I'm done with the traffic discussion. A slightly more interesting thread has emerged regarding the role and nature of government. I doubt I will make any headway here, but I can't stop writing about the subject. So here goes.

> If *nobody* obeys it (which probably won't be true), that may be an excuse for not making it in the first place; but to repeal a law you'd have to have a really good reason.

The fact that *nobody* obeys it seems like a damned fine reason to repeal it to me. I can't think of a single example (even hypothetical) where this isn't true. Can you?

> > You misunderstand. I didn't mean that the people vote on every law, but rather the power of the government is derived directly from the people. This is the most fundamental concept of American government (read the Declaration of Independence or Amendments IX and X of our Constitution) and to most democratic systems. It's an old idea, dating back at least as far as John Locke and probably further.
>
> I'm Australian, not American, and some of what I'm saying is from England, but the principles probably apply. The population has almost no say in the lawmaking; how different, really, are the candidates you are offered? And how much power does your representative have? In England most power is actually wielded by the Civil Service - the Department of This, the Department of That. The British political system has been described as "the engine of a lawnmower, and the brakes of a Rolls Royce" - the politicians and the Civil Service, respectively.

You bring up a few points. For starters, your system is almost certainly based on the British one (as is America's, to an extent), so the basic principles I outlined above (government governs with the consent of the governed) apply.

1) The population retains total control over elected officials. The idea that you have no control because you're not offered good candidates is silly -- there's nothing stopping you from forming your own party and getting your own candidates together. That you choose not to exercise this power doesn't mean you don't have it.

2) No individual representative has a ton of power (this is generally deliberate), but as a collective whole the elected portion of the government has a ton of power. The power to declare war is exclusively vested in that portion, as is the ability to create new laws (non-elected judicial branches often have the ability to strike down these laws).

3) Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the British Parliament set the budgets for the civil service? If you control the funds, you control the department. Furthermore, I believe that the various ministries are ultimately beholdent to an elected minister. I'd assume that the government also creates the guidelines that govern the hiring of new civil servants. In America, elected officials can't just fire civil servants because they feel like it, but all of the high-ranking administrative jobs in these ministries are controlled by politicians. How does this differ in Britain?

By the way, citing British comedies from the '80s does not count as evidence for an argument.

> > The idea (often called the social contract theory) is that government exists only at the behest of the people, since it is the people who institute governments in the first place. This is essentially why you elect representatives: it is your way of exercising control over the government which exists only to serve you. This principle is applicable to monarchies as well as democracies (Locke's seminal work on the subject was written in response to the English Glorious Revolution).
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> Very little control though.

Uh. I don't know about Australia, but we still get to elect every single congressman, state legislator and our president over here. I don't know how you say that's "very little" control.

> > To explain what this has to do with our current conversation: this basically all means that the government shouldn't be in the business of foisting laws upon the citizenry. Rather, the population is supposed to direct the government.
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> Yes, but the logistics would be something incredible.

What do you mean? This is exactly what happens. What do you think lobbying groups are? They may represent small, statiscally-skewed fragments of the population, but you can still form your own and get something done. And ultimately every politician still needs votes.

Stephen