You can always check the “changelog” link on the right sidebar here to see what’s going on with site improvements.  Thanks again fo the input!

One of my favorite reads – and a great motivator to me – is “The Other Founders: Anti-Federalism and the Dissenting Tradition in America, 1788-1828” by Saul Cornell. Not necessarily for the drive-by reader, but really good stuff for someone interested in the reality that there’s a great tradition for radical movements in this country.

Oh, and I did my best to clean up the code on your previous comment. You’re not the only one asking for edit capabilities…working on getting that implemented soon!

For the best balanced pro-and-con discussion of the broad spectrum of direct democracy, see Professor Joe Zimmerman’s four books –

Joseph F. Zimmerman, Participatory Democracy: Populism Revived; New York: Praeger, 1986.
 
Joseph F. Zimmerman, The New England Town Meeting: Democracy In Action. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, March 1999.

Joseph F. Zimmerman, The Initiative: Citizen Law-Making. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, December 1999.
 
Joseph F. Zimmerman,The Referendum: The People Decide Public Policy. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2001.
 
His volume, The New England Town Meeting will be particulary valuable as a companion to Professor Miller’s book, cited in my first comment, above.

Joe Zimmerman is on my short list of heroes.  There is a huge institutional bias against any professor who writes truths about direct democracy, no matter how milquetoast and non-revolutionary.  Zimmerman’s work took more courage than can be imagined outside the hallowed halls of history-doing.  He has gone against the vast majority of his peers, whom we direct democracy advocates derisively call, “Madisonian scholars”.  They are the ones who perpetrate the continuation of the Constitution’s no-compromise system, which favors the predator elites.

That said, Joe Zimmerman’s balance with pro and con — giving both sides of all arguments — is no longer something that I can support.  I’ve become convinced that anti-direct-democracy is flatly evil — and that giving evil any “due” is a foolish waste of time.  I’m convinced that we cannot reason with evil.  It’s proponents certainly will not reason with us.  See Bush’s war dances.

Beyond Zimmerman, there is one slender, expensive book that you should drop in your backpack for continuous study for the next decade or so.

Kris W. Kobach, The Referendum: Direct Democracy In Switzerland. England and Vermont: Dartmouth Publishing Co., 1993.

Maddeningly without an index, it is about how the Swiss do it.  The title is a bit of a misnomer, however.  Kobach richly compares several other national and US-state direct democracy systems with how the Swiss do it.  Get the book and then don’t let it out of your reach.  When Americans do finally devise their own national direct democracy system, much of it will will come from Kobach’s text.

Lastly, you asked about the Anti-Federalist Papers.  I encourage you to launch that study — and the Federalist Papers re-study — as on-going, semi-permanent projects.

The two groups of papers are hallowed stuff for Americans.  How you study the two sets, the comparisons you draw out, and the lessons you derive from them, will tell the tale of what sort of American you are.

Note please that the Federalist Papers were the ratification bible for the predator elites.  The classical sophistry, vacuous arguments, distorted facts, and outright lies are stacked wide and deep. 
The money-power-grubbing literal bastard, Hamilton, is the lynch pin for Federalist Papers scams.  Dealing with his texts becomes painlessly easy after reading  this one particular book –

George A. Kennedy, translator, Aristotle On Rhetoric:  A Theory of Civil Discourse, Oxford University Press, 1991.

Kennedy writes for the non-philosopher, non-Greek-speaking layman.  The book is a tour ‘d force in producing English-language clarity of Aristotle’s original work on rhetoric.  When you’ve finished it, not only will your appreciation of persuasion be way up there, but Hamilton’s evil tricks and traps in the Federalist Papers will be transparent   Aristotlean logic, sub-logic, and rhetoric was all Hamilton had to do his tricky traps.  He must have thought that he was very good with Aristotlean ways.  He wasn’t.  His tricky traps, exposed by Kennedy’s smooth teaching, seem only a juvenile appreciation of Aristotle’s teaching.  Hamilton’s logical and rhetorical prowess is flatly juvenile.

Good luck to us all.

Looking forward to reading more soon – would either of you recommend reading the Anti-Federalist papers?  It’s something I’ve wanted to do for some time.

I think we’ll spring-board off the Colonial and Reform Era democracy solutions — rather than straightforwardly adopt whole systems from the earlier times — but in-detail study of those earlier solutions will certainly points the way for us.  Sustainability and transparency were two political benchmarks of the times.  We can learn a lot from the earlier direct democracy efforts for the creation of our own future systems.

Systematic study of Colonial and Reform Era DD efforsts, is difficult to say the least.  The predators have blocked evry pathway imaginable.  Your monograph here has many exciting sapects.  But fitting your work into the broad envelope of the period’s explored possibilities is even more exciting — if the reader can find the way.

 Let me recommend one short book as a sort of period organizer.

Joshua I. Miller, The Rise And Fall Of Democracy In Early America, 1630–1789: The Legacy For Contemporary Politics. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991.

Democracy activists today are working aainst hundreds of years of systematic  dumb-down done by the predator elites.  Direct democracy means lots of rights and freedoms.  That stuff knocks corruption-driven profits and power for the favored few right in the head. 

Across all of human history, there’ve been very few effective chanllenges to the dominance of the predators.  Got money, weapons, and private armies?  Willing to lie, cheat, and murder for profits and power?  Then you and your posterity rule — for thousands of years at a time.

Two big, effective challenges to the predators were the direct democracy solutions developed in the American Colonial and Reform Eras.  The predators will sacrifice any of us to keep the majority dumbed-down about how easily predators can be controlled by direct democracy. 

Read, study, think, discuss – and question everything. 

Last time I was in Vermont I walked out of the Hotel to face a 20 MPH wind and 25 below temperature.  By the time i had walked around a hundred feet my face was hurting.

Thanks again for this article.  I’m going to do some more reading up on the populism there and what made it go.  I have read somewhat about Lake Champlaine and how it was once a Salt Water inlet to the Ocean. 

What a historic place.

Good stuff here!