why do so many americans ...

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It's a QUANGO.

You could also call it half-direct democracy as well, if you like. As I say, there are elements of representative democracy (like having parliaments and assemblies) and then also the referendum element.

See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_Switzerland

K. My general thought is I'm not particularly concerned with our electoral college situation - ie. one of these days it might be pitched but I don't think that would be a problem.

Seems like the biggest challenge of mixing the components of direct democracy and representative democracy is just making sure that the direct part is a check and balance and that the risk of populism running amok is stopped by other checks and balances.

One has to be careful that that doesn't mean the élite can simply ignore the will of the people if they don't bloody well like it though.

We did a really smart thing in having levels separate from the central government as checks and balances, ie. state level power, that was washed with the 17th Amendment ie. the change of Senate from state elected delegates to popular vote. You'd much rather have two groups growling at the elites than just one, and even better to not have both those groups quite on the same page.

I disagree. There are many states where legislatures have been taken over by extremists who seem to feel it's their duty to punish those without by cutting services, including education. Many of these same state governing bodies and their governors would rather cut taxes for the richest citizens. With such a record, and potential record, I prefer to see the feds handle such programs.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I agree that is what business owners would do, if they had the money to pay the worker. Right now, big business owners are the only ones who can afford to hire anyone, but they're biding their time away and saving their money (probably due to greed).
Since there are no jobs for the middle class to survive (largely due to economics) I think it would be a good idea for the big business owners and the upper class (including Governmental positions) to have a wage cap so that the extra money that is earned while they watch the company grow, is then given back to the middle class or others who need it to survive. And while, yes, there will be some cutbacks on the upper classes end, it's not going to be as bad for them as it is for the middle now. They may have close a few shops/businesses here and there, but ultimately having a few less shops can't compare to having whole families being left homeless due to not having money.

I agree with what you're saying about how wage is determined, but I'm trying to say that for big businesses, and people who earn up to or in excess of a half a billion a year, they don't have to worry about losing their house, people in the middle class do, and it's a daily struggle that doesn't need to be happening, especially since big businesses and the upper class have the money to do something about it.

The funny thing about that is this. Here we always start with the so-called freedom brigade telling us that government must not run something like say health insurance because then they can leverage this to micromanage our lives. Then when a programme like this exists these same people turn around and say "We must use this as leverage to micromanage people's lives". Drug tests, denying health care to people who smoke, and so on...

The American right are very much collectivists, they believe that the powerless should surrender themselves to the powerful or die. In surrendering, they must give up all individuality and become effectively an automaton. Individuality is a right that results from personal power as an owner of property and of the means of production. Those who won't surrender to an owner must accept death. The Just World Fallacy offers justification for all of this; that someone is a master and someone is a slave is the result of divine justice, a slave must have done something to deserve that fate.

We are not just anti government, we are as strongly anti class.

The main issues have been class warfare.

The Civil War was not about a poor southerner hitching his yoke of negros to plow.

It was about Corporate investment is land, negros, and economic control.

An example was Texas, becoming a State in 1845, and the invasion of New Mexico, which left a huge area as open range, and New York Investors put together herds of over a hundred thousand, which to this day have destroyed what had been grassland since the ice age.

Slavery and investors were doing the same in the south, and displacing small farmers.

Once the plantations became corporate, the result was a hostile takeover bid by the New England Mill owners, who wanted to own the supply chain.

It was a waste, as like turning Texas to brush, farming cotton year after year, the top soil washed away.

The same pattern shows up in Railroads, Steel, Coal, which lead to the Anti Trust Acts, and breaking them up. Then it was interlocking manufacturing companies.

A final resort, a 95% top tax rate, to remove the profit motive,

Ike continued this after WWII and the economy worked, the war costs were paid off, war bonds redeemed, and there was enough to rebuild Europe.

