How would the US be different if it were a true democracy?

[Gunslinger08]

For simplicity, let's say the executive and judicial branches are exactly the same as they are now. The legislative branch is just 1 elected body that proposes legislation. Voters gets weekly legislation proposals in plain words that are less than 5 pages long and they have 24 hours to vote yea or nay by phone or website. Majority wins, but president still has veto power.

How would the US be different? Do you think we'd be better off or worse? I realize that at the time of our founding this wouldn't have been possible (no fast and reliable national form of communication), so let's say this change occurred with the popularization of the private telephone, ~1950.

 

[Incorruptible]

Democracy never works and the US isn't a Democracy

 

[nextJin]

Well for one the have nots would be getting a lot more of what the haves have.

 

[fskimospy]

For simplicity, let's say the executive and judicial branches are exactly the same as they are now. The legislative branch is just 1 elected body that proposes legislation. Voters gets weekly legislation proposals in plain words that are less than 5 pages long and they have 24 hours to vote yea or nay by phone or website. Majority wins, but president still has veto power.

How would the US be different? Do you think we'd be better off or worse? I realize that at the time of our founding this wouldn't have been possible (no fast and reliable national form of communication), so let's say this change occurred with the popularization of the private telephone, ~1950.

I see frequent requests for legislation that is in 'plain words' and of some arbitrary length. This is a really really bad idea. 'Plain words' just ends up meaning 'ambiguous legislation'.

As for direct democracy, I believe the US would be far, far worse off. California and other states have used direct democracy in a limited fashion for quite a long time now and it's generally been a catastrophe. It all comes down to a question of if you prefer the corrupt few or the retarded many. Sadly the corrupt few seem to do a better job.

 

[Genx87]

Direct democracies have been a disaster. This would be worse than our current system. Imagine what the special interest groups can slam through if they were allowed to directly vote? Most americans can barely get off their ass to vote in off years. Imagine if they were to vote every week or even month for a proposal?

Anyways the closest thing we have to direct democracies are amendments on the state level. California is pretty much setup for fail due to allowing spending increases to be voted on by popular vote.

 

[fskimospy]

Direct democracies have been a disaster. This would be worse than our current system. Imagine what the special interest groups can slam through if they were allowed to directly vote? Most americans can barely get off their ass to vote in off years. Imagine if they were to vote every week or even month for a proposal?

Anyways the closest thing we have to direct democracies are amendments on the state level. California is pretty much setup for fail due to allowing spending increases to be voted on by popular vote.

Don't forget the tax cuts that were allowed to be voted on by popular vote. Prop 13 has been an unmitigated catastrophe. Direct democracy is terrible for all fiscal issues because who doesn't want a tax cut, and who doesn't want more/better services?

 

[Phokus]

Taxes on the rich would be much higher than they are right now. Two-thirds of Americans want higher taxes on those earning 250k or more.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

I really don't think it matters anymore. No matter what form of government there is, the plutonomic technocracy would circumvent the true power behind the scenes and directly control the markets.

 

[yllus]

Worse. There is a lot of sense in a system where the populate vote elects representatives for a medium-length term who can then (or hopefully already are) experts in the matters that face them. It is unfortunate that today representatives are mostly only really experts in politics itself, but that's still better than direct democracy.

 

[Anarchist420]

Purely direct democracy doesn't really exist because it implies centralization of power and no hierarchy (i.e., the ruler is the majority of the people with every member of the majority being equal).

At a more local level, I'm okay with referendums. However, if they exist in my county, then I'd want a requirement of not less than 2/3 of the voters to raise taxes, to have new taxes, or to approve deficit spending rather than an absolute majority. Then again, 2/3 threshold requires respect for the rule of law, because an absolute majority is all that's required for violent revolution.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

A functional pure democracy requires an educated and engaged public, something we lack. I believe that while that isn't a good idea we could go a long way towards its goals if we had some mechanism of veto and a means of real accountability while representatives are in office.

 

[Infohawk]

More democracy would be better. Special interests would suffer.

People always complain about California, but California has been hamstrung most of the time. For example, California wanted to address illegal immigration in the 90s but were told they were interfering with federal law. Most of the problems California has are problems that exist on the national or international level. The people of California don't have enough levers to pull at their level.

 

[gevorg]

It would be worse, because the average voter is an idiot. More "nanny state" is the future of US.

 

[fskimospy]

More democracy would be better. Special interests would suffer.

People always complain about California, but California has been hamstrung most of the time. For example, California wanted to address illegal immigration in the 90s but were told they were interfering with federal law. Most of the problems California has are problems that exist on the national or international level. The people of California don't have enough levers to pull at their level.

The people of California have far too many levers. Those levers allowed them to enact prop 13 and prop 98. If you are ever wondering why the California budget has problems those are exhibits A and B. What's funny is that people try and blame the California legislature for it when the people of California did it all to themselves.

My friends and I made a pact while we lived there that the only proposition we would vote for was one to abolish the proposition system. So far, no dice.

 

[Infohawk]

The people of California have far too many levers.

They can't control monetary policy, trade, immigration, most regulation, etc. You can't just look at California's problems and say it's because of direct democracy. Again, most of California's problems stem from national and international factors.

A lot of these complaints translate into "the people made a move I disagree with." That happens with democracy generally. Democracy has produced a lot of mistakes.

 

[fskimospy]

They can't control monetary policy, trade, immigration, most regulation, etc. You can't just look at California's problems and say it's because of direct democracy. Again, most of California's problems stem from national and international factors.

A lot of these complaints translate into "the people made a move I disagree with." That happens with democracy generally. Democracy has produced a lot of mistakes.

