5 ms·

Judging what is "worse" is tricky. Of course, if the alternative is proposing policies that don't fit with your ideology, you are going to judge them badly ("ho

by cauch 4y ago

Judging what is "worse" is tricky. Of course, if the alternative is proposing policies that don't fit with your ideology, you are going to judge them badly ("how can they be good politicians, they haven't even understood what is obvious to me"). But it does not mean they are worse, it just means that they are not representative of your ideology. In a healthy democracy, the community should accept that there will be people with different ideology, and that there will therefore be political parties representing them. I think this is the problem: politicians representing the ideology X can afford to be mediocre because they have some room before "voting for mediocre politicians that still agree with what I believe is the best" is worse than "voting for non-mediocre politicians that disagree with what I believe is the best". If a party ends up with mediocre politician, it is its own failure, and the other parties (even if they themselves have bad politicians) are not responsible: the other parties represent other people. If the party that represents your ideology is managing to put forward mediocre politicians, then, it is your failure for letting that happens or accepting this situation. (I'm not saying that you are incompetent: you may have failed because it was impossible. Still, it's certainly not the responsibility of people who have a different ideology) In short, in a healthy democracy, there will always be a "worse" party. It cannot take away the responsibility of the party you have voted for for being bad. It's a bit like having giraffes and lions at the zoo, and having the lions saying "the meat is full of maggots and really bad quality, but the alternative is having the vegetables that suits the giraffes, so, it's the giraffes' fault".

mytailorisrich 4y ago
Except pretty much everyone agrees, even within Labour, that Corbyn was unelectable... in part because his team and policies where squarely on the far left. A repeat of the Micheal Foot days in the 80s. So, yes, in the end people may have had issues with the sitting government but they concluded that they were the "least bad" option. A healthy democracy needs a credible opposition.
- cauch 4y ago
  > Except pretty much everyone agrees, even within Labour, that Corbyn was unelectable... in part because his team and policies where squarely on the far left. That does not make of him a bad politician (he can be, but you keep saying "he is a bad politician because I don't like his ideology and his ideology was not popular enough", which is NOT a criteria to decide if it's a bad politician or not). In a democracy, every ideology must be represented, even if they don't correspond to the majority and are therefore unelectable. But again, that is not my point: Corbyn was shit, unelectable, whatever, ... And yet, the other party had bad politicians. Corbyn is not the one putting those politicians there. Corbyn supporters neither. Neither Corbyn or his supporters have any say in this, because they have a different ideology and therefore cannot build a good-politician party that defends an ideology they don't agree with. The fact that the restaurant A serves expired food is not a good excuse for going to the restaurant B, eating slightly less expired food, pay your bill, leave without complaining about restaurant B, and conclude that the main reason is that restaurant A was bad. Restaurant A is bad, and we can, and should, complain about it, but when there is an article about restaurant B explaining that they are failing to serve correct food, you cannot bring in restaurant A as an excuse for the failure of restaurant B. The MAIN REASON restaurant B serves bad food is BECAUSE RESTAURANT B IS FAILING. You may even be centre-left and chosen Tories for the first time just because you did not like Corbyn. But as soon as you vote Tories, the quality of the politicians in the Tory party is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. If you vote for them, you are part of the process that reward their choice of bad politicians. (I use "you" as the "hypothetical you", not you in particular) Also, your idea that what matter is the electability is really bad for democracy. Basically, it implies that minorities should never be represented. > A healthy democracy needs a credible opposition. If your definition of "credible opposition" is "an opposition that I would have maybe voted for", you are dead wrong. In a healthy democracy, when you have two main parties, one in power, one in opposition, then, there is one party that you should think is okay, and one party that you should think is shit (it's more complicated than that, but it is to illustrate). If you like all the parties, it just means that you have just one ideology represented.
- gghhzzgghhzz 4y ago
  The manifesto in 1983 included unilateral nuclear disarmament, leaving the EEC. The 2017 / 2019 Corbyn manifesto were more aligned with the SDP-Liberal alliance manifestos of 1983. Don't take my word for it, here is one of the members of SDP at the time who split from the Labour party because of Foot. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/11/leaked-labour-manifesto-cornucopia-delights-tories-jeremy-corbyn-theresa-may https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/11/leaked...

by cauch 4y ago

mytailorisrich 4y ago

Except pretty much everyone agrees, even within Labour, that Corbyn was unelectable... in part because his team and policies where squarely on the far left. A repeat of the Micheal Foot days in the 80s. So, yes, in the end people may have had issues with the sitting government but they concluded that they were the "least bad" option. A healthy democracy needs a credible opposition.

cauch 4y ago
> Except pretty much everyone agrees, even within Labour, that Corbyn was unelectable... in part because his team and policies where squarely on the far left. That does not make of him a bad politician (he can be, but you keep saying "he is a bad politician because I don't like his ideology and his ideology was not popular enough", which is NOT a criteria to decide if it's a bad politician or not). In a democracy, every ideology must be represented, even if they don't correspond to the majority and are therefore unelectable. But again, that is not my point: Corbyn was shit, unelectable, whatever, ... And yet, the other party had bad politicians. Corbyn is not the one putting those politicians there. Corbyn supporters neither. Neither Corbyn or his supporters have any say in this, because they have a different ideology and therefore cannot build a good-politician party that defends an ideology they don't agree with. The fact that the restaurant A serves expired food is not a good excuse for going to the restaurant B, eating slightly less expired food, pay your bill, leave without complaining about restaurant B, and conclude that the main reason is that restaurant A was bad. Restaurant A is bad, and we can, and should, complain about it, but when there is an article about restaurant B explaining that they are failing to serve correct food, you cannot bring in restaurant A as an excuse for the failure of restaurant B. The MAIN REASON restaurant B serves bad food is BECAUSE RESTAURANT B IS FAILING. You may even be centre-left and chosen Tories for the first time just because you did not like Corbyn. But as soon as you vote Tories, the quality of the politicians in the Tory party is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. If you vote for them, you are part of the process that reward their choice of bad politicians. (I use "you" as the "hypothetical you", not you in particular) Also, your idea that what matter is the electability is really bad for democracy. Basically, it implies that minorities should never be represented. > A healthy democracy needs a credible opposition. If your definition of "credible opposition" is "an opposition that I would have maybe voted for", you are dead wrong. In a healthy democracy, when you have two main parties, one in power, one in opposition, then, there is one party that you should think is okay, and one party that you should think is shit (it's more complicated than that, but it is to illustrate). If you like all the parties, it just means that you have just one ideology represented.
gghhzzgghhzz 4y ago
The manifesto in 1983 included unilateral nuclear disarmament, leaving the EEC. The 2017 / 2019 Corbyn manifesto were more aligned with the SDP-Liberal alliance manifestos of 1983. Don't take my word for it, here is one of the members of SDP at the time who split from the Labour party because of Foot. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/11/leaked-labour-manifesto-cornucopia-delights-tories-jeremy-corbyn-theresa-may https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/11/leaked...