>>So who IS qualified to make the decision? You?
>
>There's a reason that most (all?) democratic countries in the world are representative democracies, not direct democracies. We understand that running a country requires a lot of knowledge that the average doesn't have, so we let the people choose their representatives and expect those representatives to become educated about matters of state.
>
>Tamar

I had the same civics class about how representative democracy works.
It was provided by the local bureaucracy and approved by the elected representatives.
It is a very rose colored view that conveniently overlooks fundamentally unsound and unsustainable features of this system if left unchecked.

I think the last elected representative to truly "become educated about matters of state" and work for the good of those who elected him was Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus in 439 BC.

The really nice part about modern representative democracies is all the wealth and power that flows to our elected overlords and their bureaucrat and public union minions. The civics class never mentioned this is inevitable if the power of the state is not tightly constrained.

They use up all the money and then they get to lecture us about giving our fair share.
Just great stuff.

Sarcasm aside, the flaw we see in both the EU and the US is that the balance of power between citizens and government is a one-way ratchet - the bureaucracies grow, regulations grow, ever growing transfer payments are used to buy votes, taxes rise, economic growth falls.

We have seen how it ends in Greece and Detroit - entrenched constituencies continue to scream for payment while Rome burns around them.

Our elected representatives have not become educated about matters of state; That is not the point of their game.
They have become educated about getting re-elected - and siphoning off wealth through speaking fees, and clearly corrupt "contributions" to family and insider run "charities."

Absolutely disgusting.