Having railed on here repeatedly about my lack of faith in any supposed "wisdom of the masses", or the alleged merits of ever more participatory and responsive political systems, I'd like to provide some actual social science reseach to back me up.
As Barbara S. Gamble concludes, in her paper "Putting Civil Rights to a Popular Vote",
Citizen initiatives that restrict civil rights experience extraordinary political success: voters have approved over three-quarters of these, while only endorsing a third of all initiatives and popular referenda.
One can try to say by way of mitigation or apology that Gamble's results only apply to the particular population which she studied - namely those of the United States of America - but I have no doubt that the results would be the same anywhere else in the world. Expecting "wise" or fair-minded outcomes when the masses are allowed to give free rein to their prejudices at the ballot box is as sensible as expecting to find a literal pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Of far greater importance than adding the voices of the indifferent, the ignorant and the immature to the cacophony of idiocy which already comprises most public discourse, is institutionalizing safeguards which will help to rein in the worst tendencies of the canaille electorate, safeguards such as a solid constitution, judicial independence, a division of political powers which serves to immobilize the political classes in stalemate much of the time, and an electoral system which effectively silences the most extreme voices. As the most fervent readers of certain widely-read mass publications have demonstrated over the decades, not everyone deserves to be heard or to have even the slightest political influence over the freedoms granted to their fellow citizens.
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