Re: Political Deception and Direct Democracy

I agree with Jim's analysis that if we switched to direct democracy just before last October and voted on Jim's proposed referendum, that it would NOT have passed by a wide margin. I wouldn't have voted for it either.

I might have voted for something like this though:

Yes or No: Should the U.S. government be given authorization to use force in Iraq if Saddam Hussein fails to comply with U.N. resolutions.

Nonetheless, I agree that this would also NOT have passed by a wide margin.

Nonetheless, I think that direct democracy is still a good idea. Partly because (apparently contrary to common belief) I wasn't particularly gung-ho on invading Iraq (I'm more happy about it after the fact because of the mass graves, stories of people being fed into meat shredders for fun, etc.). However, note that the world would be a totally different place if direct democracy had been instituted a while back, and this particular situation wouldn't exist, so even if I was pro-invasion, there would not be any invasion to be supportive of.