Should the United States have a mechanism to hold a national referendum?

Should the United States have a mechanism to hold a national referendum?

It currently doesn't.

The last time states decided to leave there was a war over it.

Most referendums aren't about secession.

without a unified, homogenous society, democracy is just too damn dangerous.
cleanse the nation of non-whites, and I'd be all for it.

It's called a constitutional convention and it occurs when enough people within 2/3 of the states demand that their representatives hold one. Even Theodor Roosevelt the founder of the progressive movement warned of the destructive power of mob rule. Pure democracy is dangerous in that it threatens the rights of the individual.

For a """"""""democracy""""""""" that preaches about freedom and choice, the lack of a referendum seems awfully anti-democratic. I believe we should have one.

we're called a democratic republic for a reason. we arent a democracy, we're a republic that elects its representatives in a democratic way.
if youd spent less time sniffing paint in the bathroom during government class you would know this

yes.representative aspect does not seem to be working and all the gerrymandering is just for votes

I knew that, thus why the quotes, you fucking autist. It's a common misconception we are a democracy.

That being said, there's nothing inherent in our government system that prevents referendums from being a thing.

We already have one stupid.

That gives way too much power to small states.

Why not just a simple majority referendum?

Cities distort a person's view of things and concentrating too much power within the inhabitants of cities would create worse results for the country overall.

We do, Article V outlines the Amendment process
If the government becomes tyrannical and disobeys the will of the people, we are guaranteed the 2nd Amendment to put a stop to it.

Large state governments have more power and tend to be more corrupt their power should be limited especially when you consider their power towards election fraud.

So, you're saying people who live in larger states should be denied fair share of representation because the perceived virtue of people in smaller states?

Because of the structure of our federalism, most referendums happen at the state level and most national referendums are voted on by proxy of the state, but occasionally national referendums rise on the ballot.

The states are already quite powerful under the Constitution and they should be satisfied with ruling over the people that voted for them. The states have an extraordinary power to include or exclude people from the voter rolls which gives large states a disproportionate power over the federal government within a pure mob rule.

true but I feel like US lacks national unity, half the states act like different country.I want USA to be a country and not a just a union

This is how you run a country that spans a continent plus over seas states and territories. The guy who lives in NYC lacks the experience to tell the Montanan rancher how to live and vice versa. Pure democracy is for small populations of homogeneous peoples.

I feel like it would be boring if we were all the same though.
on a practical note, it gives us a big advantage for states to be able to experiment with new laws without affecting the entire nation.
for example, colorado is able to act like a test case for legalizing weed. depending on how it goes for colorado, other states can decide if they want to legalize and maybe eventually it will be decided on the federal level.
also, sometimes laws that work in one state are disasters for others. federalism is a good system.

Republics work great, all of the great ancient civilizations were republics :)

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If state's power to manipulate voter registry is an issue, why not have federal referendums be administered by Federal Electoral Commission directly with one set of federal rules on who can and can't vote?

The Federal government is far worse in that it's power comes from an even smaller group of representatives. We're not like Canada our population is about ten times as large and if the mob were unleashed upon the whole nation the lives of 320 million people could be destroyed before the government was willing to admit anything had actually gone wrong.

America doesn't even claim to be a democracy

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>The guy who lives in NYC lacks the experience to tell the Montanan rancher how to live and vice versa.
so he should learn.Being separated this way just makes each side more elitist, today the guy in NYC still does not have any understanding of the ranchers needs, he just writes him off as evil and both sides hate each other because federal gov takes their money to support the states that are often in the red
ancient civilizations changed depending on the need of their people and firmness of the tyrants grasp

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>so he should learn.Being separated this way just makes each side more elitist, today the guy in NYC still does not have any understanding of the ranchers needs, he just writes him off as evil and both sides hate each other because federal gov takes their money to support the states that are often in the red
The states the give more to the Federal government wanted a larger welfare state in the first place the money comes from people that didn't want a larger welfare state but did want to use the larger ports and trading centers. Limiting the states power over one another creates balance and limits the resentment that could come from ruling over a union that is far too large.

*The states that give...

wrong both times, stop wrongfully attributing quotes

and no the US should not have a referendum, it just leads to problems than it would solve

>being in different cultures makes you elitist
That's the most retarded thing I've heard today. Keep your homogeneity, Georgia, the great melting pot is having none of it.

Do you understand the concept of a referendum?

Fuck all of you. The federal government wasn't meant to make laws. This is all a perversion.

Instead of federal referendums voted on by massive swaths of people from different backgrounds and cultures, why not conduct referendums on a smaller scale amongst people from the same area that generally share a common culture and value system?

Oh wait, we already fucking do that

because the united states was concieved as a union of states. just because california has a ton of people living in it doesn't mean california should be able to dictate what happens in wyoming.

Democracy sucks. Get out.

I think USA should only have a state wide referendum. And it should not have many federal laws.

So, what the founders thought 250 years ago should dictate current voting system?

Democracy (as we conceived it, unlike the ancient greeks which was very different and stronger) is giving the power to the retards. No meme.

Since it comes down to numbers, if only 10% change their mind on a fucking whim just because of some feeling (e.g. oh noes britian first is rayciss, or ok Europe is the Union of PEACE), the whole result can change for the worst.

Then these same retards will cry when they realize 10 days later they did a retarded thing. But it's already too late the vote has passed and will not come back. You'll stay on the ride.

>we're a republic that elects its representatives
>in a sorta-democratic way
FTFY

So, the direct democracy has flaws, but the American system doesn't actually alleviate it.

It just transfers voting power of the low information voters in coastal states to the low information voters in Midwestern states.

The American system feels even hardly like a democracy to be honest. Sadely it's also quite similar for France. Partly because I believe the systems we have now require a lot of small parties and not mega blobs, and either a coalition government or a blind one round vote with a list of e.g. 3 parties ordered in preference during the vote. The one the most cited overall (maybe with a weight) could be elected. Or something like that. The problem is you allow everyone to vote but you do not allow all movances to be represented nor do you allow people to state clearly their opinions/orientations (so to reflect on their choices). Obviously it will lead to bullshit and bitterness. And it will get down to retarded issues such as liberal vs conservative, whereas things are more complicated than that (many might want to be a bit of both depending the issues or something else entirely).

I'm personally a partisan of allowing all of the population's qualified people to vote on issues that are relevant to them. Something similar to the philosopher democrary but in a modern way (thanks computers).

THE UNITED STATES ARE NOT A SINGLE FUCKING ENTITY

ALL FEDERALISTS MUST FUCKING DIE