What do liberals think about the concept of a check and balance where if the population does not agree with what any person attempting to control the politics of a country is doing then the people can initiate direct measures that become binding law to override or prevent totalitarian rule?
So you mean the basic principles of civic engagement? You’re explaining the basic principles of civic engagement. You’re explaining what elections are.
This is like, the core foundation of a liberal society. If you don’t like what a party/group is doing to your community, then you go vote them out of office during the next election.
The US electorate has, consistently, historically, failed to engage in it’s civic duty of keeping themselves informed and electing people based on the quality of their policies. That’s how we arrived to the point we’re at today.
Democracies can vote themselves out of existence. It happened with Germany, and it’s actively happening now. If people continue to refuse to engage in their basic civic duty, we’ll completely lose the federal government to authoritarianism.
If I understand what you’re asking, its a ballot measure or recall election. Some states have this and views are mixed. California’s ballot measures are just as influenced by monied interests as elections, but I can see the value if structured right. Personally, I don’t like recall elections except for really specific, serious circumstances. But Trump probably checks all those serious, 3 alarm fire type boxes for me on a daily basis. If you wanted this federally, you’d need a constitutional amendment, which would be…hard to do.
So what I think you’re describing is a direct Democracy like Switzerland, where citizens can propose binding laws, and initiate binding referendums on existing laws. In Switzerland, there is an election every 3-4 months or so. The Constitution is amended on average every year or two.
It works pretty well in a highly educated and engaged country of under 10M people which in total size is less than half the side of Pennsylvania, and which has a history of meeting and voting regularly. I’m not sure it could work the same way in the US. Just having an election is a multi-billion dollar enterprise which shuts down all normal functions for months. It also requires leaders to hold the rule of law above their personal desire for power or their party to gain or retain power. And it requires the population to be highly informed instead of surprised their elected official is doing exactly what they said they were going to do.
I do like the idea of referendums at the federal level, but not as a way to actively stop someone attempting to seize illegal control. It’s not a short-term check or balance. That’s what the courts and impeachment are for, when those are operating correctly.
Seems what you’re getting at is that when all three branches of federal government are effectively “captured” by one person or faction, there needs to be a final “check” that comes directly from the people to be able to remove them if all else fails, including the election process.
I think it’s something worth exploring. It’s never gonna happen, because a totalitarian regime would just rig the results or refuse outright. But it’s an interesting idea.
I love it. I propose that this is carried out by some sort of vote that allows the population to either reelect or replace members of the legislature, say every 2-6 years.
I think it sounds good in theory, but would probably be a net negative in practice. Direct democracy tends to get hijacked by powerful interests to do end runs around the democratic system more often than it enhances it.
I would want any national referendum to require a supermajority (2/3 or 3/4). It’s probably not going to see much use, which is kind of the point, because a simple majority would see crazy laws passed too easily. I imagine the most it would do is motivate the politicians to be a little more attentive to the whole country.
Comments
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written.
direct measures and liberal policy?
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
So you mean the basic principles of civic engagement? You’re explaining the basic principles of civic engagement. You’re explaining what elections are.
This is like, the core foundation of a liberal society. If you don’t like what a party/group is doing to your community, then you go vote them out of office during the next election.
The US electorate has, consistently, historically, failed to engage in it’s civic duty of keeping themselves informed and electing people based on the quality of their policies. That’s how we arrived to the point we’re at today.
Democracies can vote themselves out of existence. It happened with Germany, and it’s actively happening now. If people continue to refuse to engage in their basic civic duty, we’ll completely lose the federal government to authoritarianism.
That’s supposed to be a function of Congress and the judiciary. If they aren’t doing the job then it’s on us to vote for people who will.
If I understand what you’re asking, its a ballot measure or recall election. Some states have this and views are mixed. California’s ballot measures are just as influenced by monied interests as elections, but I can see the value if structured right. Personally, I don’t like recall elections except for really specific, serious circumstances. But Trump probably checks all those serious, 3 alarm fire type boxes for me on a daily basis. If you wanted this federally, you’d need a constitutional amendment, which would be…hard to do.
So what I think you’re describing is a direct Democracy like Switzerland, where citizens can propose binding laws, and initiate binding referendums on existing laws. In Switzerland, there is an election every 3-4 months or so. The Constitution is amended on average every year or two.
It works pretty well in a highly educated and engaged country of under 10M people which in total size is less than half the side of Pennsylvania, and which has a history of meeting and voting regularly. I’m not sure it could work the same way in the US. Just having an election is a multi-billion dollar enterprise which shuts down all normal functions for months. It also requires leaders to hold the rule of law above their personal desire for power or their party to gain or retain power. And it requires the population to be highly informed instead of surprised their elected official is doing exactly what they said they were going to do.
I do like the idea of referendums at the federal level, but not as a way to actively stop someone attempting to seize illegal control. It’s not a short-term check or balance. That’s what the courts and impeachment are for, when those are operating correctly.
Seems what you’re getting at is that when all three branches of federal government are effectively “captured” by one person or faction, there needs to be a final “check” that comes directly from the people to be able to remove them if all else fails, including the election process.
I think it’s something worth exploring. It’s never gonna happen, because a totalitarian regime would just rig the results or refuse outright. But it’s an interesting idea.
I love it. I propose that this is carried out by some sort of vote that allows the population to either reelect or replace members of the legislature, say every 2-6 years.
I think it sounds good in theory, but would probably be a net negative in practice. Direct democracy tends to get hijacked by powerful interests to do end runs around the democratic system more often than it enhances it.
I would want any national referendum to require a supermajority (2/3 or 3/4). It’s probably not going to see much use, which is kind of the point, because a simple majority would see crazy laws passed too easily. I imagine the most it would do is motivate the politicians to be a little more attentive to the whole country.
It will exacerbate money in politics.
Government was to increase more taxes on companies? Amazon says major discounts to everyone if that law gets shut down.