The electorate voted to leave and the elites are actively preventing the leaving from happening. Can you explain why this isn't crystal clear for you?
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- Thread starter GatoDelFuego
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Because that’s not really what’s happening? A portion (roughly 50% of the electorate) votes to leave on June 23rd 2016. Since then several polls have shown that the electorate would vote remain on a revote (and some have shown they’d vote leave again, source: https://whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/if-a-second-eu-referendum-were-held-today-how-would-you-vote/ ). So the question can reasonably be asked does the electorate still want to leave? The other half of your framing, “the elites” are preventing it from happening, is also problematic. One, because “elite” is a pretty nebulous word that implies that politicians (and possibly others? again, nebulous) are part of grand scheme against the electorate. Boris Johnson, the prime minister of the U.K., is apparently not an elite though? This seems like the line of thinking people who bought into “drain the swamp” had when voting for an amoral conman with a long history of corruption. Two, these politicians are elected by constituents to represent them. In the 2017 election parties that opposed brexit or think a revote should be held on the net gained seats. Which implies the electorate wanted more representation from those who opposed brexit. If the electorate overwhelmingly wants brexit, then why are they electing people who don’t?
The reality is the brexit question was posed in an objectively flawed manor. Do you want to leave the UK, yes or no? Doesn’t leave room for answers like, yes but only if we can maintain open borders with Ireland. Or yes, but only if we can maintain x economic deals with y countries. The way democracy actually works is that decisions are made with an educated population making an informed decision. There is new information (the terms the EU is willing to give the U.K. for leave)so logically speaking it isn’t unreasonable to think a new vote should be held. But I’m not a part of the UK electorate so maybe I’m just an elite working to undermine them.
I wish America was 48% elite.
there are also plenty of people who voted leave based on:
1) it being a non-binding referendum so it was treated more like an opinion poll than an actual thing you wanted your country to do
2) lies that vote leave trundled out that have been proven to be complete bollocks
a significant amount of people who voted leave then would vote remain now, because they've learned more about just how bad leaving the EU would actually be -- I am one of them
if there's anything that "the elite" wants, it's a hard brexit so they can short the pound, avoid the EU's upcoming anti-tax-haven laws, and sell out parts of the country to huge foreign companies
it's also worth mentioning that a lot of the old white people who voted leave have died off by now since it's been 3.5 years
1) it being a non-binding referendum so it was treated more like an opinion poll than an actual thing you wanted your country to do
2) lies that vote leave trundled out that have been proven to be complete bollocks
a significant amount of people who voted leave then would vote remain now, because they've learned more about just how bad leaving the EU would actually be -- I am one of them
if there's anything that "the elite" wants, it's a hard brexit so they can short the pound, avoid the EU's upcoming anti-tax-haven laws, and sell out parts of the country to huge foreign companies
it's also worth mentioning that a lot of the old white people who voted leave have died off by now since it's been 3.5 years
The rest will die off after Brexit when they can't afford gas for heating or we run out of medicine.
If you want to be technical, only something like 26% of the electorate actually voted for Brexit, because it has the same problem we encounter with democracies the world over, poor voter turnout. Not to mention, the Brexit being offered is much different than the Brexit that was promised in many of the campaigns and has basically been co-opted by the
The reason that Brexit is so difficult to sort is because it was asked, "Leave: Yes or No" but it turns out that leaving is not a yes or no question, and everyone under the s*n has a different idea of what "Leave" actually looks like and the so-called hard brexiteers want no-deal WTO terms, some people want a customs unions, and any other permutation you can think of, not even taking into account the Good Friday Agreement and Northern Ireland and that whole history. It's a massive clusterfuck and expecting a few hundred MPs with vast philosophical differences to somehow magically solve it in a way that pleases everyone is madness. A second referendum makes sense to put it back to the people to confirm that this is what they want, since the public had a vote in the first place. Also, I think after Brexit is done and sorted, either if they leave or remain, the UK should outlaw referendums because holy shit this has a been a fiasco nearly four years in the making. Sorry to rant about literally the last topic anyone in the UK wants to discuss, but I felt the need to give my two pence.
