I recall seeing a link to an article describing a place where all decisions and all rules enforced exactly what the majority of the population wished but can't find it again.
Can anyone point me to it?
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>> I recall seeing a link to an article describing a place where all decisions and
>> all rules enforced exactly what the majority of the population wished but can't find it
>> again.
>>
>> Can anyone point me to it?
Was it Erewhon?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erewhon
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No, I recall it being a stranger in a town who was being told about how things worked. Probably just a short story.
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>> a place where all decisions and all rules enforced exactly what the majority of the population wished
Isn't that what democracy is supposed to do?
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>> Isn't that what democracy is supposed to do?
Up to a point but in practice you get a table d'hote menu with no option of going a la carte!!
Sometimes what the majority think they want at first take changes when the arguments are fully and properly laid out.
Exit from EU may well be a case in point. While the case is put in terms of emotion - foreigners making our laws etc you get one result but when the full economic case and the reality of being a small neighbour to a big alliance is spelled out people change their minds.
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>> Exit from EU may well be a case in point. While the case is put
>> in terms of emotion - foreigners making our laws etc you get one result
Sensible people think it is a load of irrelevant claptrap.
>> when the full economic case and the reality of being a small neighbour to a
>> big alliance is spelled out people change their minds.
and realise that leaving the EU would not be all bad, and there is a need for more light and less heat.
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What, specifically, is wrong with being part of the EU.
1) Immigration? Seems we have worse immigration problems with other continents.
2) Laws? That they're crap or that they come from Europe?
3) Financials? The best I've seen is that we could survive the loss, not that things would get better.
And what, specifically, will leaving the EU fix?
1) Immigration from the EU? I wonder how many Brits currently work within the EU and will no longer have the right? Because its a lot more than none.
2) Laws? Like our politicians only pass sensible ones?
3)?
We have popular media that blasts and misrepresents over the front page of all the tabloids that some bloke in The Netherlands has made a suggestion that if it was exaggerated might mean our number plates might change shape and/or colour.
And *those* people, who care about the nasty Europeans attacking the colour of our number plates is who the tabloid media believes that UKIP appeals to.
And what will that media, and its readers, blame if we leave the EU doesn't fix everything?
Its all just meaningless tosh.
We'd be better off making it work.
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>> We'd be better off making it work.
That is my instinct, for what it's worth. Though we don't seem to be building any sort of consensus about that, either internally or across the EU.
What I don't like is the condescending dismissal of a very complicated proposition. Exactly the same has happened with the rubbishing of Scottish independence - and you can see what effect that has had.
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>> We'd be better off making it work.
>>
Don't knock this Guy, ol' RLBS
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With the possible exception of Ancient Athens there has never been a true democracy. What we have is a representative democracy where we vote for someone to make decisions on our behalf.
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>> With the possible exception of Ancient Athens there has never been a true democracy.
Democracy was for the property-owning soldiers who counted as citizens, not the more numerous slaves and peasant labourers who did all the boring stuff.
Representative democracy works, sort of. Anything direct would be disastrous given the views and preferences of so many of us.
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...not the more numerous slaves and peasant labourers...
...and women.
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And for those reason I included the word "possibly". It is true however that Athens is the only state that has ever attempted anything resembling a true democracy.
It is interesting that from a modern perspective we criticise the fact that comparatively few members of society could vote. The criticism at the time was that it gave too much power and decision making to the poor and uneducated who were not able to make rational decisions and which led to weak government.
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>> And for those reason I included the word "possibly". It is true however that Athens
>> is the only state that has ever attempted anything resembling a true democracy.
>>
Switzerland? Don't they have referendums on almost anything anyone wants one on?
And then different laws for the different cantons?
Surely democracy has to have a large representative rather than individual element. If 95% of people vote to enslave or massacre the other 5%, that wouldn't be democracy would it?
But if the elected representatives simply refused to implement the overwhelming majority decision, then that would be a better democracy?
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The jumped-up lunatic Gaddafi decided at one point that representative democracy was decadent western carp and Libya was going to have the real, direct thing. Soon he realised that posed a few problems he hadn't thought of and relapsed rapidly into the despotism that came naturally and suited the Powers that Be.
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I am trying to remember a film. Peter Cook was in it playing the PM istr, and all decisions were to be made by postal referendum. Everyone had a postbox in the front garden, and 100% employment resulted due to the demand for postal services. I also recall people marching off Beachy Head to make sure no pensions were required.
Of course I may have dreamt this, but if anyone can remember the film I would be grateful.
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Majority decisions - Duncan
