, but you can’t take the floor, or propose amendments or things of that nature. Let’s say you have to have 50,000 proxies to be seated in Congress, or perhaps some system where the top 500 proxy holders are seated, or something.

Of course, even if you aren’t seated, you can talk or write letters to seated members, even if they don’t represent you, and have them propose things for you, or whatever.

Votes are tallied by population…each registered voter means one vote. So, if you want you can represent yourself, and spend several hours on-line every day monitoring congress on the internet. If you do this long enough you might even convince some of your friends to give you their proxies, and you’re a mini-politician yourself!

Perhaps the assignment of proxies should be secret. I’m kind of against this, but I’m worried about coerced assignment. “Bob, I see you’re represented by that radical Smith. Well, all good Boeing workers of course are represented by Senator Moneybags. So, let’s see that transfer document on his desk by tomorrow, K?” However, secrecy is against democratic principles, besides being open to fraud. I don’t know…there’s got to be a way, but someone else is going to have to think of it.

A proxy system has the advantages of both direct democracy and representative democracy. The only disadvantage is that it’s never been tried before (although it is similar to tribal government), and usually such things have hidden flaws. (See: socialism, anarchism, christianity…)

oldscratch contends:

Whilst I hate to pick such nits, I don’t find anything in your posts in this thread, or in the OP, that supports the contention that that is what wolfman, or anyone else here, was referring to as “true democracy”. Perhaps you would provide references?

I recall a joke, in which a Russian woman during the Soviet regime, was given a sealed envelope upon entering a polling place, and directed to place it in the ballot box. She started to open the envelope, and was stopped by an indignant poll oficial, who demanded to know what she thought she was doing.

“I just wanted to see who I’m voting for”, she said.

“Don’t you realize that this is a secret ballot?” exclaimed the poll official.

Soviet law recognized a whole lot of things; the Soviet constitution recognized a passel of rights. Alas, Soviet officials somehow failed to bother with any of them. I, for one, happen to think that freedom of speech is of no importance, unless one also has freedom after the speech.

If you turned the world into an absolute democracy overnight, the average person would hold stupid, uninformed opinions, i.e., I see your point; BUT! the reason they hold stupid uninformed opinions to such a large extent is that their opinions have not mattered.

Give the world to the people. The people will grow into the job.

So “tyranny of the majority” is bad then?
What other options do we really have? Tyranny of the minority?

IMO, we should strive for a compromise for as long as possible, but whenever there is an issue that can’t be settled, go with the majority’s will. Apart from war, I really don’t see another way.

> Of course I’m a socialist, so you really shouldn’t have expected anything else from me.

Like logic?

Jakko:

No, we do not have to chose between tyranny of the majority or tyranny of the minority. How about no tyranny?

What I want is the rule of law. I want the majority to voluntarily surrender the power to do certain things. For example, the majority should be forbidden to establish a state religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof. The majority should make no law prohibiting the freedom of speech, or the press, or the right of the people to peaceably assemble and petition the majority for a redress of greivances.

Get the idea? It doesn’t matter how many people want to establish a state religion, we prohibit it. Now, if enough people beleive that establishing a state religion is important enough, we can change the rules, through an already established process. But it cannot be done by 50%+1 of the population.

Now, it is possible to have direct democracy but still include constitutional protection. I still think it won’t work, because most people have to work for a living.

In lots of western states we have the initiative process, where citizens can put proposals on the ballot if they gather enough signatures of registered voters. Now, I’m glad we have the initiative process, but I must say that here in Washinton state there are very few really good laws that have been passed that way. The only one that really made sense was the repeal of affirmative action. The others? Licensing of denturists. Banning leghold traps. Repealing the excise tax on automobiles. All really lame laws…these are not laws that could only be passed through the initiative process because the representatives were too beholden to special interests. No, these were the special interests manipulating the public directly and getting their agenda passed bypassing the representatives.

Again, I’m glad we have the initiative process. I just don’t think it makes that much difference. And if it really was desperately needed, we’d have all kinds of other problems.

We also have the initiative process in California. We passed Prop. 215 (Medical marijuana) a few years ago. A lot of good it did. So much for democracy.
Peace,
mangeorge