4 ms·

> Whether that is democratic or not, well... if they don't trust their own head of state, I reckon their democratic system has bigger problems than some text me

> Whether that is democratic or not, well... if they don't trust their own head of state, I reckon their democratic system has bigger problems than some text messages. Then the proper quest is if you trust 27 heads of state, only 1 of which you have any political influence over.

toyg 4y ago
At some point, everyone's freedom ends where someone else's begin. If you want a continent-size government (which, let's be honest, in a world of superpowers you do), you'll have to compromise with another 450k citizens and their representatives. Americans manage to do it, after all. Also, EUParliament gives us a direct say in practice. People worried about the democratic deficit in the EU should push their own governments to relinquish more powers from Council to Parliament.
- blibble 4y ago
  > If you want a continent-size government I really don't get who looks at the existing continent-size governments and says "yeah, I want that to be the model for how I'm governed"
  - Paradigma11 4y ago
    The alternative is to be governed by a continent size government of another continent.
  - brnt 4y ago
    I do. Because if it isnt thuis continent sized government over which I have soms control, it'll be another continent government, over which is have zero control. I am from a small country, and I think this bring a perspective of inherent relatedness that people from larger countries lack. Control can't be binary, nor should it be. We're together with many others. We've never been more in control of ourselves than we are right now.
- native_samples 4y ago
  Only a small minority of people actually think continent sized governments are a good idea, especially in Europe. Most people think this is self-evidently a bad idea, which is why the EU leaderships are never willing to let people actually have a referendum on the question - the UK being the lone exception, and look at how nastily the various pro-EU minorities in power tried to stop it being implemented! "Americans manage to do it, after all." Americans fought a brutal civil war to ensure the federal government would continue to enjoy supremacy over the states. In the modern era, about half of Americans currently think their country is heading for a second civil war, according to opinion polls. In recent days you're seeing elected federal politicians directly state that people should disobey rulings of the Supreme Court and laws of state governments. You've had federal agencies spying on and directly attacking elected presidents, with no consequences. So it is absolutely not clear that Americans manage to do this, in a timeless/stable sense. They've managed it in the 20th century but for most of that time they had serious external enemies to bind the country together. Historically speaking, very large and powerful governments tend to collapse from internal decay, splintering into small countries. The number of countries rapidly increased in the 20th century as empires fell apart and new countries formed in their wake. Very few/no people regret this process - you don't see many people hankering after the Ottoman Empire or USSR, do you? A lot of the instability in the Middle East is a legacy of this process, for example.
  - jonp888 4y ago
    That's simply not true. A glance at any opinion poll shows there is nowhere near a majority for leaving the EU in any member country. Politicians who used to talk about it as a goal, such as Le Penn in France, no longer mention it at all, having seen how chaotic it was for the UK.
    - native_samples 4y ago
      The polls said the same for the British population before the referendum process started. The population changed its mind before the vote. Actually, you have to be careful with polls. Polling showed a very clear and strong majority of the British population did not like the EU and were basically opposed to it, but a significant chunk of those people were scared of the threatened economic and tax consequences (which were in the end a lie - there was no emergency tax hike and no recession). If they had not been threatened with ruin then the Leave vote would have been much higher. The EU has demonstrated it is willing to create essentially unlimited amounts of disruption in order to stop countries leaving. It won't play nice, or respect the wishes of the electorate. It will fight them. Inevitably that scares people, it did in the UK too. This does not mean that those people actually like their situation.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
lrem 4y ago
You seem to say that every democracy with districts is broken. E.g. what fraction of US senators is a given citizen electing?
- Jensson 4y ago
  Representation works like the phone game, every extra layer of of representation distorts the original will of the voter and weakens the democracy. Politicians try to minimize the power of voters to maximize their own power, and therefore love adding more layers, enabling things like gerrymandering etc. Those problems exists in the US system, but most EU countries avoids those problems, so to EU citizens moving to the American model is a huge step in an undemocratic direction.
  - toyg 4y ago
    LOL at "EU countries avoid those problems" - they all have those problems. From proportional thresholds to the sad joke that is first-past-the-post, all systems have issues here or there. Direct democracy doesn't really exist outside of rare referenda - which also have their own distortions, from eligibility criteria to quorum etc. Democracy is a set of compromises we make to live together in relative peace. > to EU citizens moving to the American model is a huge step in an undemocratic direction. No, it's a huge step towards a continent-size governance model, which inevitably requires new ways to interpret the popular will. We're still at the early stages of this process, a process that will probably never end - like it never ended for nation-size governments.

