Re: The Eeeeew
Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2017 8:02 am
Yup, that's how it works.
zaratustra wrote:The will of the 21% of the people that actually went out and voted Leave, you mean.
zaratustra wrote:The will of the 21% of the people that actually went out and voted Leave, you mean.
zaratustra wrote:Well I mean aside from the old standbies like immigrants not being able to vote
There was the fact the Brexit referendum was set in the middle of the fucking week, and it just happened to be one of the stormiest days of the year in London
and so retirees from outside the capital had that much more of a push
Thad wrote:I've been on the receiving end of a legislature voting to nullify an initiative passed by the public. I'm not in favor of it.
I think Brexit's a terrible idea. But I also think it's a government's job to govern according to the will of the people.
TA wrote:But a blanket statement that the government's job is to govern according to the will of the people, full stop? That's the definition of tyranny of the majority.
Thad wrote:TA wrote:But a blanket statement that the government's job is to govern according to the will of the people, full stop? That's the definition of tyranny of the majority.
It's also a statement I never actually made, and you know it.
Thad wrote:I think Brexit's a terrible idea. But I also think it's a government's job to govern according to the will of the people.
TA wrote:Thad wrote:TA wrote:But a blanket statement that the government's job is to govern according to the will of the people, full stop? That's the definition of tyranny of the majority.
It's also a statement I never actually made, and you know it.Thad wrote:I think Brexit's a terrible idea. But I also think it's a government's job to govern according to the will of the people.
Clearly this is an argument in good faith that's worth engagement.
Thad wrote:This isn't Twitter. Nobody is going to upvote or retweet your 140-character zingers.
Brentai wrote:I would disagree that Brexit is outside the bounds of where a government has the right to step in. This is a massive upset to the economy, to immigration, to people's jobs and rights (mostly travel rights), to trade, to social views and a whole slew of other things. This is the point where I would expect a theoretically competent elected official to step in and say, look:
"My job is to spend more time and effort thinking about best way to manage this land's economy, laws and agreements than you do, in your interest. You put me in this position because it's not reasonable to expect all of you to be doing the same at all times. If I can't do this task, then there is no reason for me to be here other than to waste a lot of money while standing between you and the rulebooks. I have heard your wishes, and I respect them, but this is the time for me to say: You are wrong, I am not going to do this, and this is why."
Brentai wrote:As an aside, I would also say that raising the minimum wage is within the bounds of the elected legislature to decide as well. Economy is a tricky thing that is usually badly served by raising one thing and not lowering anything else. To Thad: I understand your grievance very well, but in my view the root of it isn't that they're allowed to block what the people voted for, it's that they are choosing to block what the people voted for based on their own interests and not the people's.
We could solve a lot of this world's problems today if we could find a way to make our leaders' personal interests irrelevant.
patito wrote:The Brexit vote was a nondbinding referendum that people didn't take seriously, because it was a nonbinding referendum, it's very very far away from being the will of the people.
Brentai wrote:I don't know about the "people didn't take seriously" part.
Mongrel wrote:argh just stop
This is a reasonable argument (you can tell because it doesn't have nazis in it).
Thad wrote:But I don't like what it implies, which is that elected officials can and indeed should ignore the economic priorities of their constituents.
There's more than a whiff of paternalism to the notion that the government knows what's in the people's best interests better than the people do.
Plus, I can cite a whole lot of evidence to the contrary.
I'm a lot more amenable to government intervention to protect civil rights. And there's very probably a civil rights case to make here, but nobody's really made it to my satisfaction, and nobody but Zara has even tried.
At any rate, it's rather a moot point. It's not like Labour has the votes to block it anyway.
Brentai wrote:This is a reasonable argument (you can tell because it doesn't have nazis in it).
I don't find arguments involving Nazis inherently unreasonable, especially now that they're starting to become immediately relevant again.
But I'll agree that they need to be given quite a bit more reverence than they usually are (and I'll cop to having used the term "gestapo" in passion when I should have used something like "warden" in the past if that helps).
Brentai wrote:Thad wrote:But I don't like what it implies, which is that elected officials can and indeed should ignore the economic priorities of their constituents.
I tried to be clear that the priorities of the constituents should be an elected official's only concern. Brexit - at least a "hard Brexit" - is clearly not in the interests of the constituents, no matter what they might have been duped into believing. Minimum wage laws are quite a bit murkier and I'm leaving it at "Officials should have the option of overriding a mandate if done in good faith," which of course is not in this case.
There's more than a whiff of paternalism to the notion that the government knows what's in the people's best interests better than the people do.
Oh, granted, and I don't like it any more than you do, but have you talked to the people lately?
(If it sounds like I'm angling at something like a return to Monarchy or a Shadow Government here, well, no. The People are probably still more trustworthy than a system based loosely on genetics and under-the-table agreements. Democracy remains, at this time, the worst form of government except for all the others that exist, and I'm very interested in hearing about theoretical alternatives.)
At any rate, it's rather a moot point. It's not like Labour has the votes to block it anyway.
Well, maybe. But protest votes always seem to have a much greater impact in the future than people assume they do.
Thad wrote:The problem, as I see it, is that you're presupposing wise, knowledgeable, and well-meaning elected officials. That's a worthy goal, but I'm not sure it's an attainable one. I think some level of trust of government is necessary, but some level of suspicion is, too.
If the same people who voted to elect Doug Ducey also voted to increase the minimum wage, and Doug Ducey opposes a minimum wage increase, does that mean that the voters picked Ducey because they defer to his judgement on the subject, or does it mean that they voted on a referendum specifically because, while they like Ducey better than DuVal as a whole, they disagree with him on the minimum wage?
But I also don't see it as much of a betrayal -- I think Brexit really is a foregone conclusion at this point, that a last-minute attempt by the minority parties to scuttle it won't accomplish anything except possibly generating even more economic uncertainty, and that there will be other, better hills to die on if they save their political capital.
I mean, I'd probably vote No if I were an elected official. But that's one of many reasons I'll never hold political office.