Quote Originally Posted by Thorne View Post
The problem with a direct democracy is that you run the risk of a majority group legislating minority groups out of the system. Civil rights for African Americans probably would not have been able to get past a direct democracy. It took legislators doing what was RIGHT rather than what their constituents may have wanted. You would run into the same thing with gay rights, religious minorities, almost any group with insufficient votes to sway the majority's minds.
I very much doubt that - and don't think it's a sufficient reason to oppose democracy, either. Do you really think a majority of the population would vote against racial equality? Yes, maybe right now gay marriage would get voted down by the public in a lot of places; I'm not convinced bypassing that either by judicial fiat or political subterfuge is morally or strategically right. If you can't convince the electorate your agenda is right, how can you say it is? Yes, there's a risk of a "lynch mob" in individual cases, which is why there are bans on bills of attainder (politicians are just as prone to that kneejerk reaction as the public, if not more so) - but on a policy level, I'm not at all convinced politicians are any better or more trustworthy than the electorate as a whole - and, of course, almost by definition the electorate is less prone to corruption than politicians.