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Look at this poll: https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/dqjh8rbx2e/InternalResults_180425_Immigration.pdf https://d25d2506sfb94s.clou

• ngcazz 8y ago
  I think you're both right, pandering is opposed to leading (and eventually shaping public opinion in a non-nefarious fashion).
  • repolfx 8y ago
    Why should politicians shape opinion? What makes their opinions so much better than that of their voters? Their role is to reflect opinion and implement it. And what does shaping in a non-nefarious manner imply? Politicians already give speeches setting out their positions and they do campaigning to try and convince people to vote for them, as part of setting out the menu that is inherent in a democracy. But is this shaping or is it merely offering options? I don't think there are any non-nefarious ways to "shape" opinion. At most you can argue for your own views and hope the arguments are good.
• YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
  This raises an interesting question: what happens to a democratic society when "the will of the people" embraces principles and ideas that are profoundly anti-democratic? I mean, it's hard to find a definition of "democracy" that would satisfy everyone but, intuitively, xenophobia and open hostility to visitors who clearly mean well and are contributing to the well-being of the community (Lucas was a Cambridge alumnus and in employment when his adventures started) seems to run counter to every reasonable interpretation of "democratic".
  • refurb 8y ago
    That’s a stretch. You could be a fully functional democracy and strict immigration laws.
  • js2 8y ago
    This is indeed not a new question. The Economist is currently running a series on classical liberal values. From a piece on John Stuart Mill: > Democracy itself threatened the free exchange of ideas in a different way. Mill thought it right that ordinary people were being emancipated. But once free to make their own choices, they were liable to be taken in by prejudice or narrow appeals to self-interest. Give the working classes a vote, and chaos could result. > The upshot was frightening. Paradoxically individual freedom could end up being more restricted under mass democracy than under the despotic sovereigns of yore. Mill famously refers to this as “tyranny of the majority”. But he worries just as much about middle-class “respectable” opinion as working-class ignorance. https://www.economist.com/schools-brief/2018/08/04/against-the-tyranny-of-the-majority https://www.economist.com/schools-brief/2018/08/04/against-t...
    • deleted 8y ago
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  • chrisseaton 8y ago
    I think you're loading 'democracy' up with some extra values there that aren't really part of the definition. Democracy just means governed by the people. It doesn't mean liberal, or enlightened, or progressive, or open to visitors, or anything like that. Just governed by the people. The people can be left wing or right wing, progressive or regressive, whatever.
    • charlesism 8y ago
      Yes. Not every form of democracy is a liberal democracy. In a liberal democracy, some entity such as the judicial system is supposed to prevent the rest of government from tyrannizing minorities. Democracy protects the majority from a minority (ie: nobility). Liberalism protects minorities (eg: people an with unpopular philosophy, religious view, ethnicity, language) from the majority.
      • YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
        This again depends on a definition of "liberalism" accepted by all, but I find the term "illiberal" or "non-liberal democracy" (i.e. the opposite of a liberal democracy) to be very difficult to interpret. Is it a democracy in which people have the right to vote, but their liberties are not protected by the law? But- the right to vote is a liberty. And then again, how come people voted to have their liberties not protected by law? What are they, idiots? In any case, I can't really recall any state etc that has gone down in history as being an "illiberal democracy"!
        • deleted 8y ago
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        • repolfx 8y ago
          Don't try and parse the term literally, the term is a contradiction - there's no such thing as an "illiberal democracy" for the reasons you specify. People who use that word simply mean "democracies where my personal views on things like immigration don't win". The term illiberal democracy is an especially empty one because more or less any decision can be phrased in terms of positive liberties - e.g. "restrictions on immigration preserve the liberty of voters to enjoy and propagate their own culture".
  • cm2187 8y ago
    Democracy doesn't mean open borders.
    • YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
      Historically, closed borders were associated with Socialist countries, like the USSR, that are generally not considered particularly democratic.
      • repolfx 8y ago
        Every country ever has had borders that were closed to immigration to some extent, that is part of the definition of what a country is. The USSR had closed borders to prevent emigration however I do not know of any democracies that do this, although one could argue America's exit taxes are a soft form of it. The idea that immigration controls are un-democratic is a very modern idea and one that is entirely indefensible.
  • robdachshund 8y ago
    A democracy has nothing to do with unchecked immigration and freebies. It is a governmental structure, not a political ideology. The athenians had slaves.