🚀 go-pugleaf

On Wed, 12 Mar 1997 20:20:07 GMT, woody@interactive.net (Mark
Weinstock) wrote:

>The US has never been a true democracy. It would take too long to get
>anything done. Imagine having to deal with a referendum on every law, every
>budget item, every kookie idea that someone had and posted as a potential
>law. 

Not only that, but the country would be subject to the "whims of the
electorate" as I think John Adams put it.  It wasn't simply that it
was not physically possible at the time to have a direct democracy;
many (if not most) of the founders of this country did not *want* a
direct democracy because it would lead to chaos.  A buffer layer of
government was intended to protect the public from its own fickleness.

We should all remember one thing:  most of the founding fathers had
little interest in democracy for its own sake.  They were more
concerned with the best way to protect commerce; the revolution itself
was started because of commercial reasons (high taxes), not because we
didn't like England's form of government.  To the founders of this
country, a representative democracy was the best way to ensure that
government and the general public checked and balanced each other;
taxes and regulation would not get out of hand or the government would
eventually be voted out of office, while at the same time the public
itself did not have the power to enact laws or elect the highest
officials (originally the public had no direct input whatsoever in
electing the president; it was to be handled by the Senate) and
consequently the country would not be subject to mob rule.

// Jeff Williams
// jeff-williams@itookmyprozac.com
// http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/2024