A disappointment, both at the time and in hind-sight. Any centralized form of government, no matter how well intended, cannot work properly on the local, decentralized level due to the massive amounts of exceptions-to-the-rule which need to be recognized. Making a law, or a rule, cannot work properly if this law is decided upon far away from the local situation. I voted a couple of times when I still thought letting someone else decide for me was a good idea. Can't say I felt nice and fuzzy inside afterwards. But congratulations to you my friend, I hope your system works for you and your fellow Indians.
Direct democracy is nice in theory, but outside the United States seems to act effectively only at small-scale levels. Two cantons in Switzerland do it, and that's all. My objections to it are largely these. The first, explained by James Madison, in the Federalist number 10: The others are summed up by democratic theorists as participation, deliberation, and equality, which can be explained mostly as 'y'all aren't going to participate, act like nice rational folks, and let everyone be heard'. EDIT: And I guess with regard to voting or not voting, I see the dilemma (which I don't have, I vote as often as I can) as this: do you care more about a goal that you don't even do anything for by not voting and staying put and which would probably be more effectively realized by actively mobilizing, speaking up, and calling for a change in the nature of representation (and which is, according to said democratic theorists, probably pretty infeasible in practice for both human behavioral and bureaucratic reasons if you want to accomplish anything within a reasonable amount of time), or do you care more about using this clearly very imperfect system to accomplish other goals you may have for society, which are far more likely to be accomplished if people do in fact vote for them instead of sitting home and doing nothing?(A) pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party. Hence it is, that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.
First of all, I'm vehemently opposed to all forms of government which force rules upon me or anyone else without my or their say in it. That being said, direct democracy can work, even with the political infrastructure as we have today: there will be a need for administrators, secretaries, mailmen, etc etc
Just a matter of reversing the flow of political power. Watch or listen/read some of Etienne Chouard's work (a french philosopher, his movies and talks can be found on youtube).
The idea is so simple and elegant it could work within a day:
the secret is, you begin from the base up. It's too late to continue today; will do so tomorrow.