Wisdom is the one positive trait attributed to age - so Janggut's words, and the fact that I became Grandfather two weeks ago, make me feel very old. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />
Don't worry, you'll feel very young again when on visits you have to start chasing the little creature around the flat for hours on end <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />
Last Sunday the French people declined the European Constitution in a referendum, though France was a founding member of the European Union and France had significant influence in the formulation of the draft of the constitution. As it appears the majority of those saying no did not base their vote on their factual opinion of the document in question, but on their general dissatisfaction with the interior politics of the current government.
Would the German contingent of this site please consider invading France and teaching them the lesson of isolationism again? That perhaps focusing largely on currently events or "being French" is a little, just a hair, short sighted as a value system that should be used to map out a future?
The Saurians voted to remain large dinosaurs and look what happened - we have cuddly bears able to take down the biggest lizards available.
democracy and referendums.
1. Describe the policy on referendums in your respective countries, if there is any.
2. Describe the experiences made with them.
3. What is your opinion - Should there be more direct participation of the general population in a democracy (if yes, on what issues?)? Or should elected governments stand to their mandate and take the responsibility on their own for representing their respective population (in its entirety!)?
Aren't we going to vote on the essay length? The hardest part on this one will be keeping it short, so I'll give it a shot.
1. In the US there isn't a uniform policy - voting in various areas, called jurisdictions, is generally reserved for "constitutional" changes (which can either be minor wording changes or substantial government changes) and for issues where voters themselves call for a direct vote. The extent of what is actually available or required varies by state and county/city, or area however. The only constant I am aware of is that a direct public vote is always available in some form or for some reason.
2. From personal experience I would say that half of the voters take voting in general very seriously and are surprisingly well informed, the other half is either entirely uninformed or minimally so and intends to vote based on their immediate emotional reaction in the voting booth. Most referendums seem to be put in place after normal voting by the legislature failed to achieve something, and the supporters decide that the representatives decisions should be overridden. (The theory in most cases being that public desire is strong enough to override the decision of the people selected to be competent and informed)
3. Ah, the meaty part. If a representative democracy is setup so that citizens don't have to spend their time being well informed or making difficult decisions, then why would the public be voting aside from selecting the representatives? There are two good reasons. First, the government representatives are not always going to be making good decisions for the right reasons, especially in a small pool of people subject to outside interests. Second, representatives may deliberately choose to work against the interests of their constituents or even form of government in favor of some other, perhaps greater, perhaps not, purpose. Citizens who agreed to the representation/government did so with the understanding that the rep/gov would operate within certain parameters and with a particular intent - unless a direct public vote is available the only other recourse of the citizen is a (potentially violent) replacement of the government in order to reset the rep/gov on an acceptable track.
So there are two good reasons, one to correct errors or malfeasance (or misunderstanding of what the voters actually want), and one to allow citizens to express unhappiness and redress concerns without losing the entire government.
2 good reasons. Really? But both of these reasons are based in the premise that the public, which is always necessarily less informed, is at any point better able to make a decision that the current representatives. Is simply losing trust in the government because they aren't doing what makes you happy a justification for switching the form of government from representative to direct democracy? Keeping in mind that organizations already exist to investigate illegal activities in the government, and that the public already has a method of controlling the government, direct democracy seems like an emotional relief valve, and a cheat, rather than the patient, thoughtful, and deliberate approach that representative democracy was designed wishing for. I would vote no.
