Rick Santorum-Pure Democracies are no way to run a country

[Dill]

(11-08-2023, 08:19 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Ok, so, he's not relevant, sure. But also...he isn't wrong. There is a reason we utilize a representative democracy. There is a reason why there are checks and balances.

I firmly believe in the need for some ballot referendums. All state constitutional amendments should face ballot referendums. Beyond that, though, ballot referendums result in some really stupid shit. I mean, the entire reason Colorado was so quick to legalize and tax marijuana was because they made it so that income tax increases had to be done by ballot so they were going broke because the people were never going to vote for an increase on their taxes.

You know, I initially agreed with the bolded. In general and in the abstract, Santorum is not wrong. People can't vote every year on everything.

But the more I think about his examples, the more I think he is complaining about too much democracy, about the inability of a minority to
enforce its views on the majority under the present system. 

And it's disturbing because so many GOPers who also "don't represent" the GOP" say similar things and have been able to push convert their worries into legislation. I'm thinking here, for example, of the "independent state legislature theory" which keeps popping up in different states behind innovative legal measures to "protect" against elections that go "the wrong way."