No, I really can point to quite a few of California's problems stemming directly from the consequences of direct democracy there. This discussion has been had before, but Prop 13 and it's follow on Prop 98 were catastrophically bad fiscal decisions for the state. One undercut local tax bases and altered them to be extremely unstable and the other mandated the upkeep of spending levels.

Exceptionally poor planning, brought to the citizens of California by... themselves. As someone who lived in California for 10 years and saw all of the insanely horrible propositions that kept coming up let me tell you, direct democracy is a failure.

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

I see frequent requests for legislation that is in 'plain words' and of some arbitrary length. This is a really really bad idea. 'Plain words' just ends up meaning 'ambiguous legislation'.

As for direct democracy, I believe the US would be far, far worse off. California and other states have used direct democracy in a limited fashion for quite a long time now and it's generally been a catastrophe. It all comes down to a question of if you prefer the corrupt few or the retarded many. Sadly the corrupt few seem to do a better job.

Holy shit. First time I've ever agreed with you.

 

[Infohawk]

No, I really can point to quite a few of California's problems stemming directly from the consequences of direct democracy there. This discussion has been had before, but Prop 13 and it's follow on Prop 98 were catastrophically bad fiscal decisions for the state. One undercut local tax bases and altered them to be extremely unstable and the other mandated the upkeep of spending levels.

Exceptionally poor planning, brought to the citizens of California by... themselves. As someone who lived in California for 10 years and saw all of the insanely horrible propositions that kept coming up let me tell you, direct democracy is a failure.

If California was the only state in trouble I might be compelled to buy your argument, but as it is most states are having similar problems. (And you having lived in California is not evidence of anything.)

 

[zinfamous]

As for direct democracy, I believe the US would be far, far worse off. California and other states have used direct democracy in a limited fashion for quite a long time now and it's generally been a catastrophe. It all comes down to a question of if you prefer the corrupt few or the retarded many. Sadly the corrupt few seem to do a better job.

oh dear God so true!

D:

 

[fskimospy]

If California was the only state in trouble I might be compelled to buy your argument, but as it is most states are having similar problems. (And you having lived in California is not evidence of anything.)

My having lived in California is most certainly evidence of me knowing the kinds of propositions that end up on the ballot in California, which is what I was referring to.

As for the causes in California it's not like they are hard to understand. The cause of California's budget woes was primarily a massive decline in revenues over an extremely short period. Due to the declining value of property taxes, tax revenues were made up more from sales and capital gains taxes over the years. These types of taxes are more prone to large fluctuations in good times vs. bad. Other California propositions imposed supermajorities for all sorts of legislative functions, effectively paralyzing the legislature's ability to deal with it.

Seriously, direct democracy has been a catastrophe for California. God save us from it being implemented anywhere else.

 

[zinfamous]

A functional pure democracy requires an educated and engaged public, something we lack. I believe that while that isn't a good idea we could go a long way towards its goals if we had some mechanism of veto and a means of real accountability while representatives are in office.

education doesn't really matter, either. The problem with democracy is that various groups of perfectly well-educated individuals can look at the same numbers and draw two completely different conclusions.

Well, this is my issue with economics/political and social policy anyway--and how they handle their "funny math."

:\

 

[Infohawk]

As for the causes in California it's not like they are hard to understand. The cause of California's budget woes was primarily a massive decline in revenues over an extremely short period. Due to the declining value of property taxes, tax revenues were made up more from sales and capital gains taxes over the years. These types of taxes are more prone to large fluctuations in good times vs. bad. Other California propositions imposed supermajorities for all sorts of legislative functions, effectively paralyzing the legislature's ability to deal with it.

Seriously, direct democracy has been a catastrophe for California. God save us from it being implemented anywhere else.

You haven't really addressed my point that other states are having similar budget problems or that representative democracy can produce bad outcomes.

 

[fskimospy]

You haven't really addressed my point that other states are having similar budget problems or that representative democracy can produce bad outcomes.

Whether or not other states are having budget problems isn't relevant to my point. California's budget problems can be directly traced back to policies enacted through direct democracy.

Representative democracy can also produce bad outcomes, but in my experiences direct democracy is far, far worse. People don't even know what they are voting on half the time.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

Don't forget the tax cuts that were allowed to be voted on by popular vote. Prop 13 has been an unmitigated catastrophe. Direct democracy is terrible for all fiscal issues because who doesn't want a tax cut, and who doesn't want more/better services?

I love how you believe that Prop 13 was an unmitigated catastrophe because it prevents CA democrats from jacking up property taxes at a whim. Especially when it was passed to prevent local and state government from shoving people out of their homes so that they can continue the spending spree in the state. A state that now hosts 1/3rd of all welfare cases, holds 1/4 of all public pension liabilities according to a recent Moody's report and has major businesses seeking tax shelters out of state. In addition with the state budget being put out and supported only by CA state legislator Democrats that is totally based on complete pie in the sky day dreaming bullshit revenue projections because Democrats don't want to actually make any direct meaningful cuts and address the state's spending issues so as to maintain their political strangle hold in the state. If any real conclusion can be drawn form prop 13 it is that state Democrats in California (who have dominated in the state legislator and local political offices) will always find a way to continue spending recklessly with other people's money even with prop 13 in place.

 

[Infohawk]

Whether or not other states are having budget problems isn't relevant to my point. California's budget problems can be directly traced back to policies enacted through direct democracy.

Representative democracy can also produce bad outcomes, but in my experiences direct democracy is far, far worse. People don't even know what they are voting on half the time.

Of course it's relevant. It suggests larger outside variables is the cause of the budget problems. States can get their revenues from a variety of places. Some states get more from property, other from incomes, etc. All of them are subject to fluctuations.