You're wrong though. Being educated has nothing to do with democracy. You can invent your own definition all you like, but that's not what democracy is. Everyone eligible gets to vote, regardless of how educated or informed they may be. Your version is not how a democratic vote works in the United Kingdom.
Also it's definitely unreasonable to think that a new vote should be held unless you want to scrap the entire system. The terms of leaving were known variables. The question was a simple yes or no. As flawed as you may think that to be, there's no debate to be had that a new vote should be held, before implementing the outcome of the first vote, under any integrity of the current system.
I didn’t mean that that’s how the U.K. is, I meant that’s how an ideal democracy works, sorry if that was unclear. I also am not saying uneducated or informed people shouldn’t be able to vote, rather, ideally voters are both educated and informed on the topic of the vote. I don’t think that’s controversial.
The variables were not known, I don’t think the average leave (or stay) voter understood how the leave process would actually work. A revote actually entirely makes sense with in the system especially considering that the parties that support staying in the U.K. or holding a revote gained seats in the previous election. If the electorate wants to leave then they should elect people who actually want to leave, unless they want to hold a revote. This is how representative democracies work. A non-binding leave referendum got voted yes, implying the electorate wants to leave. Since then representatives who do not want to leave were elected implying the public wants to revote or stay. Therefore they should revote. Democracy isn’t just holding a vote once and saying, well that solves it it’s done! It’s a living process subject to people changing their minds. Those “known variables” are no longer even variables, what the implications of “leave” means are now known. Considering the revote and stay parties gained seats and there is more information on the terms of brexit, one could easily argue it would be undemocratic not to hold a revote.
To be more explicit about it, if you held a non binding vote between pizza and tacos, where the ingredients of the pizza are laid out and the taco is just listed as taco. And people chose tacos, then it turns out it’s a vegetarian taco made with beets, is it really that weird to hold a revote with that information? What if it’s regular tacos with a small dog turd in the center? Are you holding a revote or are you eating shit, “cause holding a revote is unreasonable”.
When the "leave" side was claiming things like "leave means we get all of the benefits of the EU but with none of the problems, plus extra money for our NHS" when it turned out that was complete bullshit, then yes, we should get another vote
Few things bug me more than people who try to discount the results of the brexit referendum with one of these 3 arguments:
(similarly, if you agree that people voted to leave but you think it's a stupid-ass decision and we should ignore it, I have no beef with you. I'm just beefing with people discounting the referendum results).
- Not everyone who voted the same way wanted the same exact outcomes
- If you consider voter turnout, the majority actually becomes a minority
- The voters were uneducated as to the consequence of their choice
(similarly, if you agree that people voted to leave but you think it's a stupid-ass decision and we should ignore it, I have no beef with you. I'm just beefing with people discounting the referendum results).
It's the best bad solution we have.
A "benevolent" dictatorship can turn tyrannical in only one generation. European democracies are designed to effetely flop around for a long long time before it comes to that.
Debatably not the same thing. Most republics are indeed designed with gridlock as an intentional feature, so nothing gets done unless it's screamingly obviously the right thing to do. Of course, lately they've been getting around this by delegating more and more legislative power to the executive (totally illegal, btw, but nobody stops them), but that's a mistake which should be discussed in its own thread.
On the other hand, direct democracy (like this referendum) has no baked-in gridlock and all the power in the world to fuck things up in one day with 52% of the vote.
In a vote, it's the responsibility of the voters to know what they are actually voting for. You could argue that it's equally undemocratic to hold the vote again as you are then dismissing the leave voters who won a fair and square victory and haven't changed their opinions. I say this as somebody that would have voted stay.
Usually I'd agree that running double jeopardy until you get the desired result is undemocratic, but an exception should be made in the case of the original vote being either deceptive or incomplete, which seems to be the contention of many users in this thread. I'm not a UK citizen and I know very little about Brexit and the arguments for and against it, but I think trying to discard the idea of a revote as undemocratic isn't necessarily the right thing to do.
