like brexit?
you will be surprised what would happen if USA switches to direct democracy
you will be surprised what would happen if USA switches to direct democracy
For example, this year San Francisco voted to decide whether one of the major streets through Golden Gate Park should remain mostly car free after we tried that for the pandemic. That seems like a fine use. But there was a state prop titled "REQUIRES ON-SITE LICENSED MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL AT KIDNEY DIALYSIS CLINICS AND ESTABLISHES OTHER STATE REQUIREMENTS. INITIATIVE STATUTE." This was some sort of high-dollar fight among vested interests fought via sketchy ballot proposition and it absolutely should not have been on the ballot.
(You also can quickly run into tyranny-of-the-majority issues. E.g., famously liberal and tolerant California in 2008 voted to strip an already-existing civil right from a minority. [3])
For complex issues, I think it's better to have the decision-making concentrated in the hands of highly supervised professionals with staffs who have the time to understand the issues enough so that they have a chance of understanding the impacts. Rather than more direct democracy, what I'd like to see is more transparency and accountability for those professionals.
[1] In our most recent election we had 7 state propositions: https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-measures/qualified-b...
[2] And 15 local ones: https://voterguide.sfelections.org/en/local-ballot-measure-a...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_8
- rapid action on climate change
- legalized abortion
- universal health care
- right to privacy
- improved internet access
- cleaner water + food
- bank reform
- DACA
- Social Security funding (returning funds stolen by previous congresses)
Heck, we might even go completely nuts and actually finish banning slavery.
Not sure what would happen in year two.
It's pretty clear that the average Republican in the US has been galvanized into partnership, so the members of that party will very likely vote cohesively with each other.
It's also pretty clear that the same is not happening in the Democratic party. Most Democratic voters I hear from disagree with one another ideologically, and do not feel effectively represented by their party. It is not likely that voters in the Democratic party will vote cohesively with one another.
The effect of that applied to gerrymandering is that districts over-representing republicans take advantage of the average Republican voter cohesion, while districts that over-represent the Democratic party do not.
Voter cohesion is the strongest vector for outcomes I can think of in our first-past-the-post representative voting system.
It's my contention that changing the structure of our voting system or factoring out gerrymandering would have a drastic effect on legislative outcomes.
Heck, a county voted to split from California. That won't happen though.
https://projects.scpr.org/prop-13/history/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13...
https://www.google.com/search?q=how+popular+is+prop+13+in+ca...
Homeowners are a big part of the state. "everyone else" must be a small minority. If you think it is a big enough part of the population, feel free to bring a prop to repeal prop 13. My bet is that any attempt to repeal it will lose in a landslide based on what happened in 2020[1] when they attempted a partial repeal.
[1] https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_15,_Tax_on_Co...
Notice that prop 15 lost by 4%... It is not good for the state as a whole, but it is good for the 52% of the voters that own a home. So now 48% of the state and everyone that wants to move to california is fucked because 9 million people want their home value to keep increasing. They've effectively voted in a law that requires non homeowners to pay homeowners $500 a year and burn another $500 due to lost economic efficiency. Is that good for homeowners? I guess, but it's certainly bad for the state.
If 52% of people in alabama wanted to bring back slavery does that make it the right thing to do?
And it targeted only commercial and industrial properties, with proceeds going to education and local govt funding. That is, as sympathetic setup as it could be. It didn't touch any residential homes, neither primary nor secondary nor rentals. And it still lost.
> it is good for the 52% of the voters that own a home
It seems you didn't read what prop 15 was about. If it included homes, the vote against it would have been much higher than 52%.
> If it included homes, the vote against it would have been much higher than 52%.
Source?
No matter though. Even if 70% of voters support prop 13 it's still the wrong policy in the exact same way 70% support for enslaving minorities is. Laws that exist solely to siphon money from poor people to rich people are bad. Doubly so when they destroy economic value to the extent prop 13 does.
https://www.ppic.org/blog/who-likes-proposition-13/ (at least until 2014, ~65% Californians think prop 13 is a good thing, similar to original support levels in 1978).
> No matter though. Even if 70% of voters support prop 13
Moving goalposts now? Upthread, you were talking about 51% shafting 49% and that was a pure hyperbole which I called out. Prop 13 support is much more massive (more like 63-27 per my citation above).
> exact same way 70% support for enslaving minorities is
Nope. Enslaving someone is forbidden under the US constitution and personal freedom is recognized as a basic right, backed by the full force of the state. Prop 13 merely affects prices in some small areas of a giant state and there is no constitutional right to "own a home in the most expensive area of the country".
Again, comparing that to slavery is another hyperbole meant to evoke emotions?
I really don't think it is. Prop 13 turns non homeowners into wage slaves. It makes housing prohibitively expensive. It is a deeply unjust law. I'm not trying to make some case about the legality of forcing non homeowners to pay exorbitant amounts for housing, I'm saying it's morally and in many ways economically comparable to slavery, or at least serfdom.
I don't really think I ever moved the goalposts. My take was always that direct democracy leads to the majority shafting the minority and that's exactly what prop 13 does. It doesn't matter that the majority supports enriching themselves by taking money from the minority, it's a bad law for the state because it destroys economic value and is obviously unjust.
Barring a few pockets, housing is cheap even in California. Now, if your claim is that everyone who wants to should be able to afford a home in SF or Palo Alto, then that is something else.
> majority supports enriching themselves by taking money from the minority
How is majority taking money from minority in this case?
To be fair, the EU is partially responsible for that. Even if the UK had a form of direct democracy, EU rules would still dictate on many issues. Switzerland can only do what it does because it isn't part of the EU.
(Now, if the EU itself had a direct democracy (setting aside the practical issues with that) it would perhaps be different.)
However, now after Brexit UK now opened itself to profit-seeking international relations which can be worse than EU-dictated bureaucracy.