Direct Democracy is for Suckers

It's that time of year again, the long days when men and women and sometimes children clutch their clipboards on the sidewalk, promising orgiastic spasms of democracy if you'll just sign their petition to get their cause on the ballot.

And sometimes you sign, because what's the harm?

And then November comes (or June, or October, or whenever your district feels like scheduling an election), and you have to spend hours boning up on 37 state, county, and city initiatives, followed by the indignity of choosing a legislator whose job you just did for them. The polls fill with the type of fools who say, "Of course we need 42 and not 35 firehouses. Of course at least 7.3% of the city budget should be mandated for cute bunnies and duckies. Of course weapons and racists should be banned in my county."

And then the final indignity: lawmakers decide to fart all over the results anyway. This week, for example, the SF Board of Supervisors decided to ignore a 2000 voters' decision not to close a wide swathe of Golden Gate Park to traffic on Saturdays. Yes, now we have a six month "test" of "Healthy Saturdays."

SF Board of Supervisors to Voters: Drop Dead!

So here's my question to you, California pedestrians and BART riders: Why the hell are you still signing up for this regularly-scheduled beating? At this point, if you're still willfully putting your name on petitions to get initiatives on the ballot, you seriously need to have a talk with your dominatrix (or "master" or "top" or whatever orientates you), because your behavior is a lash to the asses of all democratically-minded Californians. So just stop.

Comments

[MattyMatt]

In fairness, there were two competing car-ban measures, and they sort of cancelled each other out; and also there was a misperception that the car ban applied to EVERYONE, when in fact old and handicapped people are still allowed to drive through the park whenever they like. So, the will of the people in 2000 isn't totally correlated with the car-ban of 2006.

[seamus]

MattyMatt, thanks for your comment.

That's my point: If the voters had to parse two competing measures full of misperceptions, what kind of system for good government is that? And if the Supes then get to decide that the vote doesn't count because voters were confused, than what's the point of putting things on the ballot?