Yay or nay? Or is there a middle ground that can be reached?

I like the concept of the citizens directly voting on laws, but it's clear that this can be abused. Living in Oregon for four years, it was extremely evident, with dozens of propositions making the ballot and most of them being ridiculous, thanks to guys like Bill Sizemore: http://www.blueoregon.com/2005/03/bill_sizemores_.html

Also going on here in the West is a guy from New York that's littered our ballots with all kinds of propositions.

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/local/st ... ?ID=156628

I guess I'm just trying to gauge a feeling here for I&R, and whether it should be retained or curtailed.

I don't know. I just don't think the average citizen follows local politics enough for this to work properly.

I'm pretty much against direct democracy in general. The voters are barely educated enough to vote for a representative, much less to do the work that our representatives are supposed to be doing themselves. Especially voting on constitutional amendments. People don't understand the gravity of this, it's just one of a dozen questions on a ballot that they get to exercise their rights and make an uninformed decision of "yes" or "no".

I'm also completely and utterly against electing judges, but that's a different thread.

Basically, we elect representatives in our representative democracy so that they can concentrate on these issues, understand them, and vote on them so that we don't have to. Even a bad representative is almost always better than your average dipshit voter.

Somehow, this is exactly what I thought you'd say.

PD's elitist and undemocratic, but we love him anyway.

I agree. I'm just wondering why the carpet isn't rolled out when I make crass, toungue and cheek, but to the point posts like this...

and who's being tongue-in-cheek?

I used to think it was a cool idea, but after studying how it actually works out here in AZ (read: voters are total idiots), I'm now convinced it's useless and even harmful at times. Someone should start an initiative here to get rid of initiatives.

I'm know there are plenty of uninformed voters, but to say that the voters are "barely educated enough to vote for a representative" is baseless and idiotic in itself.