Taking your words to the context of a single state in America, and given that political environment is unlikely to change in the short run, is it better to have a super-majoritarian rule (e.g. Florida proposition banning same-sex marriage) than a majoritarian one (e.g. California proposition 8 banning same sex marriage) when it comes to direct democracy? Is it better to leave rights of the people, in particular the unprivileged minorities, to the judiciary?
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Very good question? Probably no one can give you an answer, except the God. Because there is no right or wrong answer to a human wisdom or limited knowledge. To me, it may depend on the situation faced and the knowledge of "Nature Law."
If we want to answer the question, there are at least some precedent questions have to be defined and clarified. First question shall be what "democracy" means. Then, the next, what are the purposes for a democracy? What make it better than a dictatorship or other systems? The third, how can we better set up a system to reach the purposes we expect? Then, the last but not the least important, is a "direct" democracy such as an American "referendum" fits in the standards of democracy? Or can it be a better means than a "delegated" democracy to truly dig out or better serve the general interests of the public?
Our ancestors have experiment to all kinds of democracy. From Greek Republic, Roman Republic down, we have too many democracy. Some are a democracy in name, but a mob rule in essence. Is the form of a system can be more democratic? American Presidential and federal system a good one, or British Cabinet and unity better?
There are so many different standards or formations set by different political entities at the different points of history. Say, if we believe a democracy is expected to explore people's will or screen out the best or intelligent leaders for the organization, the rule is clearly set on "academic ability." But, even a scholar as smart as Adam Smith is NOT qualified to be a electorate at his times, can we say the British was not a democracy? Can anyone votes if he reaches his 18 of age? Is it fair or better to treat a Ph.D., as an illiterate if we stand up for the notion of "one person, one vote; one vote, one value?" It is safe for me to say it is judged by the ideas, concepts, feelings, perspective or value system the people has.
For now, I have observed enough the drawbacks of California "referendum" system. It is safe for me to say it is a big failure, if not a disaster, to meet almost all and every standards as a democracy. It made California step down from the top leading "golden state" into an inferior "debt-broken state" in 30 years, all the politicians is unable to make a in-time budget, let alone to balance it and its efficiency of economy or an elite teamwork as a political economy. The head of the California state, the Governors, are just like a political powerless dwarf who has no sufficient executive power to touch or use 80% of the state tax revenue (already decided by so many so-called propositions) to implement his platforms, a promise to his constituency. It is NOT a good experiment to fulfill the Democracy Dream, if we have one in California.
So many questions need to be answered. To me, I will say all the constitutional rights shall be better decided by a judge, not by a vote. However, the boundary limits sometimes can be very blurred if we look at the interaction of theory and practice of civilization.
雲遊去了﹐有緣自聚
The Governator announced to the newly minted politicians on Monday that California is now officially in a fiscal emergency. He had called for a special session trying to resolve the issue but lame duck politicians were on “fact finding” junkets or simply playing hide the salami while Rome burned. These are the people leading our state which is the most powerful economic engine in the 50 states of the union. What an absolute disgrace. These people are getting 6-figure salaries and the only job they have is to represent the populace and they can't seem to even get that right. Our deficit is ballooning each and every day and budget analysts are saying that we may be broke by February 1.
The state budget deficit is gigantic. To first understand this mess, you have to follow the money:
Keep in mind these are estimates. A state as large as California with expenses over $100 billion is no small thing. But anyone can quickly look at the above pie chart and understand we are in serious trouble. The two biggest sources of revenue for the state are personal income tax and sales tax. These 2 areas make up 71% of all revenue sources. Well, you can already see the problem arising here. First, as much as people want to believe that Black Friday was somehow going to resurrect the economy one day does not make a trend. People are not spending as much and subsequently sales tax revenues are going to shock us on the downside. In terms of the personal income tax, well you can pretty much kiss a large portion of that goodbye. High paying bubble jobs like real estate agents, mortgage brokers, financial analysts, construction workers, car salesmen, and others in the FIRE economy are no longer going to be paying Uncle Arnold their chunk of gravy train day salary. The personal income tax damage will be obvious come Q1 and Q2 of 2009.
In addition, those that have no job are literally paying zero into this pot and we are having more and more fall into this category especially here in California that now has the 3rd highest unemployment rate in the nation:
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2008/12/01 10:24 
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