Quote Originally Posted by lucy View Post
Ok, i see. Thanks. But i like to disagree on two different levels. Let me explain: I live in Switzerland, our system is quite close to what you describe here. We get to vote directly on issues. From whether or not abortion should be legalized to whether or not there should be a new sewage treatment plant.
But there are many "safety catches", including the constitution, international laws (from the human rights bill to trade bills signed by Switzerland) but also a supreme court who can overthrow a decision voted on by a majority. That is quite possibly happening in the near future: We have to vote for (or against, in my case) a law banning minarets on mosques. Even it that law is voted for by a majority, it may very likely be overthrown by the supreme court because it is agains the constitutional right of freedom of religion. Why we have to vote if it's already pretty clear that a possible pro-vote wont stand in the end is an altogether different question, of course.
So far Switzerland did quite well, and to my knowledge no "extreme" issue was ever voted for. There were some ugly votes on topics regarding foreigners living here, but i am the first to admit that they are only ugly from my point of view.
What you describe wouldn't be pure democracy because there are restraints on the Mob (majority) to protect the rights of the individual and judicial oversight -- but I'm curious to hear more about how it works.

In the US, in addition to elected legislators, many States have something called "citizens initiatives" or something similar where citizens can get measures on the ballot to, typically, amend the State Constitution to impose laws -- bypassing the legislature.

The language is typically reviewed by the courts before making it to the ballot, to ensure that it doesn't violate some other part of the Constitution, so it's not typically a problem that one of these is approved and then struck down by the courts.

What is a problem is that anyone with enough time to gather the petition signatures can amend the State Constitution -- which is how Florida's Constitution wound up with an Amendment dictating the minimum size of the enclosure in which a citizen may keep a pregnant pig (male and barren piggies were, apparently, considered not important enough to include).

How do measures in Switzerland make it to the ballot in the first place and is there any judicial review ahead of time?

And do you have the same problem with frivolous measures being proposed and voted on?


Quote Originally Posted by lucy View Post
As for your statement that a pure democracy is even better than a dictatorship: Ok, it might be easier to whack one guy (has there ever been a female dictator???) than a majority. However, a majority ruling over a minority is imho still better than one guy ruling over all the rest. Simply a matter of numbers. Besides, even if i dont really believe in common sense in large masses, there seems to exist such a thing since in most places where people have a vote (i. e. democracies) they do vote in a more or less responsible way. Of course there are exceptions to this, but usually those exceptions occured in exceptional times.
To make it short: While dictatorships exists and usually are pretty nasty for at least a great minority living under them, i have never heard of a pure democracy. Because if you give people the right to vote they tend to prove to be not as stupid as one would expect at the first moment.
The issue isn't that they'll make a bad decision about, say, traffic laws. The issue arises when the majority wants something or simply thinks it's a good idea, but it infringes on the rights of the individual where those who exercise that right are in the minority.

Right after 9/11, you probably would have had a majority of Americans willing to put heavy restrictions on Muslims in this country. If it had been put to a vote, it would have passed -- and there's nothing they (the Muslims) could do about it in a pure democracy, because they'd be in the minority. Without protection from the majority, the minority is typically screwed.

Another problem pure democracy has is that the typical citizen doesn't have the time to research and understand the intricacies of every bit of proposed legislation -- so they would tend to make decisions based on limited, possibly faulty, information, and within their own self-interest.

So, yes, I did just call most people stupid, greedy and bigoted.