Amendments to the U.S. Constitution to Grant Legislative Powers to the Citizens

Originally posted by Maslo
More direct form of government is always better than more representative one. Representatives are unnecessary middle-men, and I dare anyone who opposes to tell me just one real advantage that representative forms of government hold over more direct ones because they are more indirect.

The United States of America has always been a direct form of government. It is We the People who hold the inherent political power, and any representatives We elect are bound by Constitutional restraints. If these restraints are broken by any representative, elected or appointed official, and such an action caused direct injury to any individual, that individual has the direct governmental authority to file a verified complaint against the offendor(s).

We the People have never been obligated at any time to acquiesce to bogus legislation passed by representatives, signed into "law" by an executive, or upheld by any court. We the People can respond to such egregious tyranny through non-acquiescence, and through jury nullification. We have always had this direct authority and we still do.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


Thats nice, except thats not what is normally meant by direct government (as opposed to representative one). Please dont bend established terms. Its about direct legislative powers, as in the article. More control over representatives is good, but its still by definition a representative government.

Originally posted by Maslo
reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

 

Thats nice, except thats not what is normally meant by direct government (as opposed to representative one). Please dont bend established terms. Its about direct legislative powers, as in the article. More control over representatives is good, but its still by definition a representative government.

I haven't bent any established terms. For whatever reason you did. You took the term "direct democracy" and bent it into direct government. There is plenty wrong with direct democracy, and in my last post, I just illustrated why a republic that has placed profound restraints on democracy is better...unless of course, you think it is better to have a mob legislate away that direct inherent political power I just spoke to, and then legislate away the rights of individuals. Is that what you think is so much better, this mob rule that could disparage the rights of individuals?

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


If the state produced a well-educated majority, I would have no problem with mob rule. I think it would be more beneficial to have well-informed populace making decisions that are for the betterment of a society as a whole. Representative forms of government, leave a lot of room for abuse, because the grasp of corruption is smaller. In a mob rule, it would be near impossible to buy off a scholarly society. When people stop living as individuals and start living as communities they will see their quality of living rising. We have missed place priorities as a 1st world country, focusing on meaningless consumer goods, rather than the problems at hand. I would said this is mainly caused by distribution of a representative government. It's near impossible to oppose bills and laws that are being enacted, even though these people are suppose to represent our best interests. Why is there such a huge gap between us and our representatives? I'd say it's because one person can't realistically deal with that many people, so how can he represent the majority's interest? Representation and Capitalism have failed us utterly, leading us astray from humanity.

I think it would be a mess. Not because citizens are "too stupid" to do this effectively, but because most people simply don't have the time to devote to a pure democracy system. A pure democracy can work in a much smaller society, like in the ancient Greek city states where they did have such systems in place (sort of, they also had slaves and women had no vote...).

And truth is, we already have systems in place at least at the state level where people can vote directly for laws to be passed or repealed.

Originally posted by LifeInDeath
I think it would be a mess. Not because citizens are "too stupid" to do this effectively, but because most people simply don't have the time to devote to a pure democracy system. A pure democracy can work in a much smaller society, like in the ancient Greek city states where they did have such systems in place (sort of, they also had slaves and women had no vote...).

And truth is, we already have systems in place at least at the state level where people can vote directly for laws to be passed or repealed.

I most certainly agree, it would be a mess, at least until we found a technological system capable of handling that amount of information. I know I'm making up some fantasy world were this could work. I also remember reading theories on the varying-styles of governments based on population size. That a monarchy or dictatorship is the most prudent for large populations. The way they presented it made a lot of sense.

I guess it's wrong of me to want something that didn't just look good on paper and would actually work. It's so overwhelming living in today's society, and it's mainly caused by the network of social institutions we must interact with to participate. There must be another way, I say this because Capitalism really has been taken advantage of, just as easily as communism. It did allow for a higher-Quality of life for a sustainable amount time. It's the 21st century, I think it's time to upgrade. We can either have less freedoms, or more freedoms. I'd prefer the options that allow for more freedoms. I don't want to have to carry "hall pass" documentation on me to take a walk in the park.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

I haven't bent any established terms. For whatever reason you did. You took the term "direct democracy" and bent it into direct government.

Thats because I talk about direct forms of government in general, not necessarily about direct democracy (simple majority mob rule with no constitutional protection of rights). Ever heard of direct constitutional republic?

There is plenty wrong with direct democracy, and in my last post, I just illustrated why a republic that has placed profound restraints on democracy is better

I agree that pure direct democracy has flaws, but I have never advocated it here, thats your strawman. I advocate direct constitutional republic, with strong constitutional limits placed on the legislators.

unless of course, you think it is better to have a mob legislate away that direct inherent political power I just spoke to, and then legislate away the rights of individuals. Is that what you think is so much better, this mob rule that could disparage the rights of individuals?

Except this protection has nothing to do with whether the government is direct or indirect, but whether it has constitution which requires more than simple majority to change. Its this, not the presence of representatives, which makes constitutional protection resistant to simple majority mob rule. Why not best of both worlds then? Direct constitutional republic. No representatives to corrupt, strong constitutional protection of rights against mob rule.
Representative republic or pure direct democracy is a false dichotomy.

reply to post by Maslo

Thats because I talk about direct forms of government in general, not necessarily about direct democracy (simple majority mob rule with no constitutional protection of rights). Ever heard of direct constitutional republic?

That is precisely what I spoke to when you claimed I was bending terms. Now you are backpedaling. The constitutional republic that is the United States of America is precisely as I described it earlier.

