Ah, I see there's a poll set up. I vote for the people, then.

Quote Originally Posted by Divinus Arma
In America we went with a Republic for a number of reasons:

(1) There was already very few people who quailfied to vote anyway: white male property owners.
(2) The logistics of travel made direct democracy nearly impossible.
(3) The framers wanted to avoid exactly what you point out: Charismatic leaders controlling the public.
Yes. I am aware of the troubles too, especially concerning logistics.

Quote Originally Posted by Divinus Arma
The problem is that we have already ceded a huge amount of authority to the few. The Supreme Court has become a lwa making body when it decided for itself that it could undertake judicial review. The President can go to war with "a resolution authorizing force" instead of a congressional declaration of war.

Are we slipping away from democracy?
Those measures are there for mainly some of these reasons:

1. To counter the power of the mob. This is a Constitutional (or legal, depends on the country) counter against a possible "tyranny of the majority." Such measures, however, needs to be very carefully established as it can easily upsets a nation's balance of power.

2. For emergency measures when majority voting and other such administrative procedures becomes liabilities, such as cases that threaten a nation's security. This is an even harder issue than the counter-balance above.