This blog serves the honors section of our introductory course on American politics (Claremont McKenna College Government 20) for the fall of 2023.
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During the semester, I shall post course material and students will comment on it. Students are also free to comment on any aspect of American politics, either current or historical. There are only two major limitations: no coarse language, and no derogatory comments about people at the Claremont Colleges. This blog is on the open Internet, so post nothing that you would not want a potential employer to see. Syllabus: http://gov20h.blogspot.com/2023/08/draft-introduction-to-american-politics.html
Monday, September 26, 2011
The Sheer Brilliance of Direct Democracy
While direct democracy is great - things like this petition are now about to be "evaluated" by the Office of the President. Doesn't this speak to the ridiculousness of the current system?
I don't think it speaks to the ridiculousness of our system, so much as it shows the ridiculousness of certain people. Yes, some people may be somewhat "looney", but the beauty of our system is that it keeps elected officals in charge of evaluating proposals; meaning those "looney" proposals will (most likely) be evaluated as such. That is why republics (for the most part) may be better relative to genuine direct democracies. But in all honesty, the idea that petition presents isn't just cool; it's out of this world.
This illustrates the beauty of the American political system. Even if most (ie the majority) would consider this petition unreasonable or not worthy of any time, those who have signed it (ie the minority) may disagree. The minority, however unreasonable one person judges that minority to be, has just as much right to government consideration and time.
Imagine if instead of being a petition about ETs, this was a petition in the 1780s about voting rights for black women. To some, it may have seemed as ridiculous as ETs do to us now. Does that mean that those petition signers didn't have a right to be addressed by the government?
Yes, the opinion may be out of the box, but if enough people hold that opinion, under our Constitution they have a right to express and pursue that opinion.
2 comments:
I don't think it speaks to the ridiculousness of our system, so much as it shows the ridiculousness of certain people.
Yes, some people may be somewhat "looney", but the beauty of our system is that it keeps elected officals in charge of evaluating proposals; meaning those "looney" proposals will (most likely) be evaluated as such. That is why republics (for the most part) may be better relative to genuine direct democracies.
But in all honesty, the idea that petition presents isn't just cool; it's out of this world.
I agree with Nadeem--
This illustrates the beauty of the American political system. Even if most (ie the majority) would consider this petition unreasonable or not worthy of any time, those who have signed it (ie the minority) may disagree. The minority, however unreasonable one person judges that minority to be, has just as much right to government consideration and time.
Imagine if instead of being a petition about ETs, this was a petition in the 1780s about voting rights for black women. To some, it may have seemed as ridiculous as ETs do to us now. Does that mean that those petition signers didn't have a right to be addressed by the government?
Yes, the opinion may be out of the box, but if enough people hold that opinion, under our Constitution they have a right to express and pursue that opinion.
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