Then a tired B movie actor was put in office to cut taxes, and the economic spead of the evil Gilded Age, Rouring Twenties, has returned, allowing endless money to pile up at the top, when it bought the Government, in a Hostile Takeover.

The usual, it triggers depression, as money is the grease that keeps the economy running, when it is spread everywhere.

This class is small, is only protected by the government they bought, who is only protected by threats that god will punish those who do not obey.

It was government facing the wrath of the people that brought restriction on wealth before.

Now Homeland Security is protecting the Sacred Job Creators and the people are a bunch of carpet raised whimps.

It is not a Right for a few people to make all the money. The Economy belongs to everyone,

Taking money out of the economy is taking from everyone, and a 95% tax is reasonable.

The only other choice is a 100% tax on assets, and the cutting off of heads, of your entire family.

Some got rich, others lost everything, and those who were children, owe $50 Trillion. National Debt plus unfunded Social Security.

Now we can settle this in cash, now, or otherwise, it is your choice.

You see without Income, there is not enough to Tax, to keep the system running, so the only thing left is to Tax Net Worth, at a Fair and Flat 20% per year.

Did I hear you say, "Let them eat cake?"

When small businesses hire, you won't hear about it unless it gets picked up by the media (usually paid or through a friend). When small businesses go away, you only hear about it if many people los their jobs. That leads to the misleading arguement that small businesses arn't hiring. Since the US does not have one single definition of "small business", you really can't make the arguement either way with any degree of independent verification.

Relating to your "maximum wage" concept, the effective failure of 26 USC 162(m) to "control" executive salary growth suggests that a "maximum wage" would fail. There are also many serious policy, legal, and moral objections as well.

Edit: Spelling, wording

Flat out false. Small and medium size business hire more people than do the Mega Corps and the Cronies.

Not only that, more innovation emerges from the start-ups and the small business than from the Mega Corps

Recall the Apple Computer started in a garage and the light bulb was invented in a shanty located in New Jersey. Tom Edison did most his inventing -before- he became rich. In fact, he became rich because, first he invented Great New Stuff.

ruveyn

Small and medium size businesses do hire more yes, but they lay off just as many because they can't afford to keep all of the workers, and if you'll recall I didn't say that big businesses did hire people, I just said they can afford the cost of doing so, whereas small and medium businesses don't have that luxury because the economy being so bad.
Also, we're not talking about people inventing things, if it were that simple don't you think more people would be doing it? Inventing anything requires not only time, but also spending money for parts (if needed), people just don't have the money to do anything these days, including starting anything.

Jaden, do you think it might be more productive to put your views on a seperate PPR thread? We've moved this thread way off of OP's intent.

de·moc·ra·cy
/diˈmäkrəsē/
Noun
1.A system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.

Typically, but not necessarilly mutually inclusive.

What i would feel about Poles, or any other group being kicked out is beside the point. However if we're going to curtail the will of the majority let us not kid ourselves by calling it democracy when it clearly isn't. 'Dictatorship of the political class' or 'dictatorship of the represented' seems more apt.

Moreover I would posit that xenophobic attitudes against poles are not an inevitable consequence of immigration but a symptom of the opportunist politicking by the contemporary parties, and their cronies in the red top big media. Different European groups have come and settled in the british isles through the ages without such animosity of the same quality. In its institutionalised form, it is a relatively new phenomenon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Expulsion

Thomas81, now I'm confused. At one point, I thought you were argueing for some sort of non-election reflected "social majority" to make decisions, and now I'm reading that decisions should be "the will of the majority", in a context that discusses elections.

elections arent the be all and the end all of democracy. What the USA and similar western countries have in free speech, they lack in citizen participation in the political process. The only meaningful difference between the USA and some of the dictatorships it criticises is that twice a decade its citizens get to choose between a two horse race on whose tyranny they will be under the rest of the time.
Free speech is only as meaningful as the depth of your pockets. It means nothing when you are freezing on the cold pavement.