Who Is The “Enemy” In Direct Democracy (DD)?

My only concern is that by "mobilizing the people" it would still be able to tell/manipulate them that they think a certain way, when politics has never been an interest or occupation for them.

There's no more guarantee we'd get what we want peraonlly on social issues with direct democracy, although on ECONOMIC and health issues, I think we could agree on a lot more.



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The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter --

Winston Churchill

"Only one concern..."?

As per article:
"Ultimately the enemy could very well be us too the People or the DD advocates, at the right price."

There is not much that can done if People wish to remain apathetic. We keep seeing the results of this currently. Politicians generally get in with good intentions and the rot end up eating them up, and that includes people apathy. Same could very well happen with a pseudo-DD.

The bureaucracy challenge is just as blatant on "social issues" as they are on economic or health ones. I however do agree that some bureaucracies will be easier to fight than other ones. Perhaps article focused too much on DD -vs-People. mea culpa of cqfd (ce qu'il fallait démontrer - what you had to demonstrate)?

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"We are all in this together somehow, some more than others somehow"

Should've said "several' concerns.

-Perturbed.

Let's face it, the enemy is the people.

"There's no more guarantee we'd get what we want personally on social issues " I'm not sure about that Perturbed. If you check out surveys and polls, there seems to be generally a majority in favor of social liberalism on virtually all issues. Could you show me where this is not so? Or are you a social conservative, in which case, the liberal majority would be problematic? Canadian social liberalism marks a real distinction between Canada and the US, which is why the US which has a more direct democratic approach seems to use it more for reactionary than progressive ends.

I voted NDP last election, federally and provincially.

I consider myself left of centre. My only concern is that on scoial issues, people are selfish. Many people support legalizing pot, because they've been trained that they can "do what they want to do. No rules."

I favour decriminalization, but legalizing marijuana would not lead to a more productive society, as it would be marketed, pushed on young people, and lead to a more-frequently stoned population. Not a healthier, more productive and enlightened population.

But, if you asked them, do you want the option of doing this or that--they'd be tempted to say yes to everything. After all, what's wrong with living with 3 wives, right?



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The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter --

Winston Churchill

'3 wives' - or us guys could find ourselves being a third of a husband to one wife! hmmmm... umm.. no thanks!

People 'can' be selfish, but certainly aren't always so. There isn't exactly a 'wife police' around, you could easily get away with having three wives, but how many do it? (I have a hard time keeping up with one!)
Look at a family, people make enormous sacrifices for their children all the time. Keep in mind that even if people voted for legalizing marijuana you can also regulate it if you wish, having no marketing for example.
As far as DD goes, as I've said elsewhere, I can guarantee you that it's those problem 'social' areas where you will have referenda, because governments don't want to make certain popular changes, and they also know how easy it is to propagandize issues. So in New Brunswick you saw a referendum on Video Lottery Terminals where none of the typical election spending regulations were applied, so the multimillionaires who own the VLT's had round the clock advertising supporting their side, while the opposing side had to send in 'letters to the editor' of the Irving owned papers for their side to even be heard (because they were all social and church groups (ie.poor). Notice that even though New Brunswick has incredibly important changes occurring on how crown land is used, there are no referenda on that or other environmental policies (which generally oppose the government).
In BC similar monumental changes are occurring in finance and environment, but the government has a referenda on changing previously agreed to treaty rights, making native claims much more difficult. There are no referenda planned on the environment or financial changes.
So what you will see in the future is direct democracy mechanisms used by the government to help enforce a certain policy by various means, while ignoring any populist demands for them in others-health care, education, debt, etc.
The claim that 'we' might not get what we want in a referendum is always untrue. The point is that direct democracy involves the support of YOU, and YOU might not always get what you want. That is the crux of the issue for many people. For my part, after reading all the stories posted on this site, the 'status quo' has little interest in resolving our issues, do you trust other canadians, who are much like you, or Paul Martin's cabinet-who have a completely separate set of goals than you.

I"m not sure I quite understood that article. I really don't think labelling bureaucrats as 'enemies' is more productive than education. For my part I knew nothing of DD before a year ago, since discovering it I devoured all the information I could find on it. Looking at this website only reminds me of the callour disregard government has for it's citizens. A constructive project while surfing is to go to the canadian government website and get a list of departments, and do the same for your particular province, then type in the name of that department and 'critics' to get a general outline of the problems. I found systemic problems in virtually every department and function of the government. Then do a historical search as to how problems have been resolved in Canada, you will quickly find that it is democratic movements of people struggling for change. In the past these people have been labelled 'special interest groups' and more criticism and study have been made of them than the government itself. Particularly in the case of environmental groups people are rapidly discovering that these groups are the only ones looking out for their interests. The 'enemy' in most cases is not the faceless bureaucrats, I think after visiting this site most people know who the enemy is.

Education, is, to my mind, the only solution. Labelling an enemy just raises suspicion and fear. Personally, I don't expect that much from the movement, I think Canada is too far gone. But that's what they said in Columbia too before Bechtel turned and ran.

"Do you trust other canadians, who are much like you, or Paul Martin's cabinet-who have a completely separate set of goals than you?"


I trust Canadians first. I have no faith in our current system, and I have little faith in proportional representation either.

I think the regionalism would be an issue, but perhaps it could be done so that regions wouldn't be pitted against each other, maybe they could even not keep local results?

All of this assumed the provinces don't get too much more power.

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The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter --

Winston Churchill

My first vote would be to split up the media companies, so they couldn't so easily dominate the news.

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The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter --

Winston Churchill

Right now there are virtually no mechanisms for dismantling media companies. It was interesting in my research I found a monopoly study done of the Irving's in New Brunswick. This was in the early seventies when they bought virtually every newspaper and owned many radio and TV stations. The government ruled that although it was a monopoly they wouldn't do anything about because it hadn't been proved that the Irvings 'did any harm' to the province. They have since bought the rest of the newspapers and today's news is that they donated a million dollars to each of the journalism schools in the province.
However, it's my belief that if people have the opportunity to make decisions then they will seek out that information most relevant, although no doubt this isn't always the case. I am not a federalist, or a provincialist, I think people should be able to make decisions for their own communities. The only way I see for systemic change is for direct democracy at all three levels. There are duties for each level, however, they no longer abide by them. In the past everything has been jammed because the feds and provinces bicker and argue even though they represent the same people (canadians). People would have enough to worry about locally without worrying about what other provinces are doing, so I don't see regionalism being as much a problem as some may fear.

Thoughtful article gaulois,

This is a small aside. I saw a program the other night showing a group of Ontario high school students coming together to view a documentary "Does your vote count?" and there were two politicians present (one being our agriculture minister, Andy Mitchell) to answer questions from the students. One very bright and articulate young lady asked the two, (paraphrasing here) "When your terms are only for four years, are you making plans now for 30 years down the road?" Naturally, Mitchell had to admit "NO", by saying "we have to prioritize, the urgent things come first." I can see why we have sponsorship scandals and panic driven policy! Jesus, Mary, Joseph.

Anyway...

Two things became very clear for these kids through watching the documentary and asking questions. They were shocked at how much work the MPs actually were responsible for and they were shocked at how little power and influence the MP they voted in actually had. They were upset their MP had to vote party lines and that if they were cabinet ministers they had to vote for Canada first, and that their riding and their constituents were lumped into the whole. So the voters voice was really being silenced through government procedures.

These young people are so smart. It would take such a small effort to get them interested. One young man concerned about the environment said "if you're not going to take care of our planet then what's the point in you making plans?" These kids are already feeling hopeless. No wonder depression abounds in our society.

I don't know how many schools were given that documentary to show? But, it didn't seem like it would be that difficult to engage these bright young people. They just need access to the information. How do we do that? I think they are very likely to embrace a more DD type government. It seems to me that the enemy in DD will change as people know about it. I think if we make the Federal government DD, implementing it will be the hardest. I think it will have to be an evolutionary change.

It seems to me that we do need to vote into government people that are there longer term to make longer range plans. How we could do that I'd have to ponder on for a while. I'd think they would need to be separate from the elected rep. Is that what our senate is supposed to do? Because the world changes so fast we need some stable long range planners that don't belong to some stink tank type organization. They need to be "actual" experts.

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"Yeah, well, [Mr. President] we used all five fingers because that's the way our mittens are made." Antonia Zerbisias

Check out the rest of the DDC site and you will notice the 'stabilizing factor'. Personally, I think it a horrible idea to allow longer terms to independants (or anybody). As you state, the senate has that and what groundbreaking results have they ever had? Keep in mind that they must authorize every bill passed.
The people themselves, however, are that stabilizing power. While many may think in the moment, many have children and are willing to make sacrifices if necessary, while I would think that a good many are prepared to sacrifice for the good of their community if they felt a part of that community. And those are extreme examples, I've studied a lot of canadian issues and I'm of the belief (though this can be debated) that sacrifices are not necessary at all-unless you're one of the corporations sucking out resources and money from canadians.
In fact, under a truly directly democratic country you could do away with elections altogether. This is easily apparant at the municipal level where councillors duties are few (in many places). There is much work created in this country simply by the bureaucracy of three (and often more) levels of government. Here where I live, council meetings are once every two weeks and rarely have anything more interesting than a zoning change. It's interesting to note that in the only large scale initiative in decades, scandals have broken out simply because it turns out that the councillors knew nothing about what was going on and simply voted as the CAO wanted. This is in a city of over 100,000 and easily the main points could be voted on in a weekend or maybe two (as is done elsewhere). That is such a huge change though that I'd never contemplate it right now, when you actually look at the DD literature, people are so aware of the prejudices that whenever it is mentioned they quickly back it up with "oh, but it's not a challenge to representative government, it HELPS representative government". This is sorta kinda true, but it certainly is a threat to the status quo, hence their fear.