The Progressives impatience with the Constitution Essays

The Progressives' impatience with the Constitution, their antipathy for checks on government, and their longing to delegate power to administrative experts all have had a lasting impact on today's politics, as Progressivism has gradually been carried forward in successive liberal waves throughout the 20th and now 21st centuries. The Progressives believed, by contrast, that this filtering of public opinion through political institutions had resulted in a stifling of the public will altogether. They believed that human nature had progressed to the point where democratic majorities could be trusted with more direct control of government and that the time had come to get the institutions out of the way. A few of the benefits progressives thought direct d emocracy would bring was give voters a sense of direct control, access to more information, and offer fulfillment of people's wishes . They believed d ire ct-democratic issue voting could deal with issues that ha ve not been discussed at general elections. The policy offered citizens additional and more specific instruments of political control during terms of office, particularly initiative proposals and citizen-demanded referendums to reject new leg islation or delete existing law. One major area of controversy deals with information, competence, and the quality of decision making. While representative institutions may indeed hold intense deliberations on many subjects, direct-democratic decision-making processes can also provide for specific issues the opportunity of intense and widespread public debates, during which citizens can become informed about controversial value and factual considerations. Yet as voters are often described as badly informed and incompetent, the danger of manipulation by resourceful actors (parties, strong interest organizations, corporations, and media ) is a major issue. Those who opposed direct d emocracy viewed it as significantly flawed . One flaw would be that public involvement would drop. D irect democracy best serves the interest of the people when most people take part in it. As the time required for debating and voting increases, public interest and participation in the process would quickly decrease, leading to decisions which did not truly reflect the will of the majority. In the end, sm all groups of people often highly determined to grind could control the government. Secondly you would have one tense situation after the other; there is no absolute guarantee that we would get a majority vote on most issues, not peacefully anyways. It can cause corruption and manipulation. With direct democracy in place, every individual can vote directly, creating room for manipulation and corruption, like what can be seen in indirect democracy. With the complexity of some issues, it would be eas y for one party or another to flood the streets with promotional materials to try and influence the way people would decide to vote. Another flaw is i t instills the fear of instability. In the past, there have been many situations when the consensus, popular vote was not the right one, which made civil rights immediately coming to mind. It was not until later in the movement that these rights would have passed a popular vote, but by employing indirect democracy with people who are able to see the bigger picture, there was a greater deal of security and continuity in the election processes, while a quick change is hindered and instability can quickly grow in direct democracy. After reading both sides and analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of Direct Democracy I agree with people who feel that Direct Democracy is the instrument of those special interest groups that have enough money to manipulate the political process . In my opinion if we had a do-it-yourself government ran by citizens threatens the interests of political, economic, ethnic, racial, religious, or sexual minorities. The minority groups would never be able to make change that would favor them, and many of the things that are put into effect through direct democracy would not bear in mind their unique situations. One of the biggest disadvantages with direct democracy is that most citizens are not qualified or educated enough to make a rational and good decision on things as important as laws and policies. While it may inspire some to learn, most will not and only cast their vote based on face value of the ballot.