Hacker News Reader

Comment by mtgx | Hacker News Reader

But that doesn't mean republics can't have more direct democracy elements in them. For example I love the idea of citizens being able to create a referendum (in a certain state, I believe) in Germany. You still have a threshold, so people don't start creating one for all sorts of crazy ideas, but this is a great example of how citizens can help improve the laws in their countries. I think this referendum is usually added to the next election.

Such system obviously need to be fined-tuned to avoid having the population "abuse" them, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be pursued. I think they can be great additions to any democratic republic.

View on HN

Another poster has said the same thing, but it's worth repeating: take a long hard look at California first. We have that here and it hasn't really worked out very well. It would be worth your while to visit CA in the month before an election, and look at the incredibly low quality of the political advocacy here (bullshit 30 second TV attack ads on every conceivable topic). The ballot pamphlet mailed to all California voters lays out the text of all proposed laws as well as arguments for and against, mentioning sponsor and source. Hardly anyone reads the whole ballot pamphlet.

California is much, much too big for direct democracy to have a Hope in hell of working. Representative democracy has enough problems running it. California is too big for it is not a killer argument against direct democracy.

Well it sort-of works, just not all that well. I don't buy the size argument because the same pros and cons exist at the municipal and county level - some stupid propositions do well, some smart ones do poorly, too few people are clear on exactly what they're voting for.

none of that is isolated to CA by any means

For conflicting evidence, I would point to the California initiative process, which is the reason California's government is nonfunctional and almost bankrupt right now.

California's government is nonfunctional and almost bankrupt right now because California is a One-Party State, and that party likes to buy itself votes with other people's money and then get people like you to blame everything wrong on someone else.

Give the Entitled Party credit: they've destroyed the state's finacial situation, but hey, they've got a total lock on the state. So its all been a big success on the one thing that counts.

California Republicans are essentially as bad as California Democrats, at least on the local level where Republicans sometimes win. I'd personally take Washington State Democrats over virtually any politicians in California. Politicians and voters in California are just terminally insane.

This is an extremely simplistic and inaccurate view of California's political problems, which are in fact in large part related to initiatives that passed through California's direct democracy process. Proposition 13 is among the most significant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(1978...

California became a one-party state in 2012. Prior to 2012, it was very much a two-party state, and the problems date as far back as the 1990s, when it was still considered a swing state.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com