Salim Ismail – Our democracy is about to collapse
tv.ida.dk
tv.ida.dk
If politicians don't represent the will of the people, a revolution will ensue.
Actually, the majority vote is frequently one or both of these things. Whether or not this applies here.
Equal Rights Amendment did not passed for the same reason. Women would be subjected to draft.
Calling that a failure of democracy just because it took longer seems silly to me.
> and want to stop immigration similarly to the UK
I'd say that it's rather an advantage of Switzerland model, than a problem.
Excuse me? Why is that nonsense? Your argument is basically "This man made an unsubstantiated argument, so I am going to do the same thing!"
"Scared shitless" might be hyperbole. But it's certainly very fair to say that Brexit was sold on false premises. A lot of the arguments from the Brexit campaign were straight out massive lies.
Middle-aged and older people are not going to study abroad, they don't need an interesting job in a multinational organisation 20 years from now, they cannot imagine a single digital market or a single financial market anyways, and they don't care about it, they don't care about reserving the option of working abroad one day somewhere in Europe and they are not going to befriend or marry any foreigners anyway.
Had you asked the old people in the 1960s whether rock music should be banned, the likely answer would have been "yes".
The median age has increased from 34 in 1974 to 40 in 2015 and older people now constitute a majority. That's not a big issue when you let a parliament decide on political issues, since politicians would usually trade favors. But referendums are a crude form of democracy with no room for political bargaining. Matters are presented as either A or B and the winner takes it all.
How is that an explanation? If these surveys are actually true, the reason the vote ended as it did is because younger people didn't care enough to actually vote.
The claim that older voters don't care about the future because it doesn't affect them personally as much is just derogatory. You could say that they have invested decades of their lives in the country and care about it more, they also knew life (in the EEC) before the EU was formed in 1993. Young people are just afraid of changes they cannot anticipate and have nothing to compare the status quo to.
Changes with definite, visible negative consequences Versus not having any clue about changes that can not even be guessed at, advertised on explicitly untrue premises?
Younger people have grown up less isolated in a much more connected world, where other ways of thinking have not been so scary and alien. This isn't 1993, and despite the hints from the campaigning, having voted to leave won't make it 1993 again.
I've seen some eye opening footage of refugees on TV and youtube - after seeing that, if someone tells me that did not occur, I'd be a little suspicious.
I honestly believe that people don't want to leave their home unless it is serious, and that the portrayal of them all as wanting to just 'Freeload' for an 'Easy life' is nothing but Xenophobia, and FUD peddled by politicians with a personal agenda to push.
Relatively wealthy people do it all the time, why wouldn't someone living in a 3rd world country (which is pretty serious in my books)?
> the portrayal of them all as wanting to just 'Freeload' for an 'Easy life' is nothing but Xenophobia, and FUD peddled by politicians with a personal agenda to push
Numerous articles and people who actually live in these neighborhoods would suggest otherwise, although to be fair the host countries are doing a terrible job of integration in most cases.
What are you referring to? Nothing is presently known about the outcome of the negotiations with the EU.
> Younger people have grown up less isolated in a much more connected world, where other ways of thinking have not been so scary and alien.
Apparently "not being in the EU" is scary and alien, even though young people from Iceland, Norway and Switzerland also feel very much connected these days.
We can estimate likelihoods. Take e.g. Being able to travel and work in the EU. The best case scenario is maintaining the status quo, which we will certainly have to pay for, and seems to be what a lot of people voted explicitly against. (Iceland, Norway and Switzerland are all members of Schengen, and so more connected than the UK). Science and research benefit amazingly from the EU - getting more out proportionally than we put in. This also could be renegotiated, but again with a price (both literal and in implementing EU laws/directives, or freedom of movement). Meanwhile, until we know what the end state will be, who is going to want to pay large research grants or jobs to UK institutions and citizens?
Meanwhile half the east coast seems to think that leaving will magically let them fish out of the sea infinitely, and I have no idea why farming thinks it was suppressed rather than subsidised by the EU.
This works both ways. Right now, the UK has many EU migrants - including not highly educated/qualified people - despite not even having signed the Schengen treaty. For highly qualified people, who supposedly voted "remain", nothing substantial will change, as they will be welcomed with open arms pretty much anywhere in the world. What's there to be afraid of?
The young are just as 'connected' post-Brexit as they were before. Just because, heavens above, they have to sign a few forms to get a visa to work in a different country doesn't mean they are incapable of doing so.
I'm 32. I voted to Leave. It's nothing to do with being part of Europe. I still see myself as European. The issue on the table is whether to be part of the EU. EU != Europe.
Its not just a 'few forms' if the other country decides to change the rules. It can become difficult, expensive or impossible depending on the political climate. Make no mistake, this is a huge shift.
Europe is a continent. A continent that existed before the European Steel and Coal Community started in 1951. Britain is just as much a part of that continent as any other European country.
> "If you have to enter a country through a checkpoint as a foreigner, then you are not a member of that country."
If you get a work visa, it doesn't matter what type of passport you hold when you cross the border, the activity you'll be performing in the country will be same as before.
