Former Sen. Mike Gravel, a contender for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination, is a supporter of the National Initiative for Democracy. This legislation would give the people the power to make laws, bypassing congress. While advocated, no doubt, with the best of intentions this is precisely the prescription for dictatorship that the Founders warned us against.
In The Federalist No. 10, The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection (continued), James Madison warned against such democracy:
A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.
The other dark side to the National Initiative for Democracy is that it gives the illusion of power to the people. This is a dangerous illusion that will be exploited by power hungry politicians using their usual arsenal of scare tactics to whip the people into a frenzy. In such a state they will approve of just about anything. Look no further than the invasion of Iraq for evidence of this.
Sen. Gravel’s web page about the National Initiative for Democracy states, "It is important to understand that the National Initiative does not alter the existing structure or powers of representative governments. Rather, it adds an additional Check –– the People –– to our system of Checks and Balances, while setting up a working partnership between the people and their elected representatives." Just as all the other constitutional checks and balances have been overcome and many even twisted into instruments of repression, so will the National initiative. The "working partnership" will become another means of manipulating the people, not a means for the people to restrain the government.
Things are bad enough as they are. If the people become accustomed to voting directly for all manor of things what’s to stop them from voting for even worse measures? Nothing, and Sen. Gravel gives us proof of this on his own website, "More than 70% of the voters already make laws by initiative in twenty-four states and in numerous local communities, and when voting on bond issues referred to them for decision by their representatives ––serious lawmaking." People tend to approve bond issues without thinking about the higher taxes they will require when they come due. They tend to trust the politicians judgment about what the money needs to be spent on, deficits be damned. What they almost invariably approve is more pork for the politicians to pass around.
Who decides what gets voted on in these initiatives? From the National Initiative for Democracy website:
# Qualification of Initiatives
Initiatives can qualify for election in any of three ways:
* Referral by the legislature; * Citizen petition; or * Public opinion poll.
As to the first method, it’s obviously the politicians in control. The second and third methods, petition and opinion poll, the problem also seems obvious, it will be special interests and, you guessed it, politicians that organize them. Meaning that the people will be dancing to their tune, not the other way around.
Control of the process is in the wrong hands, again, from the National Initiative for Democracy website, "The initiative process will be administered by the Electoral Trust, an independent agency of government." The government administers the process, enough said.
The National Initiative for Democracy is a dangerous, populist idea that must be rejected along with Sen. Gravel’s candidacy.
Darren Wolfe is the former Eastern Vice Chair of the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania. He grew up in Puerto Rico and lived in Venezuela for seven years, including the first year of Chavez' rule. His articles have appeared in OpEdNews.com, the Libertarian Penn, and the Nolanchart.com. News services such as the New York Post.com and Rational Review have published links to his work.
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"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."
--Thomas Jefferson
You composed a rhetorical argument without referring to any actual evidence that direct democracy does not work. May I draw your attention to the experience in Switzerland where direct democracy has resulted in one of the world's best managed countries. See "Direct Democracy in Switzerland" by Gregory A. Fossedal, ISBN 0765800780.
Here is part of a review from Amazon.com:
Surprisingly, I found this not only a facscinating but instructive study for me as a citizen of democracy in America. For beyond its merit as a description of democratic governance in Switzerland, Fossedal's study persuasively shows that we in the United States are behind the curve in the way we do democracy.
Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg address of a century and a half ago affirmed our stand for a government of, by and for the people. Fossedal's study of democracy in Switzerland makes it clear that while we may make a sustainable claim for having a government of and--less convincingly--for the people, ours is not a government at the national level by the people when in the U. S--in contrast to Switzerland--ordinary citizens have no way to establish policy or make laws directly.Having collapsed democracy, conceptually, into exclusively representative democracy,we have so much to wake up to in reading Democracy in Switzerland. And the author's exercise is a powerful wake-up call to this end.
Fossedal is not just a scholar in Democracy in Switzerland, but an advocate of direct democracy in partnership with representative democracy. Or more pointedly, he is an advocate of civically mature democracy which requires ordinary citizens, in a deliberative process to be directly involved in the central act of collective self-governance: establishing policy and making laws..
At the outset, I wondered:how necessary is inclusion of a history albeit brief of the Swiss people? .After reading Part 2. History, I came to see its value. Captivating are the anecdotal stories--scattered throughout the study--derived first hand by interviewing Swiss citizens and officials. These exhibit common sense in both attitude and in their way of doing democracy. They coalesce into persuasive support of Fossedal's thesis that: "the Swiss polity,as an historical and on-going exhibit of the exercise of a deliberative direct democracy is a persuasive rebuttal to the stand of elites from the Greeks of yesterday to the elites of today who hold that exclusionary representative democracy, in itself, is a better form of democracy than a direct democracy in partnership with representative democracy....In a word, an effective rebuttal to the stand; you can't trust the people...Switzerland answers the potential question of the political scientist or citizen: What happens if we place so much faith in the people that we make them lawmakers?".
by
Joshua Pritikin (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 7:04:52 PM
"You composed a rhetorical argument without referring to any actual evidence that direct democracy does not work."
Look again because I referred to voting on bond issues in my article as an example of the failure of this kind of direct democracy. Here in Montgomery county, PA, for example, the voters recently approved the Green Fields/Green Towns Program. The first time around on this in '93 they approved $100 million of which only $66 mil were dispersed. So the second time around in '04 they asked for $150 mil. Despite the best efforts of the Libertarian Party the voters approved this. Why did we oppose this? Because of the fact that much of the money went to land owners to buy the development rights to their land. In most cases they had no intention of developing that land in the first place. So they got to "sell" their land & keep it too. Sweet deal at the taxpayers expence.
I don't recall the year, but recently the voters also approved a $100 mil bond issue to pay for fire depts across the state. Why anyone would approve more money for the state for anything is beyond my comprehension. Let them cut spending on unnecessary, illegal, & unconstitutional items. Then there will be plenty of money left for the necessary & proper things without running a deficit. (Not that firemen should be paid for by the government.)
These are just 2 examples of the failure of this kind of democracy. The more we move away from the republic of the Founders & into this kind of democracy the worse things get:
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship."
Alexander Tytler
Switzerland is in the good condition its in because of 2 things. One is that they have one of the freest economies in Europe. Secondly, their decentralization. Its my understanding that the combined budgets of their Cantons exceeds that of their fedgov. Unfortunately, they do seem to be moving in the wrong direction lately.
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Darren Wolfe (5 articles, 151 quicklinks, 92 diaries, 691 comments)
on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 9:06:42 PM
Its ironic that Darren Wolfe quotes James Madison and the Federalists. James Madison and the Federalists advocated a strong central government while the Libertarians claim to support small limited government. The Big Government Federalists opposed Democracy because they were self serving elitists who wanted government to serve the economic interests of the elites who at the time were the wealthy landowners. They supported slavery and sought to keep the majority of the people out of the political process. True Democracy doesn't cause dictatorship, it prevents it. Direct Democracy puts an end to government by the few over the many. Unfortunately Gravel's proposal is flawed because Congress can override it.
True Democracy is what the globalists and all elitists fear the most.
by
Ty (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 809 comments)
on Monday, May 19, 2008 at 8:06:38 PM
Government by politicians is what needs to be rejected, not Direct Democracy. Its time to put an end to government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations.
by
Ty (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 809 comments)
on Monday, May 19, 2008 at 8:12:46 PM
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