This is an excellent subject for discussion, IMO.

Aristotle is the go-to guy. I'm in a hurry right now, so I'll look for a link a little later.
 

Perhaps the best approach is to make direct democracy a bit more Madisonian by requiring a supermajority to amend a constitution, but only a simple majority to enact legislation and to reverse a judicial decision applying due process or equal protection.

Under this approach, a simply majority can still check an activist court implementing substantive policy like re-defining marriage under the guise of due process or equal protection or a legislature acting in opposition to the will of the People by enacting same sex marriage. On the other hand, it will take a super majority to write something like the definition of marriage into the stone of a constitution. Thus, if popular opinion changes in favor of same sex marriage at some time in the future, the People will not have to amend the Constitution again.
 

Maybe we are not less Madisonian for a reason? And, did Lincoln support direct democracy?

Or, did "by the people" in his lights include constitutional government, which meant then and now republican government? After all, he served even though a majority voted against him.

We do have some forms of "direct democracy" now. People have assembled on the streets in protest movements with some effect. Juries of the people [who sometimes are 'polled'] are in place. A 'militia' of the people is secured. And, states do allow referenda of various sorts.
 

Perhaps the best approach is to make direct democracy a bit more Madisonian by requiring a supermajority to amend a constitution, but only a simple majority to enact legislation and to reverse a judicial decision applying due process or equal protection.

Did I miss the lesson in Constitutional Law where the equal protection and due process clauses are no longer parts of the Constitution? Reversing a constitutional interpretation by the Supreme Court is a constitutional amendment, regardless of the clause the Court is interpreting.

As far as the main post goes, it seems like direct democracy works best when it is geared to local issues like land use. The rule seems to be that the more a person has a stake in an initiative, the better the outcome. Voters should not be presented with initiatives that will have little or no bearing on the vast majority of them, as they are not likely to care enough to be educated on the decision (unfortunately, this seems to apply to far too many legislators as well).
 

I am for the kind of system where the views of the people prevail, so long as they comport with my own. What is that kind of system called?
 

Direct democracy does seem to require a rather small scale to be viable (while bringing in its wake its own set of problems if we choose not to idealize, say, town hall meetings and such) and, what is more, I would think individuals who are fairly well-educated. I don't think the vast majority of people in this country are in fact well-educated, at least in an old-fashioned Liberal or humanistic sense in which such education is at once cognitive, affective and motivational, encompassing the whole person qua person, and not designed to simply meet the functional requirements of a worker trained to fill a slot in the economy or a potential consumer habituated to become a voracious consumer of economic goods. In short, direct democracy frightens me.

If direct democracy is to be either participatory or deliberative in any robust sense, and especially if it is to be both in any meaningful way, then the prospects are rather dim in any case. As Robert Goodin has rightly noted, "the problem with which democratic elitists began at the turn of the last century returns to haunt democratic theory in its most recent incarnations. How can we constructively engage people in the public life of a mass democracy, without making wildly unrealistic demands on their time and attention? That problem becomes particularly acute when we appreciate that we are inevitably dealing with people who often take no direct interest in political affairs, as such."

For these and other reasons, I think Goodin's alternative proposal regarding the value of and need for "reflective democracy" (in effect, internalizing the values, purposes and sorts of preferences we've come to identify or associate with democratic deliberation) is theoreotically more sound if not persuasive and certainly more practical or viable "on the ground" than many recent proposals on behalf of direct, participatory or deliberative democracy. (See Goodin's Reflective Democracy, 2003)
 

direct democracy has been very vague. aristotle has discussed this in his book Politics which he emphasized the power of majority rule. this site provides a reliable assistance in which you can find all legal forms available:

Legal Forms
 

mls comments and asks:

"I am for the kind of system where the views of the people prevail, so long as they comport with my own. What is that kind of system called?"

Bush/Cheney and the neocons, 1/20/01 - 1/20/09?
 

What I took away from Aristotle was his succinctly stated criticism of pure democracy: if given the opportunity the poor will simply vote themselves the property of the rich. That is hard to argue with. Otoh, the absence of any democratic processes is merely tyranny.

The stabilizing, moderating effects of a Constitution are clearly desirable for avoiding the extremes. But as a constitutional republic evolves, clearly its Constitution should also. The fact that ours is so difficult to amend is a problem.

A related point: unmoderated debate forums like this one suffer from a "democratic hazard". They can be monopolized, distorted and crippled by zealots, as regular readers know. That is why some degree of limitation on free speech is desirable in situations like this, and why the character of the moderator is critical to the success of the forum.
 

Mattski on Aristotle:

" ... if given the opportunity the poor will simply vote themselves the property of the rich. That is hard to argue with."

But if the republican [lower case] voting elite are the rich, how will they vote with respect to the poor? (Answer: the Bush tax cuts early in 2001.)
 

Nate W. said...

BD: Perhaps the best approach is to make direct democracy a bit more Madisonian by requiring a supermajority to amend a constitution, but only a simple majority to enact legislation and to reverse a judicial decision applying due process or equal protection.

Did I miss the lesson in Constitutional Law where the equal protection and due process clauses are no longer parts of the Constitution? Reversing a constitutional interpretation by the Supreme Court is a constitutional amendment, regardless of the clause the Court is interpreting.

Is it an affirmative amendment of the Constitution or a veto of a court's attempt to amend the Constitution?
 

What neither Madison nor Aristotle confronts is the ability of massive, sustained, sophisticated PR campaigns to get voters to vote against their interests. Perhaps because said campaigns didn't exist at the time. Likewise highly paid, revolving door lobbyists and campaign cash to rent legislators, which might appear to swing the bet the other way.

I find any discussion of direct versus representative democracy empty and pointless that doesn't address this issues.
 

jpk's:

"What neither Madison nor Aristotle confronts is the ability of massive, sustained, sophisticated PR campaigns to get voters to vote against their interests."

is an illustration of the group that I call "Lottery Democrats" who like the snakes at Boston's Franklin Park Zoo don't have a pit to hiss but are against taxation because if and when they hit the lottery they don't want to have their winnings reduced by taxes despite the fact that only a very few of them may actually hit the lottery. (These "Lottery Democrats" will still take subsidies so long as they don't have to pay for them.)
 

An interesting example. But I was thinking more of middle Americans lured by slick PR to vote for the politicians and policies that will end up making them poorer and sicker.

See e.g. Frank
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

Is it an affirmative amendment of the Constitution or a veto of a court's attempt to amend the Constitution?

Is there a principled way of telling the difference? Who would get to decide what is the "Court's attempt to amend the Constitution" and what is simply a constitutional decision that the majority of the public disagrees with? Without such a decisionmaker, you're effectively nullifying the concept of a written constitution.
 

I like the idea that equal protection should be defined by majority vote. That's like twelve kinds of awesome.
 

Nate:

You raise a good question.

A due process clause is an invitation to the courts to affirmatively create constitutional procedural rights. The courts have abused this power to create substantive rights. In either case, the court is adding something new to a constitution. Allowing the People to reverse a ruling creating a new right is more of a constitutional veto than an affirmative amendment to the constitution IMHO.

An equal protection clause is trickier. If the court is abusing the power to ensure the law is applied equally to similarly situated people in order to rewrite a law with which the court disagrees to benefit folks who are not similarly situated (like the cases abusing the EPC to rewrite the definition of marriage), then allowing the People to reverse a ruling creating a new right is again more of a constitutional veto. However, if a direct vote was used to reverse a decision genuinely applying the law equally to similarly situated people, then you can legitimately argue that the voters are amending the constitution by abridging the EPC.

Thus, I am forced to admit that allowing a simple majority vote to reverse EPC decisions can create exceptions to my proposed super majority requirement to affirmatively amend a constitution. However, I can live with this leakage to create a popular check on judicial excesses.
 

The courts have abused this power to create substantive rights.... If the court is abusing the power to ensure the law is applied equally to similarly situated people in order to rewrite a law with which the court disagrees to benefit folks who are not similarly situated (like the cases abusing the EPC to rewrite the definition of marriage), then allowing the People to reverse a ruling creating a new right is again more of a constitutional veto. However, if a direct vote was used to reverse a decision genuinely applying the law equally to similarly situated people, then you can legitimately argue that the voters are amending the constitution by abridging the EPC.

But who decides what is an abuse and what is a "genuine application" of the law? If a legislature or the majority of the citizenry gets to decide due process rights and equal protection rights, you have effectively turned those clauses of the Constitution into suggestions. There is simply no way to enforce a principled difference between application and abuse.

Thus, I am forced to admit that allowing a simple majority vote to reverse EPC decisions can create exceptions to my proposed super majority requirement to affirmatively amend a constitution. However, I can live with this leakage to create a popular check on judicial excesses.

So in other words, you favor a repeal of the Fourteenth Amendment. Got it.
 

the group that I call "Lottery Democrats" who like the snakes at Boston's Franklin Park Zoo don't have a pit to hiss but are against taxation because if and when they hit the lottery they don't want to have their winnings reduced by taxes despite the fact that only a very few of them may actually hit the lottery. (These "Lottery Democrats" will still take subsidies so long as they don't have to pay for them.)

Around here, we call those people "Californians."
 

What neither Madison nor Aristotle confronts is the ability of massive, sustained, sophisticated PR campaigns to get voters to vote against their interests.

Well, I think M & A appreciated the power of demagogues, but you're right to point to the power of modern media, jpk.

It's a tough nut to crack. That's why I'm a big believer in publicly funded news sources & other media.
 

I really don't think state media are that good a solution to the susceptibility of a population to propaganda. All it does is pick whose propaganda the population will be exposed to.
 

NPR is at the top of US media sources for a reason. The profit motive doesn't dumb them down.

But the potential for public tv to open forums to diverse political interests is quite good. Imagine public media saying to conservatives: choose among yourselves someone you'd like to see host a talk show. Same for liberals. And you branch out from there.

Brett's objections are based on theories not practice.
 

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.
Agen Judi Online Terpercaya