From: "Neil Francis", [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >You can' have a plebiscite on every issue.
>
>Why not? This is the electronic/digital/wired age.What
>is the internet for?
Hmm - beware for what you wish for...............
The Internet is useful for many things but it was not designed for voting
or any system which is remotely related to security.
We are a long way from offering every person facilities to individually
vote on every issue. And surely - even if there were such facilities
nobody can run a system where _every_ issue is decided by a referendum -
nothing would get done.
Even if you pick and chose a percentage of issues to make a referendum
list, (and someone mentioned this before), I doubt the pistol ban would
have been a big enough issue to get on to it. Shooters may think their
hobby is the the most important issue in the country - I dare say
fishkeepers, gardeners and electronics enthusiasts think the same of their
chosen interests. In 1997 wishing or pushing for the pistol ban to be an
important enough issue to make it referendum material would have seen all
guns banned. Anyone who tries to deny this is kidding themselves.
And for all you fox hunters out there the very system that will keep
foxhunting alive would be axed in an instant if you offered that as a vote
to the country.
I stand by to be flamed, insulted and lectured to for saying the above -but
hey - I can pipe to /dev/null just like the next man
Neil Francis
Trowbridge, UK
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[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
No, you're right (for once<G>), direct democracy would see the evils
of the majority imposed upon all. It would only work if every voter
was fully informed about every issue, and that is impossible.
In ancient Athens it might have been possible, and it may still work
on a local level (in fact isn't there a town where they vote on
everything via a local system?) but it won't work on a national
level.
Representative democracy is also flawed in that without proper
checks and balances the representatives can rapidly turn the
country into a dictatorship, and basically what we have is an
elected dictatorship. We need more checks and balances as they
have in most other countries.
The best thing Labour have done IMO since coming to power is
the Human Rights Act 1998. It's got few teeth, and the ECHR
has got a lot of holes in it, but it's a heck of a lot better
than nothing at all.
Steve.
Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org
List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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