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Isn't this what they call a "secret law"? UK citizens should be in the streets over this. Completely unacceptable for any democracy.

sillygoose 11y ago
Sneaking laws in when no one's looking, without a public discussion is pretty much standard practice in all democracies. It's clear they know the masses would object to those laws, but our representatives pass them anyway. Maybe that tells you something about "the system".
- PythonicAlpha 11y ago
  I come more and more to the conclusion, that democracy -- at least, how we practice it today -- is not working. At least with this level of commitment of the people, it is just a hide and seek game between politicians and the masses and the masses loose, because they are bored away from the political game. The big winners are the big corporations world-wide, because they know how to play the game or at least how to pay the people who know.
  - glesica 11y ago
    > The big winners are the big corporations world-wide, because they know how to play the game or at least how to pay the people who know. It even goes beyond that. The corporations use policies that benefit them to enrich themselves. Some of that enrichment can then be paid out to the politician. What do ordinary citizens do with policies that benefit them? For the most part, they just live their lives in peace. Even when those policies make the people wealthier, it is much harder for the politician to get paid because the new wealth is so disbursed. Really, it's just the market interacting with the politics. I have come to believe that, far from being natural allies (as is commonly held), democracy and market economics are actually quite incompatible for this reason.
    - sillygoose 11y ago
      Think of it this way: there's a market for favours given through the use of political power. The problem isn't the existence of "market economics", but rather the existence of this particular market.
      - glesica 11y ago
        But as long as the political system and the market economic system exist side-by-side, this particular market will always exist! It's a feedback loop. The favor generates a return, the return allows acquisition of power, and the power allows more favors. It's like Rod Blagojevich said, to paraphrase, if you've got this incredibly valuable thing (the ability to make policy), why would you ever give it away for free?! You sell it to the highest bidder. And the highest bidder will always be a "special" interest, because, as I pointed out in my last comment, they are the only ones who can afford it (because they will use the policies to make the money back). The Koch brothers understand this, they came right out and said that they view campaign contributions as investments. As long as we delude ourselves into believing that the system can be made to work with just the right combination of rules and checks (in other words, as long as we delude ourselves into thinking that markets aren't dynamic and don't route around damage), nothing will change.
        sillygoose 11y ago
        > As long as we delude ourselves into believing that the system can be made to work with just the right combination of rules and checks (in other words, as long as we delude ourselves into thinking that markets aren't dynamic and don't route around damage), nothing will change. You could replace "markets" with "people pursuing their personal gain" there. Of course they will adapt to changes, much like a businessman will just leave the country if he gets tax-raped too hard. We all pursue our personal gain all the time, and there's nothing wrong with that per se. That's just the way we're biologically programmed to operate. But go back to what Rod said and take it to its logical conclusion: as long as there is political power, people with it will always be bribed. But then again, that's pretty much the point of having political power. We're all pursuing our personal gain, and political power is just another means of doing that. The solution, then, is for no one to have political power to begin with.
  - sillygoose 11y ago
    We're told governments are of the people and for the people and so on, but the reality is that they keep doing things they know are against our interests, and any time the people resist, the government's response is always teargas and batons. How could this system be anything but bad for us? The problem isn't big evil corporations - it's the fact that there are people in positions to hand out favours in exchange for bribes.
  - 7952 11y ago
    Surely democracy starts out as an alternative to war, rather than be the solution to all our problems. We need a Parliament because we are so divided and would come to blows without it. Of course that assumes that people can be corralled together into groups. The experience of the last ten years suggests that society is dividing into small sub-cultures that don't understand each other, or talk to each other.
    - sillygoose 11y ago
      Do ordinary people want to fight in a war, when the best possible outcome for them is getting back alive? If not, how would democracy make them any less willing to wage wars?
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > The big winners are the big corporations world-wide, because they know how to play the game or at least how to pay the people who know. This isn't true equally across democracies, its most true in "democracies" that feature political systems that structurally limit practical choices for the electorate, because that mitigates the ability of the public to effectively check influence peddling. And, unsurprisingly, these limited-choice features also correspond to systems, among established democracies, in which the public has the least satisfaction with their government. (Note that among the worst systems in this regard among modern, first-world democracies here are those in the United States, United Kingdom, and France.)
  - oldmanjay 11y ago
    As tempting as it is to blame the corporations, due to the ease of blaming a faceless, shapeless enemy, the real problem is powerful people. Corporations do not act autonomously, and you will literally never take powerful people out of politics. Any sort of actual fix will need to take that reality into account. Edit:typo
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- PythonicAlpha 11y ago
  The "monarchy" in GB today, I think, can be compared to the German "Bundespraesident" -- who is on paper the "head of the state" but has nothing to say, but has to sign the laws, others made. He can only delay the signing or call the judges, if he things that the law is against constitution. The worst thing about the monarchy in GB is, that it costs a huge stack of money -- whereas the Bundespraesident in Germany is relatively affordable.
  - jmkni 11y ago
    There's a popular CGP Grey video which claims the opposite, ie that the monarchy is a money spinner for the UK, and not just because of tourism Are you saying this is incorrect? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhyYgnhhKFw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhyYgnhhKFw
    - PythonicAlpha 11y ago
      I don't know. It was just a side note on my side and to be frank, I don't care to much, since I am not British and when the British think they can afford it ....
      - arethuza 11y ago
        The Royals received something like £36 million public funds last year - which I think is pretty small compared to the cost of things like the US presidency (£1 billion) and not really that much more than the German presidency (£26 million). They have no real political influence and, to be honest, I'd far rather have the current crowd than an overtly political head of state - the fact that they choose to serve in the Armed Forces earns them a lot of credit in my book.
        pbhjpbhj 11y ago
TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
It's not a secret law, the contents are public.
- freddealmeida 11y ago
  Secret today is no longer hidden. It is simply undisclosed. And with our countless tweets and posts on fb, do we really look for these things? How many other laws were passed in such ways.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
    Possibly, but this still isn't "secret law" going by the definition in the book. It's a public statute you can easily read yourself, it's not hidden from you, the text isn't secret. But the problem is that, yes, you may not know it exists.
anon1385 11y ago
Well, people have been out in the streets over the last couple of weeks over a variety of issues. The difficulty is that there was just a general election where the Tories won a majority of seats and got the largest share of the popular vote. The vast majority of things the new government has proposed doing are things that they were quite open about before the election (or which any politically aware person could have predicted that they would do). So the media narrative is basically just 'sore losers on the left', and there is some justification for that - a lot of people in the country clearly support these kinds of policies.
- Silhouette 11y ago
  The difficulty is that there was just a general election where the Tories won a majority of seats and got the largest share of the popular vote. I would suggest that part of the difficulty here is that while the Conservatives won a majority of seats and the largest single share of the popular vote, they did not win anywhere near a majority of the popular vote. However you choose to look at our electoral system, the fact is that roughly 3/4 of those entitled to vote did not choose to vote for the Conservatives (or roughly 2/3 if you prefer to look at only those who chose to vote at all). So even if you believe that voting for a party gives a mandate to every policy in their manifesto -- which clearly not everyone does -- in this case, a heavy majority of the electorate did not vote for a party that has these controversial policies. It is therefore not surprising that when the new government have picked a series of big fights within a week of taking office, they are already encountering widespread concern about or outright opposition to their actions. Given their narrow majority, I don't expect the new Cameron administration to get much of a honeymoon period or any sort of free ride over controversial policies like this.
  - evgen 11y ago
    Are you joking, or just unaware of how the voting actually ended up in various ridings? With any sort of proportional vote system it would have been a Tory/UKIP coalition running the country. Roughly 37% voted for the tories and 13% voted UKIP. If anyone has a reason to complain it is UKIP, and frankly I am quite happy to accept the downsides of FPTP if it keeps UKIP out of government.

