Exactly Opposite to Its Criticism

Is that Ranked Choice Voting? If so I heartily agree.

This seems to be another erroneous critique I hear all the time concerning #Direct_Democracy, basically that people are too dumb and or uneducated to vote. So they're educated enough to vote for "reps" in a #gerrymandered processed but not educated enough to vote directly on the issues in a Direct_Democracy??? Besides insulting it's illogical.

If you want people to be intelligent they become so by exercising their brains. If you want people to be educated you have to have a system that allows for such. And Direct Democracy would do both. It would make us have to think about the important issues, which wouldn't be like some sort of flash round in which various up or down topics would be shouted out and people would vote and that would be that. There is going to be time.... for ample #consensus_building where indeed voters can not only debate, which also exercises the mind, but also become educated on the issues. They'd become more educated not only through some basic facts the government should provide but also from the other voters, and hopefully their own researching efforts.

Doing our own research should be highly encouraged including the cross checking of facts. People these days are super distrustful, and maybe they should be. This could be used for good in that we learn the process of becoming genuine researchers, or it could also be used to lead us back to #bubble_communities and sources to practice #confirmation_bias. Though a danger I believe overwhelmingly #The_People will come through and will more often than not show virtuously in the way that they vote.

A Direct Democracy does not guarantee always a virtuous vote, and for sure corrections will have to be made, but like a ship trying to find it's way we will be generally going in the right direction, making the necessary adjustments as them present themselves. And just like children learn from touching a hot stove and modulate their behavior from that learning experience so will we in a Direct Democracy. Even our bad decisions can be a tool for mental and hopefully moral growth.

Finally many remedies have been obstructed by #Large_Monetary_Interests which among other things basically funnel much needed funding into their coffers and away from many necessities including our children being provided an ample education.

If we truly had the funds we could increase the student teacher ratio, which is absolutely shameful, feed students decent diets in which they have the proper fuel to learn, and have support resources to truly help those in need. They could also expand the curriculum to teach civic classes more in depth, philosophy to help students find for themselves some sort of psychological ballast, as well as critical thinking skills. All these things as an axiom are also shamefully lacking in the #Public_School_System.

In fact most schools now teach to the test in which life skills are pretty much over looked. Students are force fed information that is often unusable in the real world and then is quickly forgotten. The paltry system is so strained students who are not even meeting the school's abysmal requirements are shuffled along, and in cases graduated without even being able to read and write.

A well funded education system who's focus was educating free thinking minds to know how to educate themselves would be worlds closer to graduating students who are able to mindfully engage in a Direct Democracy. And this can only be done if there is a clear #Separation_of_Money_and_State. As it is now they are controlling the show. It's not something we can vote our way out of using the system we have now. But a Direct Democracy could because in such a system they could not unduly influence the politicians with their funding and lobbying. They'd at best have to resort to manipulating the public's mind. And indeed they would try, but I'll save that for another post.

For now all we have to know is a Direct Democracy would be a game changer and would help to level the playing field so that our governance would not be such a farce. It's a farce in that we think we have influence in how we vote, but the sad fact of the matter both sides have been bought off and we've been relegated the the sad state of #The_Politic_of_Fear.

It doesn't have to be this way. And I think intuitively many people are waking up to the solutions, in which in the political world, Direct Democracy is more than just a major one.