Switzerland regularly gets itself into trouble with ballot measure results that are impossible to actually implement or contradict each other. And they are as vulnearable to lobbying as everyone else.
www.lbc.co.uk
No they don't, that's all funded on expenses, which makes it particularly shitty that they're allowed to (and many do) employ family members on inflated salaries (Nadine Dorries employing her own daughter during uni holidays on 40K pro rata -- 40K for a holiday job!). Just an exercise in moving public funds to their own pockets.Oh, that poor old man.
Tory MP describes 'grim' struggle of living on £82k a year as he asks for raise
Tory MP Sir Peter Bottomley has described the 'grim' reality of living on £82,000 a year while asking for a pay rise.
OK, but seriously, do MPs have to pay any personnel they employ out of their own pocket or somesuch context I might be unaware of. Just asking because that's often theblatantly disingenuous excusejustification our own ministers and/or parliamentary members like to give whenever they give themselves a raise (even though they receive stipends for that on top of their own salary).
Switzerland, and all US states, do not operate full direct democracy. They operate representative democracy with occasional referenda.
You mean the more referenda the better?
My experience has been largely different. Ireland legalised divorce, abortion (although that was undoing a previous referendum) and same sex marriage by referendum. If you don't believe in referenda you might as well scrap democracy entirely. One of the biggest issue this country faces is how much we have to claw and fight to get hugely popular things put to referendum. Leo Varadkar tried very hard to make sure no referenda on marriage or abortion happened. Both ended up passing with overwhelming support.
Firstly, I don't disbelieve in referenda entirely; they're a suitable approach for some questions.
I don't trust people to choose who makes decisions. People have made an utter hash of it, far more times than they've got it right. But dictatorship is far worse.
Largely because it's entirely feasible for a small group of people to be knowledgeable about everything (or have staff who can be or at least facilitate the knowledge lookup) without that being possible for literally everyone. It's no different than any other specialization of labor. Theoretically, everyone could be a mechanic, a microbiological scientist, a software engineer, and a chef all at the same time. However, the amount of time required for every person to reach that level doesn't make sense to spend in the real world, so instead some people become scientists, some become engineers, and some become lawmakers. At least, that's ideally how it is.
And I don't trust our representatives. Most of the country supports abortion, some form of gun control, at least maintaining current immigration rates(pre-covid), some form of expanded healthcare system, legal weed, and etc. Yet those aren't the laws getting passes. Tax cuts to the rich aren't popular, yet keep getting passes.
Yeah-- you (like us in the UK) have unrepresentative representatives.
As opposed to what-- the wisdom of experts like Frank from down the pub?
This is the kind of absolutism that I take issue with. Wouldn't? There are plenty of progressive reforms done through direct democracy, so that's a load of shit. Both systems can be used for good. They both have pitfalls though. But saying representative democracy is better for people because it puts experts in control is wrong on both counts, it neither necessarily benefits people nor does it necessarily even put experts in control. You may have missed the point where the four politicians I put first are basically Frank from down the pub. But instead of getting one vote in a referendum they have outsized power because you've abstracted the people's will through representation and gave a minority voice a bigger reach. That can be good, but it just as easily can be complete and total shit and ruin everything forever, like it's doing now.
That's not a problem with direct democracy. It's a problem with the people of the UK. We can argue about the causes of that problem, and probably largely agree that it is about the influence of wealthy interests of various kinds. But it remains the case that what you're describing is not a problem with direct democracy. You're trending towards those same results in representative fashion.
Any problem with the country's population automatically becomes a problem with direct democracy, because full direct democracy would project those problems directly into national policy.
So let's have 50 million Franks from down the pub instead of 4 Franks from down the pub making decisions?
Maybe. But one of the reasons that perhaps the public may be inclined to made bad decisions is because they don't have really have any accountability.
If your position is that Frank from down the pub shouldn't be making any policy decisions about his own life, having a bunch of them doing so with bigger voices than in a direct democracy situation kind of shoots yourself in the foot. Unlike Silvanus, I believe people should have a say in how their lives are run, I don't mind Frank having a say, even if he's wrong. But if you say this is an inherent bad, that Frank shouldn't be making policy decisions, look at your politicians and tell me how bankers, business owners, and crossfit trainers are more qualified to make decisions.
Equally representative democracy but with one more step. And a whole host of other problems.
*If you ignore all the instances of direct democracy improving lives and pushing left
