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| ▲ | bayindirh a day ago | parent | next [-] |
| Plus, all neighbors of Switzerland are NATO members, so they can neither attack each other, nor Switzerland. Moreover, Switzerland is recognized as a NATO "partner". This allows them to handle internal matters with more concentration. Heh, they even had the luxury to "close" their air force on weekends until very recently. |
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| ▲ | atemerev 20 hours ago | parent [-] | | Well, we had the same system while surrounded by enemies during WW2. It still served us well. And what, the United States are surrounded by superpowers willing to wage war? That is news to me. |
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| ▲ | atemerev 20 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| 25% of Swiss population are foreigners. It is 60% in Geneva where I live. Yes, non-citizens cannot vote (except in some municipal and cantonal referendums). But neither can they in the US. |
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| ▲ | jf22 a day ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Yeah the US is about 33 Switzerland's in population and probably double that in size. |
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| ▲ | abecedarius a day ago | parent | next [-] | | From the other end, Switzerland has roughly 30 times the pop of classical Athens which I guess was then the largest democracy. It's not super obvious their governance could not evolve to scale to U.S. size. | |
| ▲ | Sohcahtoa82 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Switzerland is about 16,000 sq miles. That makes it bigger than Maryland, but smaller than West Virginia. It's about half the size of South Carolina. You could fit Switzerland in Texas 16 times and still have enough room to squeeze in a Belgium. | |
| ▲ | blackeyeblitzar a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Does that size difference matter? I see the wisdom in having a Senate to give different geographical locations some independence and control. But maybe it is possible to have more direct democracy while also balancing that concern? | |
| ▲ | Keyframe a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | more like 38x population and 233x area! |
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