The Coming of Direct Democracy is Bad

The sheep were intentionally rattled. The threats of global governance and stricter monitoring of us will have the real goal realized. The people of many nations are revolting against their governments. The call goes out to take back our governments. It is said in France, Greece, England, the United States and even Iran. People who are unhappy with the current state of affairs are throwing out people from all the parties to find people that are not "professional" politicians. They will succeed, sort of.

There is a call for a international referendum coming from Europe. Most states do not have initiative or referendums. They are tools used by governments whereby the people directly vote for a law. Sounds good doesn't it? It is good to a point.

I have spent 46 of my 50 years on earth learning about government. I know a thing or two about how they work, not just my own, I studied them all and their laws. I was one of the few to take classes in comparative law and comparative government. I see government as a necessary evil. I do not believe in direct democracy. People who know me will be quite surprised to learn this.

Direct democracy (as opposed to representational democracy) and proportional legislation are systems that are incapable of reasoned change and tend to make constitutions meaningless. Jesus told us to be good slaves for a reason, the majority of people make lousy masters and are incapable of being good leaders.

The founding fathers were smart, they studied what had been done in other countries throughout history. The Constitution created representational democracy. It allowed average people to vote for people they considered the most knowledgeable and reasonable to run the country for them. It worked so long as those were the people we voted for.

The problem we face today is that people now vote their pocketbook, they vote for people who they believe will institute policies that will favor them, rather than do the right thing. They vote for people of low morals who will vote for policies that favor them. Bill Clinton is a good example, he was immoral and lied and people voted for him anyways. I feel the exact same way about George W. Bush. I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican.

We do worse than waste our votes, we vote for people we don't like and don't trust, we vote based on color or gender or association. We vote for "our guy" rather than the right guy. We don't bother to learn the law or decide what policies are best. Political discussion in this country is limited to people getting angry and taking sides. Name calling is considered appropriate, consider the use of the word tea baggers. It is depressing to see our President use the term.

Direct democracy will only make things worse. People will still vote their pocketbook; but, will have no restraint. They will still vote their bigotry. We can know the biases of the people we vote for; but, how can you know the bias of a nation, you can only speculate.

Direct democracy works well in small, homogeneous societies. I lived in the last town to have Town Hall government in the United States. We had under 6,000 people in the town and one stop light. The town, I was told, was the second town founded after Plymouth Plantation. It was named after the Earl of Sandwich.

The Town Hall system worked because everybody in those small towns understood that their lives were intertwined, they depended on each other and to harm any of them was to harm them all so they spent a lot of time talking to each other to decide what was best. You cannot duplicate that on the internet, the voters do not depend on each other in a way that they understand.

I had more to say; but, I have been interrupted so many times that I just can't hang on to my thoughts. Sorry.