To criticise our irresponsible press, who only exist to further the ends its owners, is not to critics the principle of a free press.
If I complain that there are too many potholes, it doesn’t mean that I don’t approve of roads.
I don’t know what media you refer to Timothy but the UK has the whole range of free press according to what you want to read, from ultra-Brexit, through relatively neutral, all the way to ultra-Remain. And the great majority of social media content (facebook, most forums, etc) is strongly ultra-Remain in the content which is actually posted.
Timothy wrote:
To criticise our irresponsible press, who only exist to further the ends its owners, is not to critics the principle of a free press.If I complain that there are too many potholes, it doesn’t mean that I don’t approve of roads.
Yes, but roads dont automatically come with potholes. Anyone owning media, will, at some point, pedal their own objectives, and if you sensor, then inevitably the sensor will replace the owner’s objectives with their own.
In other words complaining about potholes has an obvious solution, complaining about the press is like complaining the Pope is a Catholic, and without a solution.
As to the vote, and to introduce another element, on balance I have never been in favour of a simple majority.
I think on issues of great importance, and WHERE the vote is to reject something we already have, then there should be a 5% swing. At least this ensures that the Brexiters (or anyone else on a similiar issue) must demonstrate a convincing case.
In company law there are plenty of examples of key issues where a simple majority is not sufficient, and I think there is also an argument in a democracy for something similiar.
Perhaps it should be applied to any issue thought important enough to hold a referendum.
I think it would also have dealt with the remoaning and everthing else we have which continues to distract from the agenda.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
Anyone owning media, will, at some point, pedal their own objectives, and if you sensor, then inevitably the sensor will replace the owner’s objectives with their own.
Of course. For example BBC is in my view an example of an organization blatantly promoting the agenda of its government owner. A free press and marketplace of ideas works fine in response except that some are drawn like moths to a flame to the ivory tower non-solution of harmony and only one perfect idea. It’s one of the hazards of being over educated and under-wise 
Agreed about the hazards of totally direct democracy, and potential tyranny of the 51% majority.
Silvaire wrote:
potential tyranny of the 51% majority.
This is precisely what the no voters in the Indy Ref 1 campaign did, when they ’’won’’. They immediately started on the line of this was a once in a generation vote, and it will never happen again. The enlightened few saw that a Westminster based government was going to make the Scottish people pay for having the audacity to even think about leaving the UK, backed wholeheartedly by the ’’tyrannical 51%. did mot take long with the Brexit power grab, making Scotland, little Scotlandshire.
Someone stated earlier that we are incredibly poorly served by our political masters, of all parties. However, apathy generally allows tyrants and warlords to rule supreme, with the masses claiming no democracy. Our Brexit negotiators would not be there unless propped up by the DUP. A classic example.
BeechBaby wrote:
Someone stated earlier that we are incredibly poorly served by our political masters, of all parties. However, apathy generally allows tyrants and warlords to rule supreme, with the masses claiming no democracy.
“It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power.” — , John Adams ,1788.
BTW in case you might think the debate on inherited power is something very modern, this is an extract from the link above, describing a discussion in writing between Adams and Thomas Jefferson.
The two men discussed “natural aristocracy.” Jefferson said, “The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of society. May we not even say that the form of government is best which provides most effectually for a pure selection of these natural [aristocrats] into the offices of government?” Adams wondered if it ever would be so clear who these people were, “Your distinction between natural and artificial aristocracy does not appear to me well founded. Birth and wealth are conferred on some men as imperiously by nature, as genius, strength, or beauty. … When aristocracies are established by human laws and honour, wealth, and power are made hereditary by municipal laws and political institutions, then I acknowledge artificial aristocracy to commence.” It would always be true, Adams argued, that fate would bestow influence on some men for reasons other than true wisdom and virtue. That being the way of nature, he thought such “talents” were natural. A good government, therefore, had to account for that reality
In terms of government power and representation I think Jefferson was right, in the wider societal sense I think Adams had a good argument.
Silvaire wrote:
BTW in case you might think the debate on inherited power is something very modern,
I wonder if the wealth split was the same as it is now? On a totally left field move, BBC I player are showing the TV dramatisation of the movie, Romper Stomper. It is 25 years on, and deals in an Australian way, the battle between the far left, and the far right. However, in a twist, the far right are organised and directed by ‘’well off’‘, highly motivated, ’’racists’’. Individuals running on inherited wealth to further a cause.
Silvaire wrote:
t would always be true, Adams argued, that fate would bestow influence on some men for reasons other than true wisdom and virtue. That being the way of nature, he thought such “talents” were natural. A good government, therefore, had to account for that reality
Fits in neatly with visions from 1788.
Silvaire wrote:
Agreed about the hazards of totally direct democracy, and potential tyranny of the 51% majority
There is an easy way to overcome that, and that is to get a 2nd step in there to get anything approved. In Switzerland you need the win of the popular vote as well as the win of the majority of cantons/states.
However, the so called Tyranny of the majority is what democracy is really about. In any case. And the denial of these democratic rights is what makes a lot of people in a lot of countries VERY upset and causes radicalisation and as ultima ratio civil unrest if that majority is ignored by the politicians for too long. This has happened and is happening in Europe and elsewhere way too often for comfort.
It is this mechanism which has caused almost all of the “sensational” decisions by the people when given the right to vote, from Brexit to the Trump election, as well as radical parties making their entry into the German and other governments (AFD, die Linke in Germany, FPÖ in Austria, FN in France). Had any of those countries got direct democratic rights to it’s people, none of that would have happened or if, in the case of elections, none of it would matter as the people (we call it the sovereign in our country) has the last word.
Anyone who calls a vote by a people a tyranny of the majority basically discounts democracy as a whole. But then they would have to offer alternatives which usually end up in the republics we mostly know today and which rely on representatives to do the actual job of governing. Some of those governments actually do have some sort of cheques and balances on the representatives and the government they form post vote, most do not.
In a discussion with some American friends some years ago, they said that the mechanism worked in the US with the people writing to their representatives and often enough to the WH itself. The congresspeople then have staff to look through what is written in and the congressman will mostly follow up on what his voters ask of them. This is a very different way than a direct democracy but looking at how importanly polls are taken in the US system, it might actually work sorts of.
In European countries, most representatives care abou the people who voted them in exactly until election night and then again about a year before the following campaign. So in most of these countries, let alone the EU itself with it’s comission on the forefront, have next to no direct accountability. Looking how many they are, we might as well talk of a tyranny of less than 1% of that population. Well, in my book, 51% has a much larger legitimation.
Mooney_Driver – but you cant have a vote on everything, some might say you shouldnt have a vote on any one policy decision. However, that also presents problems because something like Brexit is arguably not party centric, and had the conservatives for example supported a referundum, but labour not, you might vote on one issue rather than the whole manifesto. Broadly that would seem a reasonable argument for a referundum.
I dont see any democracy can operate on a basis other than giving the ruling party a mandate. Perhaps sometimes democracy fails when the party is not held to account for departing from the manifesto in a fundamental way, or, for their being more checks and balances that there is accountability for the pitch to the electorate – for example we know that both sides mislead the electorate in the Brexit referendum.
Havent we effecitvely had something similiar to the Swiss model with the upper and lower chambers? I think we have that balance about right. We have some very gifted intellectuals in the Lords who I think can rightly hold the House to account, but, also rightly, should not be able to block the will of the elected MPs. I apprecaite in the Swiss model it is otherwise, and more akin to us before reform of the upper House.
