Comment by asgard1024
11 years ago
> Being a minority in a referendum leaves you with being exactly that -- the minority in a referendum.
The point is, if there is reasonable number of referenda, you're (unless your views are extreme) unlikely to be always in the minority, and vice versa, you're unlikely to be always in the majority. So you get quickly exposed to "being on the other side of the fence". This IMHO doesn't happen in the U.S. because it is deeply divided according to party lines.
> we should similarly not forget that Proposition 8 was the result of referendum
Similar thing to Prop. 8 happened to Switzerland, you just need to give people time, because they are generally conservative (meaning "cautious", not in political/religious sense). I think this was case of some benefits for disabled people, first it was shot down in the referendum by similarly thin majority, but few years later the referendum was repeated and the proposal passed.
I hear you. And, to be fair, clearly, the federal republic / representative democracy that we have isn't certain to solve these problems either. That's just as much an issue of the people demanding things that they shouldn't (and our legislators capitulating) as we would have in a direct democracy -- I just prefer for there to be a filter between a knee-jerk majority and the enactment of their laws, even if it isn't as effective as I'd like it to be.
If we were all starting with the assumption that everyone's rights were equal, then waiting a bit would be a more appropriate course of action than where we are. Martin Luther King Jr. once said "A right delayed is a right denied," and that resonates deeply with me. A single day in which a homosexual couple cannot be married is too much. A single day in which a transexual is not allowed agency is too much. According to the courts, a constitutionally enumerated right that is infringed is irreparable harm. I agree with that.
But, that aside, the problem in either system is that we have a system in which oppressing the rights of the few is the default, and not the exception. So long as that is the case, I will prefer that the legislative process be slow, and offer as much opportunity for objection as it can possibly have, on the grounds that it is more likely to imperil further infringements than it is to slow amelioration, which is all too often only resolved by the courts.