> With our level of technology I don't see why we couldn't have that kind of decision directly put into the hands of individuals rather than leave it to "representatives" or worse yet corporations that aren't even required to ask.
Reading the contents of proposed bills is a herculean task, to the extent that even our elected representatives dedicated to the task don't do so a significant fraction of the time. There's perhaps a good argument that's mostly because representatives (particularly in the House) spend too much time fundraising, but imagine the outcome when the burden is placed on people who have (sometimes several) completely independent, full-time jobs.
I would also argue that there's value in debating bills before passing them, but this opportunity for debate would all but disappear in a direct democracy, both because it's an additional burden on top of the time needed to read the bills and because it's a logistical nightmare to set up a proper debate venue that can properly accommodate everyone.
On top of that, you have to deal with the fact that the majority of US adults' literacy levels are below 6th grade, making them less likely to understand legislation they read or be able to engage in meaningful debate about it.
I think I'd want to fix our electoral system to make it more representative of the public (i.e. use something better than winner-take-all, first-past-the-post) before I'd even want to try tackling the monumental problems that we'd face in trying to enable a direct democracy for anything beyond the local city/municipality level.
> Maybe I'm not thinking through the difficulties well enough, be what we have with elected representatives campaigning on one set of ideals and then voting the complete opposite way is unacceptable. At least, that should be grounds for imprisonment.
I'm with you somewhat in spirit, but I think the devil's in the details.
A particular concern I'd have with doing this is that it's fairly common for representatives to attach riders to bills that have little to nothing to do with the original text. As such, there may be times when my representative may be forced to vote against a bill, the core of which is something they campaigned on, because one or more riders are completely unacceptable.
I do think there's probably value in providing a mechanism to recall representatives and senators, not the least of which is because we've seen in recent history several such politicians do full 180s and even change political parties upon election.
I don't think we want to open the pandora's box of incarcerating representatives based upon their voting history, though.