Except representative democracies repeatedly hold votes on the same things repeatedly as a definition. It’s not like you hold an election and say, “x party won, they get to be in charge forever!” Even referendum votes in democracies are sometimes repeated, (recreational marijuana in California failed a ballot initiative in 1976, but passed in 2016). A fundamental part of democracy is continually reassessing previous votes, the electorate changes over time and in a democracy the government changes with it. If, hypothetically, brexit had already happened, but a government that wanted to hold a referendum on rejoining the EU was elected by the the U.K. electorate, would it be undemocratic to hold an referendum on it? Would it be undemocratic if it were held 20 years after leaving? If no, why does it matter whether or not they leave before the vote is held? If yes, then why is the electorate on June 23rd 2016 making the decision for the electorate in 2036 acceptable but the electorate of 2019 making a decision for themselves not?
with this in mind, it's also worth repeating that the brexit vote in 2016 was the second vote for "do you want to stay in the EU or not", so if your argument is "we should never have a vote for the same thing twice" then you're also saying "the 2016 brexit vote didn't count". Peoples' opinions change over time lol
Brexit means Brexit lads. Simple as.
You're almost there. Implement the Brexit and restore the British monarchy to its former glory.
lol
The "democracy" argument against another vote is utter nonsense and people falling for it is ridiculous and sad.
- Ignoring all context here, there's an inherent logical inconsistency to that position: people voting is the founding aspect of democracy. To portray its use as unworthy of democracy in any way is ridiculously challenging and needs to be a little more rigorous than "people already voted" because that needs to be contextualize way more rofl. If there's some pressure for a specific result, or an obvious attempt to ignore representing the results of the popular vote, then sure, that's starting to be a proper context, but it's not really applicable here, is it?
- But it's not only weird as an abstract concept, it's plain off in terms of British politics as well. How many times has Parliament voted on Brexit deals at this point? I've lost count, but it's definitely more than once. The Speaker has blocked votes at some points due to lack of new information, sure, but Parliament has had a consistent method of updating throughout this whole ordeal, without having the people ever directly involved into the actual voting. But it's the second part that's not democratic...?
- Going a bit "deeper" in the British context though, a lot of the issue starts right at the referendum question: Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union? Ok, it's clear and short, which is good for a question and all, with one major caveat: It actually doesn't invoke anything on the what and the how of the future, and unlike EU referendums doesn't actually stand for a formal vote on approval or refusal of a policy proposal. Which is actually a ridiculously big deal as we've seen... Because it's just not really easy to dismantle a political union and not having an actual plan to execute spells trouble. If anything, that's precisely why another vote is needed in my view: Because Parliament has something to present to the voters now in terms of a plan, which was absolutely missing previously. And to me wailing about the "elites" ruining Brexit yet advocating for those said elites to ignore the people to preserve democracy is just... tremendously inconsistent at best. You can disagree on why another vote should happen, sure. But I can't see how it's against democracy when it's probably the best way for the British people to formally reply to the failings and breakthroughs - but let's be honest, overwhelmingly failings - of the political class in terms of what happened is quite peculiar.
Oh and no, elections are definitely not a good way of that like heck no, even moreso in a system designed to block people from having relevance in comparison to an equal vote for all citizens, which is what another referendum would at least be.
- Ignoring all context here, there's an inherent logical inconsistency to that position: people voting is the founding aspect of democracy. To portray its use as unworthy of democracy in any way is ridiculously challenging and needs to be a little more rigorous than "people already voted" because that needs to be contextualize way more rofl. If there's some pressure for a specific result, or an obvious attempt to ignore representing the results of the popular vote, then sure, that's starting to be a proper context, but it's not really applicable here, is it?
- But it's not only weird as an abstract concept, it's plain off in terms of British politics as well. How many times has Parliament voted on Brexit deals at this point? I've lost count, but it's definitely more than once. The Speaker has blocked votes at some points due to lack of new information, sure, but Parliament has had a consistent method of updating throughout this whole ordeal, without having the people ever directly involved into the actual voting. But it's the second part that's not democratic...?