The point is membership of the EU is not what qualifies a country as European. Even if it's stating the obvious it's worth stating as some people seem to think being anti-EU is being anti-European.
Furthermore, the EU is not the only pan-European organisation. Heard of the Council of Europe?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Europe
Or the OSCE?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_for_Security_and_...
Both are important pan-European institutions, and neither of them require their members to be members of the EU.
> I voted to Leave.
Why?
They don't need to. Look at the situation outside the EU. People move to work in many countries outside the EU without the same type of 'freedom of labour and movement' deals. If you think leaving the EU is going to stop people from getting a work visa I'd suggest you need to step back from the media spin and think about why countries would stop foreign workers from coming in when they have a skills shortage.
> "Why?"
The main reason was related to democracy. I've gone into this again and again on HN, so you can read my comment history if you're interested.
I'd also recommend this video, as it explains some of the reasons for Leave that I agree with...
You may have to sign a form or two, or show your passport here and there. But the EU will be happy to give Britons a lot of rights as long as there is reciprocity.
When I was 14 I needed to spend all night in the snow in front of the Austrian embassy in my country to be able to get TRANSIT visa to visit a friend in Switzerland.
Britons will never know what this is like. Even in the worst and most hostile brexit. So stop whining that you are somehow deprived of opportunities.
Travelling is different from residing, studying and working. Nobody knows whether Britons will be able to live, work and study freely in Europe, including you. Letting Britain keep all the benefits without being a member state is likely not possible without seeing other countries leave the union.
Never is a long word, by the way. Before WWI most Europeans could travel across the continent without much trouble. Hop on a train in Scandinavia and get off in Belgrade a day or two later. Then came several decades of closed borders, the Iron Curtain etc.
The alleged (and of course uncosted) benefits are several years away at a minimum.
FTSE is up, not down. It's pretty much at its highest point yet in 2016.
Tourism is booming and the economy will benefit greatly from the GBP drop.
The FTSE is at an all year high right now, outperforming European indices after the Brexit. However, the main reason for that is compensation for the GBP drop, because most FTSE funds are internationals so the value of their foreign assets went up against the GBP.
Yes, and this disenfranchisement led to disingenuous politicians and media scaring people into thinking they were under attack from "The others". Almost every single argument betrays this underlying way of thinking. If immigration is so bad, then why did the places with the most immigration vote the least to leave? I have yet to hear a good example of a 'Bad' EU law, or one without good reasons. The commission is clearly chosen by elected politicians; and is demonstrably no less democratic than the choice of prime or government ministers. The new leader of this country will not have been elected so - which is our system, which is fine - but don't pretend it is any other. (interestingly, since WW2 there have now been as many mid-term changes as there have been elected prime ministers).
We in theory elect politicians effectively as 'Experts' who can take the time to make the right decisions with the knowledge that we don't have time or the interest to accumulate. But we've reached the place where emotional appeals are so easy and effective to spread quickly that as soon as someone starts acting in the long term interest (which is often not so good short term, and short term is much easier to defend) they are swept aside.
> I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended - even if this wasn't its main purpose - to rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date. That seemed to me to be a manoeuvre too far.
> Ministers were very nervous about the whole thing. For despite Roche's keenness to make her big speech and to be upfront, there was a reluctance elsewhere in government to discuss what increased immigration would mean, above all for Labour's core white working-class vote.
> This shone through even in the published report: the "social outcomes" it talks about are solely those for immigrants.
The politicians knew what easing immigration restrictions would be unpopular, but they did it anyway.
As for long term interest, that truly is up for debate. Some people envision a post scarcity world and want to live it out today. Some believe all groups can live harmoniously togethor. Some people think about progress at any cost. Others relate good behaviour and bad behaviour to demographics. All of these have extremes, upsides and downsides. All have the future and present in mind. Which one is right? Nobody has come up with a discrete plan or vision. We are all so early in evolution, monkeys with really really fancy toys
Because they have immigrants voting against it?
I have no idea if that's true, but your argument doesn't really hold water.
I don't think anyone wants to restrict freedom of movement. It's just about abuse of gullible nature of "us vs. them", creating a virtual enemy which you can easily blame for all your problems. The referendum did not represent will of people, it represented the mood - the negative mood towards their own government and way of life, which does not have anything to do with any migrants. I.e.: IBM creates AI replacing 30K internal employees with efficient process automation? Blame H1Bs! Farmers no longer relevant due to highly automated heavy machinery? Blame Mexicans! When did building borders helped the situation? Even air-tight border separating Northern and Southern Ireland couldn't stop the real IRA terrorists...
(Or maybe the poll was badly worded.)
Post liberalized India, where ever Government has "no role" actually grew tremendously well, and has done well. In India's case, the democracy is messed up at multiple levels because loyalties are more nativist rather than ideological (which is changing at least in urban India). Democracy actually got better in India in the past 20 years. The intimidation that was prevalent in 90s was not there and more and more people are voting outside their caste and religious loyalties.
