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I am pro-Remain, but democracy is democracy; ignoring the popular vote would create much more dangerous precedent than any bad things that may happen from Brexi

I am pro-Remain, but democracy is democracy; ignoring the popular vote would create much more dangerous precedent than any bad things that may happen from Brexit.

cortesoft 10y ago
Britain is a representational democracy; they vote for MPs who enact their will, not direct votes on single issues like Brexit.
- atemerev 10y ago
  Of course. And the message they would send with that is "screw you, the people, it's our way or highway". And _this_ would be the moment when everyone will go nuts and anti-establishment and vote for UKIP.
  - Daishiman 10y ago
    Please, like it hasn't happened a thousand times before. Remember Iraq?
    - atemerev 10y ago
      Iraq is a relatively minor issue that could be swept under the rug. This thing can't.
  - cortesoft 10y ago
    It isn't like a vast majority voted for Brexit; the vote was very close. The number of people who would be happy with parliament dragging their feet would be pretty close to the number of people upset with them. I don't think that will cause some massive shift in voting patterns.
    - atemerev 10y ago
      Like somebody said elsewhere in this thread, this will cause actual riots in the streets, with people dying.
      - cortesoft 10y ago
        Wow, talk about wild speculation.
hinkley 10y ago
Majority rule without checks and balances is mob rule. And a simple majority can take away something that 49% of the population thinks is important. This is where your democratic utopia goes to die. Open voting is a blame shedding trick. If 'everybody' agreed with your bad idea then it's not your fault when the consequences happen. Even if you were the one who put it in people's heads in the first place. As a citizen of a country in crisis, who to blame might be of some importance, and organized media will certainly get you fixated on that aspect. But maybe the fact that there's a crisis is a little more important, and you should try to avoid then in the first place instead of just having an audit trail.
- atemerev 10y ago
  Here in Switzerland, we have direct democracy, with referendums every two months. Some bad decisions were taken, but most of them are easily reversed when proved wrong.
  - hinkley 10y ago
    In the case of the U.K., it's news to absolutely no one that there are some fundamental and ancient grudges between regions. Voting on things for spite isn't entirely out of the realm of possibilities. It is a common complaint that Europeans have no grasp of how goddamned big the US is, and make "helpful" suggestions to fix our problems with solutions that simply don't scale with geography. It's a big place full of people who either came here to be left alone, or were kicked out of Europe because they wouldn't leave other people alone. People sort themselves and there's plenty of physical and emotional space for echo chambers if you want them. Neighboring states are not as different as neighboring countries, but we have 50 of them and among those you can find two that completely disagree with each other on nearly every topic you can imagine. If Europe voted that Switzerland should pay off the Spanish national debt, I bet you'd be pretty pissed. If they tried to take your guns, you'd probably start loading. Hell, even Roman politicians had things to say about the ways a straight democracy can go bad. Bread and circuses.
    - atemerev 10y ago

I am pro-Remain, but democracy is democracy; ignoring the popular vote would create much more dangerous precedent than any bad things that may happen from Brexit.

cortesoft 10y ago

Britain is a representational democracy; they vote for MPs who enact their will, not direct votes on single issues like Brexit.

atemerev 10y ago
Of course. And the message they would send with that is "screw you, the people, it's our way or highway". And _this_ would be the moment when everyone will go nuts and anti-establishment and vote for UKIP.
- Daishiman 10y ago
  Please, like it hasn't happened a thousand times before. Remember Iraq?
  - atemerev 10y ago
    Iraq is a relatively minor issue that could be swept under the rug. This thing can't.
- cortesoft 10y ago
  It isn't like a vast majority voted for Brexit; the vote was very close. The number of people who would be happy with parliament dragging their feet would be pretty close to the number of people upset with them. I don't think that will cause some massive shift in voting patterns.
  - atemerev 10y ago
    Like somebody said elsewhere in this thread, this will cause actual riots in the streets, with people dying.
    - cortesoft 10y ago
      Wow, talk about wild speculation.

hinkley 10y ago

Majority rule without checks and balances is mob rule. And a simple majority can take away something that 49% of the population thinks is important. This is where your democratic utopia goes to die. Open voting is a blame shedding trick. If 'everybody' agreed with your bad idea then it's not your fault when the consequences happen. Even if you were the one who put it in people's heads in the first place. As a citizen of a country in crisis, who to blame might be of some importance, and organized media will certainly get you fixated on that aspect. But maybe the fact that there's a crisis is a little more important, and you should try to avoid then in the first place instead of just having an audit trail.

atemerev 10y ago
Here in Switzerland, we have direct democracy, with referendums every two months. Some bad decisions were taken, but most of them are easily reversed when proved wrong.
- hinkley 10y ago
  In the case of the U.K., it's news to absolutely no one that there are some fundamental and ancient grudges between regions. Voting on things for spite isn't entirely out of the realm of possibilities. It is a common complaint that Europeans have no grasp of how goddamned big the US is, and make "helpful" suggestions to fix our problems with solutions that simply don't scale with geography. It's a big place full of people who either came here to be left alone, or were kicked out of Europe because they wouldn't leave other people alone. People sort themselves and there's plenty of physical and emotional space for echo chambers if you want them. Neighboring states are not as different as neighboring countries, but we have 50 of them and among those you can find two that completely disagree with each other on nearly every topic you can imagine. If Europe voted that Switzerland should pay off the Spanish national debt, I bet you'd be pretty pissed. If they tried to take your guns, you'd probably start loading. Hell, even Roman politicians had things to say about the ways a straight democracy can go bad. Bread and circuses.
  - atemerev 10y ago