toyg 4y ago

At some point, everyone's freedom ends where someone else's begin. If you want a continent-size government (which, let's be honest, in a world of superpowers you do), you'll have to compromise with another 450k citizens and their representatives. Americans manage to do it, after all. Also, EUParliament gives us a direct say in practice. People worried about the democratic deficit in the EU should push their own governments to relinquish more powers from Council to Parliament.

blibble 4y ago
> If you want a continent-size government I really don't get who looks at the existing continent-size governments and says "yeah, I want that to be the model for how I'm governed"
- Paradigma11 4y ago
  The alternative is to be governed by a continent size government of another continent.
- brnt 4y ago
  I do. Because if it isnt thuis continent sized government over which I have soms control, it'll be another continent government, over which is have zero control. I am from a small country, and I think this bring a perspective of inherent relatedness that people from larger countries lack. Control can't be binary, nor should it be. We're together with many others. We've never been more in control of ourselves than we are right now.
native_samples 4y ago
Only a small minority of people actually think continent sized governments are a good idea, especially in Europe. Most people think this is self-evidently a bad idea, which is why the EU leaderships are never willing to let people actually have a referendum on the question - the UK being the lone exception, and look at how nastily the various pro-EU minorities in power tried to stop it being implemented! "Americans manage to do it, after all." Americans fought a brutal civil war to ensure the federal government would continue to enjoy supremacy over the states. In the modern era, about half of Americans currently think their country is heading for a second civil war, according to opinion polls. In recent days you're seeing elected federal politicians directly state that people should disobey rulings of the Supreme Court and laws of state governments. You've had federal agencies spying on and directly attacking elected presidents, with no consequences. So it is absolutely not clear that Americans manage to do this, in a timeless/stable sense. They've managed it in the 20th century but for most of that time they had serious external enemies to bind the country together. Historically speaking, very large and powerful governments tend to collapse from internal decay, splintering into small countries. The number of countries rapidly increased in the 20th century as empires fell apart and new countries formed in their wake. Very few/no people regret this process - you don't see many people hankering after the Ottoman Empire or USSR, do you? A lot of the instability in the Middle East is a legacy of this process, for example.
- jonp888 4y ago
  That's simply not true. A glance at any opinion poll shows there is nowhere near a majority for leaving the EU in any member country. Politicians who used to talk about it as a goal, such as Le Penn in France, no longer mention it at all, having seen how chaotic it was for the UK.
  - native_samples 4y ago
    The polls said the same for the British population before the referendum process started. The population changed its mind before the vote. Actually, you have to be careful with polls. Polling showed a very clear and strong majority of the British population did not like the EU and were basically opposed to it, but a significant chunk of those people were scared of the threatened economic and tax consequences (which were in the end a lie - there was no emergency tax hike and no recession). If they had not been threatened with ruin then the Leave vote would have been much higher. The EU has demonstrated it is willing to create essentially unlimited amounts of disruption in order to stop countries leaving. It won't play nice, or respect the wishes of the electorate. It will fight them. Inevitably that scares people, it did in the UK too. This does not mean that those people actually like their situation.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

lrem 4y ago

You seem to say that every democracy with districts is broken. E.g. what fraction of US senators is a given citizen electing?

Jensson 4y ago
Representation works like the phone game, every extra layer of of representation distorts the original will of the voter and weakens the democracy. Politicians try to minimize the power of voters to maximize their own power, and therefore love adding more layers, enabling things like gerrymandering etc. Those problems exists in the US system, but most EU countries avoids those problems, so to EU citizens moving to the American model is a huge step in an undemocratic direction.
- toyg 4y ago
  LOL at "EU countries avoid those problems" - they all have those problems. From proportional thresholds to the sad joke that is first-past-the-post, all systems have issues here or there. Direct democracy doesn't really exist outside of rare referenda - which also have their own distortions, from eligibility criteria to quorum etc. Democracy is a set of compromises we make to live together in relative peace. > to EU citizens moving to the American model is a huge step in an undemocratic direction. No, it's a huge step towards a continent-size governance model, which inevitably requires new ways to interpret the popular will. We're still at the early stages of this process, a process that will probably never end - like it never ended for nation-size governments.