- Going a bit "deeper" in the British context though, a lot of the issue starts right at the referendum question: Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union? Ok, it's clear and short, which is good for a question and all, with one major caveat: It actually doesn't invoke anything on the what and the how of the future, and unlike EU referendums doesn't actually stand for a formal vote on approval or refusal of a policy proposal. Which is actually a ridiculously big deal as we've seen... Because it's just not really easy to dismantle a political union and not having an actual plan to execute spells trouble. If anything, that's precisely why another vote is needed in my view: Because Parliament has something to present to the voters now in terms of a plan, which was absolutely missing previously. And to me wailing about the "elites" ruining Brexit yet advocating for those said elites to ignore the people to preserve democracy is just... tremendously inconsistent at best. You can disagree on why another vote should happen, sure. But I can't see how it's against democracy when it's probably the best way for the British people to formally reply to the failings and breakthroughs - but let's be honest, overwhelmingly failings - of the political class in terms of what happened is quite peculiar.
Oh and no, elections are definitely not a good way of that like heck no, even moreso in a system designed to block people from having relevance in comparison to an equal vote for all citizens, which is what another referendum would at least be.
https://www.theroot.com/23-years-a-...MvYflQYyoLc8SQN_gyq1SzNyJFO80Tw9q81OqdaH9xxp0
whiteness as a legal entitlement to property imo, cw: very horrifying
whiteness as a legal entitlement to property imo, cw: very horrifying
Scumbag got off too lightly, but at least he didn't get off completely. I wonder how many similar situations are currently going on unreported.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/...q8m2UY1-o79ZXzt_7NwKFjmbTX2ld6vCBqw4rcVxromi8
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However, media (e.g., Voice of America, 10/11/19; Miami Herald, 10/9/19; Reuters, 10/9/19) are taking seriously the accusation that the Ecuadorian protests are, in fact, masterminded abroad, by President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, with the Guardian (10/8/19) going so far to describe the Ecuadorians not as "democracy-minded people," but "rioters"—a label not appearing in connection with Hong Kong, except as an accusation by Chinese officials (e.g., Time, 10/2/19; CNN, 10/22/19), are almost universally condemned in coverage as part of a "repressive" (e.g., Vox, 8/29/19; Guardian, 10/19/19) "dictatorship" (New York Times, 8/29/19).
In the cases of the less-covered protests, the "wrong" people are protesting and the "wrong" governments are doing the repressing. As the Washington Post (10/14/19) noted on Haiti,
hoping this article will somehow help some ppl to come to less stupid beliefs abt political violence, also somehow it's formatting got put into the post so srry
"
However, media (e.g., Voice of America, 10/11/19; Miami Herald, 10/9/19; Reuters, 10/9/19) are taking seriously the accusation that the Ecuadorian protests are, in fact, masterminded abroad, by President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, with the Guardian (10/8/19) going so far to describe the Ecuadorians not as "democracy-minded people," but "rioters"—a label not appearing in connection with Hong Kong, except as an accusation by Chinese officials (e.g., Time, 10/2/19; CNN, 10/22/19), are almost universally condemned in coverage as part of a "repressive" (e.g., Vox, 8/29/19; Guardian, 10/19/19) "dictatorship" (New York Times, 8/29/19).
In the cases of the less-covered protests, the "wrong" people are protesting and the "wrong" governments are doing the repressing. As the Washington Post (10/14/19) noted on Haiti,
On Ecuador, the State Department has been more forthcoming, issuing a full endorsement of Moreno's neoliberal austerity package:
In other words, don't expect any angry editorials denouncing US client states like Haiti or Ecuador, or arguing that the Chilean government's repression of its protest movement shows the moral bankruptcy of capitalism. Indeed, corporate media (e.g., Guardian, 10/8/19; CNN, 10/8/19; USA Today, 10/10/19) emphasized the violence of the Ecuadorian protestors while downplaying Hong Kong's—the New York Times (6/30/19) even inventing the phrase "aggressive nonviolence" to describe the Hong Kong protesters' actions, so eager was it to frame the demonstrations against China as unquestionably laudable"
hoping this article will somehow help some ppl to come to less stupid beliefs abt political violence, also somehow it's formatting got put into the post so srry
What's the 411 on Ecuador now?
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