This could cause some unwanted results but at least the desires of the majority would be accountable.

It could work but my own personal belief is that many problems will arise in topics that people would be asking for.

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
reply to post by Maslo

 

Thats because I talk about direct forms of government in general, not necessarily about direct democracy (simple majority mob rule with no constitutional protection of rights). Ever heard of direct constitutional republic?

That is precisely what I spoke to when you claimed I was bending terms. Now you are backpedaling. The constitutional republic that is the United States of America is precisely as I described it earlier.

No you didnt spoke about direct constitutional republic in your first reply to me, since you spoke about current US establishment. A rule of thumb - if there are representatives (legislative middlemen), it is NOT a direct government. Direct government says people have direct legislative powers (ordinary people propose and directly vote about laws), not simply improved checks against representatives. You are still bending terms. US is not a direct government, it is a representative constitutional republic.

You have still not provided any reason why representative constitutional republic should be better than direct constitutional republic. You have said the reason is the threat of mob rule, to which I explained its the constitution requiring more than simple majority to change which protects against this threat, not the fact that there are representative middlemen.

reply to post by Maslo


It is interesting that you used the bold feature to highlight the word direct, instead of using the link feature to link us to something that might settle the matter over direct government, or for that matter direct constitutional republic. As you can see, I Googled both phrases, as well as direct government definition, and if you bother to look, none of the articles provided on the first page of any of these searches yielded anything close to supporting your contention.

It is, in my opinion, a silly argument to get so entrenched in, but since only you at this point seems to understand what is meant by "direct constitutional republic", and if you are so inclined to keep entrenching yourself on this matter, then perhaps your energy would be better spent clarifying the matter better than you have.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


Democracy - simple majority mob rule, can be representative or direct.

Constitutional Republic - a democratic government limited by supreme law which takes more than simple majority to change (the constitution), can be representative or direct.

**

Representative government - people dont vote directly about laws, can be pure democracy (simple majority of representatives always win the vote), or constitutional republic (representatives limited by supreme law (the constitution).

Direct government - people vote directly about laws, no representative middlemen, can be can be pure democracy (simple majority of voters always win the vote), or constitutional republic (voters limited by supreme law which takes more than simple majority to change - the constitution).

Now we have cleared the terms, care to argue to the topic, instead of semantics? You have still not provided any reason why representative forms of governments should be better than direct forms of government, all other things being equal (my original point, to which you first responded with description of US representative republic, I dont know why..).

It is, in my opinion, a silly argument to get so entrenched in, but since only you at this point seems to understand what is meant by "direct constitutional republic", and if you are so inclined to keep entrenching yourself on this matter, then perhaps your energy would be better spent clarifying the matter better than you have.

Direct constitutional republic is a direct democracy with the addition of a constitution that requires more than simple majority to change. Or alternatively, it is a constitutional republic where people directly vote about laws, instead of representative middlemen doing it for them (the two descriptions are basically equivalent).

reply to post by Maslo


Since I can find no source to either support or refute your definition, I will accept it - for the sake of argument - as a valid definition of what you mean by "direct constitutional republic". However, I still maintain that the Constitution for the United States, combined with every state constitution, is a far better system than what you've just described. Not that this system has been utilized by We the People in the way it should, but for any individual who wants to use the established form of government to seek a redress of grievances or any remedy for the violation of a right, because any individual within the United States is one of the holders of the inherent political power they have the Supreme Law of the Land to challenge any bogus legislation that would endeavor to trample upon their rights.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

However, I still maintain that the Constitution for the United States, combined with every state constitution, is a far better system than what you've just described.

What if we kept everything in the US Constitution and state constitutions, except taken out the representative voting and substituted it with direct electronic voting about legislative proposals? How would it be not better than the status quo? It would eliminate corruption of representatives, since there would be no representatives to corrupt, but kept all that is good.

Originally posted by Maslo
reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

 

However, I still maintain that the Constitution for the United States, combined with every state constitution, is a far better system than what you've just described.

What if we kept everything in the US Constitution and state constitutions, except taken out the representative voting and substituted it with direct electronic voting about legislative proposals? How would it be not better than the status quo? It would eliminate corruption of representatives, since there would be no representatives to corrupt, but kept all that is good.

It would not eliminate the corruption of the people. I have often maintained that the 17th Amendment is unconstitutional because it altered the way in which Senators were chosen. Prior to the 17th Amendment, Senators were chosen by state legislatures. The argument for the 17th Amendment was that it was correcting a flaw within the Constitution (the only way Congress could ever lawfully alter the Constitution proper). This "flaw" was that some states had found themselves in gridlock over the choice of Senators which ultimately led to vacant seats in the Senate which slowed down the legislative process. I would argue that this is not a flaw and a slow legislative process is not a bad thing, it is a good thing.

The major concern with any form of direct legislative process as you describe can all too easily become the tyranny of the majority. Although I do get a strong sense that you are not at all advocating any majority that could easily turn to tyranny, I still have my concerns with what you are suggesting. As it is, Congress has more than 600,000 acts of legislation on the books. This, in my estimation, is at least 550,000 acts too many, and even 50,000 acts of legislation is probably too damned much. It seems to me if we changed the system so that the People could legislate on a federal basis - in some states they all ready can through ballot measures - this will do nothing at all to reduce the amount of legislation being shoved down People's throats.

Along with the power to legislate is the power to repeal. Would the people use their power more to repeal, then they would to add to the insane amount of legislation. If you could convince me of the former and handily refute the latter, I would be much more willing to consider your suggestion as a viable option.