Enter
racy experiments that have resulted
in the widespread use of citizen
referenda in the state of California.
That is a classic example of a goodsounding idea in theory that turns
into a terrible idea in practice. As
The Economist explains:
This citizen legislature has
caused chaos. Many initiatives
have either limited taxes or
mandated spending, making it
even harder to balance the budget. Some are so ill-thoughtout that they achieve the opposite of their intent: for all its
small-government pretensions,
Proposition 13 ended up centralising California’s finances,
shifting them from local to state
government. Rather than being the curb on elites that they
were supposed to be, ballot initiatives have become a tool of
special interests, with lobbyists and extremists bankrolling
laws that are often bewildering
in their complexity and obscure
in their ramifications. And they
have impoverished the state’s
representative government. Who
would want to sit in a legislature where 70-90% of the budget has already been allocated?
LOOKING FORWARD
IN ANGST
HUFFINGTON
07.21.13
Of course, if direct democracy
is a good-sounding dumb idea,
its appeal among these Gallup
respondents is probably rooted
in the fact that our lawmaking
professionals have endeavored
at length these past few years to
make representative democracy
a complete and utter sinkhole of
human wreckage, so these preferences are fairly understandable. Nevertheless, the majori-
If direct democracy is a
good-sounding dumb idea,
its appeal among Gallup
respondents is probably
rooted in the fact that our
lawmaking professionals
have endeavored ... to make
representative democracy a
complete and utter sinkhole
of human wreckag e.”
ties of respondents are totally
correct — we should scrap the
stupid primary system, shorten
the entire election season, and
for Pete’s sake let’s also have
Election Day on a weekend
or make it a national holiday,
for the sake of all
humanity, the end.