>> OTOH, when you look at what happens with direct
>> democracy (for example, referendum voting in California),
>> the results can be just as bad...

> Ah, but what's "bad"?  My definition of that would be that I didn't 
> get the result I wanted!  :-)

> You obviously can't have voting on illogical issues, such as "No 
> taxes and free fuel for everyone".

There's no reason that you can't. Especially so if the rules that 
determine ballot subjects don't do a watertight job of defining what's 
allowed.

To cite an example directly related to what you mention above, I 
recently got "in trouble" (for reasons that still don't make sense to 
an antipodean whose sensibilities aren't find tuned to the political 
sensitivities of USAians) for commenting on California's "proposition 
13" where I made the apparently unnacceptable comment that voters 
attempted to have their cake and eat it too. Apparently that's not 
what actually happened :-) so I won't suggest again that it was. 
However, the effect of the passing of the proposition was (according 
to general net info) that Californian property taxes dropped to 40% of 
prior values. One can imagine that this just possibly may have had 
some flow on effect :-). Some would (and did) argue that this decision 
was totally illogical. Others would (and did), of course, disagree. 
The overall result was apparently not as bad or as good as any of the 
extreme opinionists opined but it certainly caused a massive shakeup 
not only in California's finances but also in the US's generally 
subsequently.

Although it was passed in the ?1970s?, the subject is apparently still 
sensitive enough that Arnie steered well clear of it when his opponent 
attempted to raise the matter in the last gubernatorial elections.


        RM 

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