Quote Originally Posted by Thorne View Post
That's why they have the impeachment process. The problem with that is that party politics tends to override intelligence. They would rather keep their bad president, just because he belongs to their party, than put him on trial for his indiscretions and risk losing the presidency to the other party.

The biggest problem with any democracy is not necessarily the number of people involved, but the number of intelligent people involved. I don't think I would want to live in a true democracy where the majority of people are voting with their gut rather than their brain.
Keep in mind that the impeachment process is based on the commission of "High crimes and misdemeanors". It would be very difficult to overcome an executive order through that process. With enough votes Congress could enact a veto-proof law to reverse an executive order but that could be negated through a Signing Statement by the President. (Bush has used signing statements to avoid parts of laws more than the other Presidents of the 20th century combined, as I recall.) There is the route of challenge of the constitutionality of an order through the Supreme Court but that is time consuming and is based on an interpretation of the Constitution as opposed to right/wrong of the order.


The aspect of a pure democracy (1 person one vote, majority rules) on all subjects without checks and balances appears to offer more anarchy than anything else. I agree that gut voting as opposed to intelligent thought is most often the norm.