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I get your point but "direct" democracy is complete folly, even the founding fathers realised this:

http://www.economist.com/node/15127600

This fact is often wrongly cited as the founding fathers rejecting democracy as a whole. This is becuase some people have become convinced that direct democracy is the only form. This is the fallacy of the perfect democracy.

James Madison was right. However he was wrong about Athens having direct democracy. They actually had a lottery based public office, which was compulsory. This was quite a small population.

There is no substitute for governance and leadership, whether it is centralized or not.

Yes you can have the odd referendum, but these are very expensive and not at all scalable. Logistically it would be impossible to govern by referendum. Also the public don't always have the time to think things through, they have to work for a living.

There was mob rule during the frontier era. It is often idealised but actually it is not a viable system if freedom is your objective.

As decentralised as you want to be, you still benefited hugely from economies of scale. So it is a balance. Otherwise you can take factionalism to its natural conclusion.

That mob rule in the frontier American west included vigilante violence, which was a response to the rampant lawlessness. Such was the case in Montana, where the vigilance committee went on a rampage, lynching anyone even suspected of being an outlaw, which had included a man who had had both feet amputated (they conceded this was probably a mistake), and even the law enforcement officer, Henry Plummer, who has since been vilified as a desperado, even though the Montana state legislature had just a few years ago given him a posthumous pardon. In the end, it was the federal government that had to send in the army to restrain these homicidal dogooders.

Our founders had a lot of thoughts on democracy and who should be able to vote, I think it suffice to say they would not be happy with the country as it is now.

I think modern technology has eliminated a lot of barriers when it comes to a more direct democracy, there is no reason why it couldn't be applied even radically. Our democracy is degenerated into nothing more than reality TV, American Idol, it's pointless and non-thinking, these monkey's in suits don't even read the bills they vote on. We're electing wannabe dictators and corporate-owned shills so I fail to see why actually letting the actual people have a say is a bad thing.

Give a civics test to weed out the incompetents then have people vote on a slate of issues, it's pretty simple. I know Switzerland has slates of issues they vote on, it's not impossible.

Maybe we could get rid of the presidency all together and have the people vote on what becomes law and what doesn't, I feel I should be able to vote on whether or not we invade Iraq or if we approve the TPP or Obamacare or whatever. People can say mob-rule but how dictator-rule any better? People aren't voting for issues as much as they are personalities and who they think they can trust, cut the middle man out and have people actually think about the problems facing this country.

Give people the right to vote on all laws and decisions, and you might very well end up with the deportation of all Muslim Americans, and the invasion of Mexico to stop illegal immigration.

^ As opposed to what, not doing a goddamn thing about illegal immigration out of fear that it might come off as racist?

We wouldn't have immigration problems we have now if the people were able to have their voices heard. Right now our country serves the interests of big business and immigration, both legal and illegal, is their greatest tool against us.

You realise in direct democracy someone has to set the questions. The question can make a big difference.

Look at the cost of the last referendum you had and scale that up. Direct democracy is a gimmick that politician use, becuase the know it can't be

Also you are totally wrong about technology making it possible. Voter fraud would be rampant. I am a programmer and IT consultant, technology doesn't solve the voter fraud issue.

People will want referendums on everything. They will vote for something on one day and have it repealed the next.

Voter will is not the same as governance it is a Ouija board.

It would not be possible to enact the law and hold all the referendums, there wouldn't be enough time.

Referendums are occasional for a reason, becuase they aren't a substitute for governance.

Even people completely misunderstand the nature voting in a an election. Mathematically it is impossible to model voter will at any one time, and certainly an x doesn't do that. Voting is simply the fairest war of generating a result. It is a reality check but true.

Democracy is in the turnover, the discourse, the scandals and bust-ups. Real democracy is messy. Fake democracy puts up a facade of stability.

It can be done, I refuse to believe that it couldn't. The legislature can set the question or the people can petition it, that is how it works on a state level. A modern Ludlow Amendment is something I would strongly support, I think there is a lot more than that we can vote on and it would be worth the price whatever it may be. I do not believe we would be worse off than we are now. We could have a yearly slate to vote on, people would be more educated and engaged about the issues actually effecting their lives and no longer will Washington be so massively out of step with the majority of the country.

