Our sport should be governed directly by the sailors through Internet. I feel revolutionary today!
I active disapprove of ISAF and other organisations that created themselves and have just "assumed" leadership over sailing in the same way.
...to run a country on popular referrendum would be a disaster for minorities....no homos, no jews, no whoever else was out of favour.
Perhaps you are confusing morality and legality. The democratic system does not necessarily implies or yields a moral system.
When people want imoral things they vote for them - and get what they voted for. If the majority of the people wanted to live as racists, they would certainly vote for a racist government/law and would eventually get what they voted for. This is one excellent reason to admire the US people: they usually want moral things and vote accordingly.
An example from recent history: when the germans wanted nazis and racism, they voted for it and certainly got what they voted for. The whole thing was 100% legal - including racist laws, organized exterminations, etc., It certainly wasn't a moral system, though.
I believe that allowing people to vote directly each law through Internet, instead of having "people's representatives" vote on their behalf, just makes the democratic process faster and more direct. This does not necessarily endangers a nation's values.
In the german/nazi case, it is possible that some of the people who voted and empowered the nazis, would have voted against racist laws or (more likely) against legal extermination - if they could vote each law through Internet. I guess online voting would have made it possible to change things earlier and avoid lots of suffering.
Naturally it is safer to start learning and adjusting for the faster change pace of such system by means of testing a direct online vote system in less sensitive areas - like worldwide sailing management! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />
