So this has been bugging me for a while but I largely overlooked it for the sake of argument, is there a single country in the world that mandates how much insulin to buy? Last I checked the closest anyone approaches to that is letting their military buy drugs since they need to be able to run a field hospital everywhere in the world. Otherwise it's up to hospitals and pharmacies to buy drugs, and labs to produce them. So unless your vision of direct democracy requires nationalizing all drug production and distribution, then making every single decision a referendum with no delegation, it's stupid.
A country with a nationalised healthcare system, such as mine, will require the government to order (or produce) it's resources, yes.
Beyond that, your argument hinges on there being no communication between people at all and that people won't know the issues happening in their country, which is the exact opposite of what we see now, misinformation of the causes aside.
I'm sure people will communicate. But there is no formal structure in place, no greater authority for some than others. So say 20 people with expertise and relevant knowledge of the supply chain get together, draft a motion and submit it. So... what happens? Its one of 40 submitted that day, indistinguishable from the ones from people who don't have that knowledge or expertise. Most people don't know who they are. It might get a few thousand signatures in a country of millions, if its really lucky.
Well if they're delegated by a council comprised of everyone in the section of population they're apart of, by definition no.
So... elected by that section of the population.
And this is a response... how? You said these people were trained to be MPs, I pointed out they're not outside of understanding the rules of order. As to this distracting inane question, not inherently, no. I suppose there might be some national archive not available to public in at least some countries, but there's not going to be a book in there "How to govern effectively (the secret way)". Actually knowing how to be a politician and writing effective laws is not learned through the act of being elected.
"Suppose there might be some archive"... no, stop, there are factually a huge number of resources, research bodies and data, that governments have access to that are not generally accessible. And yes, representatives will be taught how to access that and how the procedure works. They'll then have legal advisors on how motions need to be drafted to make them watertight.
You're imagining government to be something massively informal, which strikes as a bit naive.
Funnily enough, there's a whole market built around angry Trumpers (I might remind you, number over 70 million people) selling them "Don't blame me, I voted for Trump" apparel unironically. I think your nightmare scenario is here.
70 million angry delusional knobheads, eh? ...I thought your line of argument was all about how the people are great and trustworthy and I should hand them the reigns of power? This isn't making that sound any more palatable.
Voters are always willing to pass the buck. That'll be the same in any form of democracy. I would at least like some structures in place to force a measure of accountability, which is possible with representatives but impossible with millions of equally-culpable buck-passers.
I find it ironic you call me overly optimistic about the nature of society and then turn around and say politicians of all people act in anyone else's self interest. If people are inherently selfish assholes to the point of not being able to function in society, how does society work at all period? How do unions work?
People aren't inherently selfish assholes. You've blown my position up into something really quite alien.
Literally the exact opposite of that.
You literally just finished explaining how a central government would wield broader political authority over the smaller devolved units. And you also don't want it's members elected.
Please explain how this works.
I thought this was about knowing what problems face the country day to day. Research bodies don't do that, they tell you how to fix those problems, and to my knowledge most experts for these committees exist outside of the government entirely. There are a few exceptions like the American CBO or NOAA (who do independent research without being told by anyone and present their findings publicly), but otherwise most of these programs amount to a group of politicians rounding up experts to ask them something. It's not that this isn't available to the public, it's that they're formed ad-hoc for some short term and specific goal.
They're almost always either funded or appointed to a specific official public role. And yes, research bodies do gather data.
I mean, what's to stop a lone congressman from drowning these groups in spurious requests now, and why does that go away in direct democracy?
Limits on the docket. They're a lot more functional in the UK than the US, where its someone's specific job.
It's debatable if delegation is hierarchy, and even then you can still delegate and appoint in direct democracy.
We seem to be getting close to talking about electing people. Just strenuously avoiding that word.
www.bbc.com
www.cbsnews.com
www.brown.edu
www.propublica.org