I also like the idea of massively expanding the House of Representatives so there is something like 1 rep for every 40-70k citizens, repealing the 17th amendment which would give power back to the states as electing directly electing senators makes no sense given the purpose of the chamber. The Senate is not suppose to be a super-congress, that's why it is not proportionally represented. Add term limits and we might just eliminate professional politician.

Amending any part of the U.S. Constitution is incredibly challenging due to the tremendous demographic changes that occurred since the 17th Amendments ratification. If I am not mistaken, a supermajority of states have to vote in favour of any constitutional additions forwarded by congress.

You are going to have around 7973 Representatives and that number is going to grow with the population?

Wouldn't it make more sense to grow the senate not the house? I don't like large Parliament they don't improve the quality of legislation.

Who is going to have time to read every petition? Also what able duplicate petitions? Who is goign to decide what is the same proposal or different and which take precedence. Also this will be confusing for those signing the petition meaning you won't get a consensus.

There is reason why politicians are dishonest or honest politician don't to well. It is quite simple: The people, i.e. the electorate want to believe things which aren't necessarily true or realistic. If it didn't work they wouldn't do it.

One area where you could get less career politician is a were you have a second Chamber such as the house of Lord is make it a lottery system. So you have voting for Commons and a lottery system for the house of Lords.

There terms can be non concurrent, anybody can apply. They just have to study the history of bills. Of you are picked then you are expected to attend a certain number of session per year and there will be enough of them to fill the chamber at any time even if there is a reserve system.

We rightly used criticise hereditary peers, but "people's peers" and the party stooges are even worse. All of that could be replaced with a lottery system.

There is not point having a bicameral legislature if they do exactly the same thing, a senator should not be a super-congressman. Repeal the 17th Amendment and then states would appoint senators, the senate represents the states and the house represents the people and having 7000+ reps shouldn't be a problem in a country of 330,000,000 million people. I believe there are many countries that have much larger legislative bodies than we have with far smaller population, they're not accountable to the people and too easily corrupt by the money and special interests. Permanently stuck on 435 makes zero sense. Add term limits and that moves the entrench garbage out pretty quickly, I think we'd be better off. We wouldn't have to worry about gerrymandering to nearly the same degree, there would be much more diversity in the opinion and much less manufactured consent.

Turn the Capitol into a museum and have our legislators can telecommute their votes. They should stay close to the people they represent not K-Street. DC is one of the richest booming metropolitan areas in the United States, why is that? Just send the bureaucrats home.

I would focus on capping campaign money, and shortening the time spent on it (seriously it goes on for way too long), there are more important thing like doing their job.

Then you will get more independent types, but you need to change the electoral system, if independent are to lead.

Make all party donation declared. Donor have to be citizen/national and domicile.

The point of a second chamber IMO is to put check an balances on the first, prevent rushed or bad legislation, etc.

Direct democracy doesn't prevent bad legislation. Populism and hysteria has already produced bad legislation throughout history.

The point of the 2nd chamber isn't to muck up the process, we'd have a pretty stupid ineffectual government if that was the purpose... Wait...

Our founders were pretty clear on its purpose tho and that was to represent the interests of the states. The 17th Amendment was passed because of what they believed to be legislative corruption where in politicians would buy the senate seat by bribing their legislatures, it's silly and not in any way relevant in modern times. It's much much easier to buy a senate seat now with a direct election then winning over a majority of state legislators in any state.

It's the system, not just the money. Donald Trump has barely spent a dime, Jeb has a $150 million in super-pac money, Karl Rove raised like $400 million in 2012 and didn't win a single race, The system is set up against us to entrench those in power, it might not be what it originally was but that's what it has been perverted into. Who cares if they cap the money, what difference does that make to me? It's not like that makes my voice heard any louder, it's still more money than I have and they still have the power over the media. What interests own CNN, what type type of slant does CNN have? It's all corrupted.

Power to the people, dude, get with it

I'll take populism over corruption and entrenched special interests dictated by an elite oligarchy.

It doesn't prevent that either.