Seems like the balances of power worked properly here, though. The president went rogue, and the rest of the government told him to get fucked.
Even a lot of parliamentary systems have presidents, with similar controls. The problem with the US is that the legislature has been enabling executive power creep for centuries. If they’re already not acting in good faith, no amount of social rules will keep them in check.
Direct democracy needs to have some sort of concept of human rights enshrined in its system somehow, and make it very hard to violate, otherwise, it could get ugly. Mob rule isn’t always good. It could easily lead to torches and pitchfork “justice”.
And representative rule doesn’t lead to “justice” presently?
I’m so sick and tired of hearing this argument against direct democracy in that if it doesn’t solve every flaw we have today that it should be viewed skeptically.
Not skeptically. Carefully. You can’t just say “okay, everyone vote on the laws directly” without thinking it through. You have to guarantee everybody’s rights, not just the ones who managed to overpower everyone else.
Because I don’t want to crawl out of one shit hole only to fall into another hastily constructed one. Let’s get it right. Let’s learn from the past. We know how misinformation and mass propaganda manipulates people against themselves in our current system. We can act to prevent that. We know the people who start amassing more than a certain amount of wealth start becoming unstoppable. We can fix that too. We know how minority rights get trampled now. Let’s put safeguards in for that too.
Like I said, let’s be careful. Or the new system will get taken over by greed, hate, and fear just like any other.
The presidential system is the most defunct form of democracy. Direct/parliamentary democracy is way better.
Seems like the balances of power worked properly here, though. The president went rogue, and the rest of the government told him to get fucked.
Even a lot of parliamentary systems have presidents, with similar controls. The problem with the US is that the legislature has been enabling executive power creep for centuries. If they’re already not acting in good faith, no amount of social rules will keep them in check.
The president shouldn’t be able to go rogue in the first place
Well, when you find out how to eliminate the human from the equation, you let me know.
Direct democracy needs to have some sort of concept of human rights enshrined in its system somehow, and make it very hard to violate, otherwise, it could get ugly. Mob rule isn’t always good. It could easily lead to torches and pitchfork “justice”.
And representative rule doesn’t lead to “justice” presently?
I’m so sick and tired of hearing this argument against direct democracy in that if it doesn’t solve every flaw we have today that it should be viewed skeptically.
Not skeptically. Carefully. You can’t just say “okay, everyone vote on the laws directly” without thinking it through. You have to guarantee everybody’s rights, not just the ones who managed to overpower everyone else.
We already don’t guarantee that.
So why are you holding DD to this standard and not RD?
Because I don’t want to crawl out of one shit hole only to fall into another hastily constructed one. Let’s get it right. Let’s learn from the past. We know how misinformation and mass propaganda manipulates people against themselves in our current system. We can act to prevent that. We know the people who start amassing more than a certain amount of wealth start becoming unstoppable. We can fix that too. We know how minority rights get trampled now. Let’s put safeguards in for that too.
Like I said, let’s be careful. Or the new system will get taken over by greed, hate, and fear just like any other.
Yeah, that’s probably true. Parliamentary democracy seems like a good tradeoff.