From the time of ancient Greek only educated men could be able to vote. That accounts for obvious early success of democracy. It also correlates with the notion of the bell curve (there is a famous book) you like it or not.
The utopian idea that everyone shall be able to vote leads to things like Brexit or that unrepairable disaster modern authoritarian Russia turned into.
Patients shall not vote for hospital's rules and medical procedures or staff election. Qualified well-educated doctors should. Students shall not vote for what they going to be taught (due to being not yet fully developed and brainwashed by media), this seems obvious.
But the idea of necessity of some sort of competent and educated "aristocracy" is one of the major ideas in political philosophy. The crucial thing is that members of such aristocracy must be quickly and easily replaced when fail or lost support. This, by the way, is how most of professional communities and university facilities are organized.
Truth is out there.)
How is failure defined or support measured?
What mechanism exists for quickly and easily replacing the EU beurocracy?
What makes a democracy "work" is a set of established rules that secures the long-term development of the country.
If you only go by a set of established rules, you:
- are running (part of) your government by autocratic decree.
- still risk the population rejecting your form of "democracy".
Ancient Athens was a slave society rule by a small elite. Not a good example.
Modern democracy isn't a gift of gods. History of the World is full of revolutions, civil wars, riots in basically every country in order to have what do we have.
One of the well-known examples is bailout of AIG. Informed and educated people decided to avoid bankruptcy of the biggest insurance company in the world, no matter what idiots in charge did with CDS. Majority would vote to punish the banksters, as they vote for all the stupid things.
Bad analogy. The goal of democracy is not to generate the best possible results for the country. If that happens then its the side effect. Democracy stands on the principle of "all citizens have equal rights".
Who gets to decide who is smart enough?
Universal suffrage is a feature. It's a defensive mechanism against self-interested parties ignoring the needs of the people. You may see those less educated or cultured than as you as rabble, but the democratic process punishes that bias to ignore those people.
> The crucial thing is that members of such aristocracy must be quickly and easily replaced when fail or lost support.
Recorded human history suggests that "competent and educated" aristocrats fail to remove themselves individually or as a an empowered group.
I think this bit from John Gray in the NewStatesman hits it on the head:
"As it is being used today, “populism” is a term of abuse applied by establishment thinkers to people whose lives they have not troubled to understand. A revolt of the masses is under way, but it is one in which those who have shaped policies over the past twenty years are more remote from reality than the ordinary men and women at whom they like to sneer.The interaction of a dysfunctional single currency and destructive austerity policies with the financial crisis has left most of Europe economically stagnant and parts of it blighted with unemployment on a scale unknown since the Thirties. At the same time European institutions have been paralysed by the migrant crisis. Floundering under the weight of problems it cannot solve or that it has even created, the EU has demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that it lacks the capacity for effective action and is incapable of reform. As I suggested in this magazine in last year (“The neo-Georgian prime minister”, 23 October 2015), Europe’s image as a safe option has given way to the realisation that it is a failed experiment. A majority of British voters grasped this fact, which none of our establishments has yet understood." [1]
I think whether you believe in John Gray's politics or not, this is the crux of the issue, and rather than the 1% vs. the other 99%, it is more a matter of the 'elites' vs. 'the ordinary man' (and no, not "the stupid, racist, idiots" as they are called by even some of the so-called respectable journals). And by 'elites' it is not just about wealth, but education, and unquestionable feelings of superiority.
Go and try to institute your government of Philosopher Kings @dschiptsov, and see what happens when you ignore the common man, or worse, berate and try to hold him down even if he has more common sense than some of his university-educated peers.
I am happy about the Brexit vote, if for nothing at all but to disrupt the system, and make people stop and think, to reassess. To see so many adults whining like children, since the vote didn't go their way, to the point they are calling for a re-vote. What are they thinking? More people will go out and vote who thought it was in the 'bag' and stayed at home that day? Or that those they see as 'stupid sods' will change their mind, and see it 'their' way, the 'smart' way?
I don't know, and that's just it, I don't know what would actually be best, but I am Ok with that. Seeing the Remainers throw around financial comments about it being worse than the 2008 crisis don't really know numbers. When you couch the numbers as a percent of total market capitalization it is 4.7% for Brexit vs. 6.9% during the 2008 financial crisis one-day loss. Yes, $2 Trillion vs. $1.9 Trillion I believe. On the others side of the coin, the pound drops and the UK gets more tourists since it is a cheaper destination, and cheaper, more exports. People on any side are just afraid of big changes. Sometimes big changes are necessary in the long run.
It's the same reason that although I can't stand Hillary or Trump, I hope Trump wins to really shake things up back home in the U.S., since it seems nothing else does; Hillary would just be status quo at this point. Electing a woman POTUS shouldn't just be about checking that box, but about actually electing a true woman leader, not another political dynasty ala Bush. Can't we vote outside the box? Even though I am more libertarian or capitalist, I would have voted for Bernie Sanders. At least he showed some integrity.
Real change happens when people wake up and start really talking to their neighbor, or see them differently than before the wake up call that shook their world.
[1] http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/07/strange-deat...