Misinformation and undereducation makes things worse, to be sure, but that's not really what I was speaking of. My point was that becoming fully informed about anything is a lot of work. Becoming fully informed about everything is impossible.
"You still have subtle media manipulation like sky-news but nothing as blatant as fox-news&hollywood."
That's just silly. There's plenty of drivel in the UK. The Daily Mail easily gives Fox a run for its money, and The Sun is owned by the same guy who owns Fox News. My understanding is that the situation in other countries is roughly similar - some good journalism and a lot of crap - but I am less familiar. Switzerland's history of referenda is indeed comparatively good; I think there's a lot of factors that have contributed to its success.
Finally, even if you think the above factors are the only reason direct democracy works (or would work) beautifully in Europe and horribly in the US, what would you propose to fix them? I contend that "direct democracy" is not much of a remedy.
"You still have subtle media manipulation like sky-news but nothing as blatant as fox-news&hollywood."
That's just silly. There's plenty of drivel in the UK. The Daily Mail easily gives Fox a run for its money, and The Sun is owned by the same guy who owns Fox News. My understanding is that the situation in other countries is roughly similar - some good journalism and a lot of crap - but I am less familiar. Switzerland's history of referenda is indeed comparatively good; I think there's a lot of factors that have contributed to its success.
Finally, even if you think the above factors are the only reason direct democracy works (or would work) beautifully in Europe and horribly in the US, what would you propose to fix them? I contend that "direct democracy" is not much of a remedy.