why should congress approve the laws instead of people.?

Question

its for a debate in my class.

Answer 1

in theory it is less cumbersome to have a few representing the majority passing the laws instead of everyone going to the polls everyday

Answer 2

If you look back at the reasons why we have a Congress to begin with, you'll find the answer.

Firstly, at the time, voting was usually restricted to male property owners. As men tend to be less supportive of big government than women (here's a poll that shows that men tend to lean libertarian and women tend to lean toward big government http://www.theadvocates.org/library/poll-results.html ), and property owners are more likely to be Capitalist than Socialist (which is obvious), this was designed as a check on the power of government.

Secondly, only the House was elected. The Senate was chosen by the state legislatures who didn't want a large federal government to limit their powers.

If you look back at the history of our country, the founders fought a war of secession (if you consider Lincoln to be justified, you cannot be consistent if you consider the founders to be justified), refused to pay taxes (they had a lot in common with today's "tax protest" movement), and a large portion of them didn't want the Constitution and they actually were correct when they predicted what would happen (Patrick Henry predicted in the Virginia legislature that the Federal Government would invade Virginia, as Abe Lincoln eventually did even though Virginia specifically reserved the right of secession when they ratified the Constitution; the "Anti-Federalists" opposed the Constitution because it had insufficient safeguards against big government, which was proven correct by the Adams administration and later Lincoln, Wilson, FDR, Truman, LBJ, Nixon, Clinton, and Bush).

Congress was originally extremely limited in its powers (under a proper interpretation of the Constitution, Congress may not do anything except what it is specifically permitted to do by the Constitution, nor may any federal branch do anything that it isn't specifically permitted to do and the "elastic" clause actually means nothing).

The key thing to recognize is that we do not live under the Constitution anymore, but rather we live under rule by judges, "unitary executives," and totalitarian legislatures. The poorly named "Progressivism" swept the country in the early 20th century and America has not been a truly free country ever since (if it was, the government wouldn't steal over half of your earnings every year for its glorified protection racket).

Answer 3

News flash. Congress does pass the laws but the President has to sign them into laws

Answer 4

It is difficult enough getting 400 odd congressmen and women together to understand the implications of a new law, agree on the terminology and getting it passed. Getting the input and approval of 200 million citizens would be a logistical and financial nightmare.

Answer 5

Because the Congress is elected to represent the people.

Answer 6

Congress takes hundreds of votes every year on various resolutions and pieces of legislation. Would you really want to spend millions of dollars to have people vote on each one of those items? Keep in mind that it's highly unlikely people would (or could) educate themselves on all of those items.

Representative democracy with 300 million people is much more viable than direct democracy.

Answer 7

Yes, a poor debate.

How would you like a 100 Million different laws with Billions of Pork added on?????