sillygoose 11y ago

Sneaking laws in when no one's looking, without a public discussion is pretty much standard practice in all democracies. It's clear they know the masses would object to those laws, but our representatives pass them anyway. Maybe that tells you something about "the system".

PythonicAlpha 11y ago
I come more and more to the conclusion, that democracy -- at least, how we practice it today -- is not working. At least with this level of commitment of the people, it is just a hide and seek game between politicians and the masses and the masses loose, because they are bored away from the political game. The big winners are the big corporations world-wide, because they know how to play the game or at least how to pay the people who know.
- glesica 11y ago
  > The big winners are the big corporations world-wide, because they know how to play the game or at least how to pay the people who know. It even goes beyond that. The corporations use policies that benefit them to enrich themselves. Some of that enrichment can then be paid out to the politician. What do ordinary citizens do with policies that benefit them? For the most part, they just live their lives in peace. Even when those policies make the people wealthier, it is much harder for the politician to get paid because the new wealth is so disbursed. Really, it's just the market interacting with the politics. I have come to believe that, far from being natural allies (as is commonly held), democracy and market economics are actually quite incompatible for this reason.
  - sillygoose 11y ago
    Think of it this way: there's a market for favours given through the use of political power. The problem isn't the existence of "market economics", but rather the existence of this particular market.
    - glesica 11y ago
      But as long as the political system and the market economic system exist side-by-side, this particular market will always exist! It's a feedback loop. The favor generates a return, the return allows acquisition of power, and the power allows more favors. It's like Rod Blagojevich said, to paraphrase, if you've got this incredibly valuable thing (the ability to make policy), why would you ever give it away for free?! You sell it to the highest bidder. And the highest bidder will always be a "special" interest, because, as I pointed out in my last comment, they are the only ones who can afford it (because they will use the policies to make the money back). The Koch brothers understand this, they came right out and said that they view campaign contributions as investments. As long as we delude ourselves into believing that the system can be made to work with just the right combination of rules and checks (in other words, as long as we delude ourselves into thinking that markets aren't dynamic and don't route around damage), nothing will change.
      - sillygoose 11y ago
        > As long as we delude ourselves into believing that the system can be made to work with just the right combination of rules and checks (in other words, as long as we delude ourselves into thinking that markets aren't dynamic and don't route around damage), nothing will change. You could replace "markets" with "people pursuing their personal gain" there. Of course they will adapt to changes, much like a businessman will just leave the country if he gets tax-raped too hard. We all pursue our personal gain all the time, and there's nothing wrong with that per se. That's just the way we're biologically programmed to operate. But go back to what Rod said and take it to its logical conclusion: as long as there is political power, people with it will always be bribed. But then again, that's pretty much the point of having political power. We're all pursuing our personal gain, and political power is just another means of doing that. The solution, then, is for no one to have political power to begin with.
- sillygoose 11y ago
  We're told governments are of the people and for the people and so on, but the reality is that they keep doing things they know are against our interests, and any time the people resist, the government's response is always teargas and batons. How could this system be anything but bad for us? The problem isn't big evil corporations - it's the fact that there are people in positions to hand out favours in exchange for bribes.
- 7952 11y ago
  Surely democracy starts out as an alternative to war, rather than be the solution to all our problems. We need a Parliament because we are so divided and would come to blows without it. Of course that assumes that people can be corralled together into groups. The experience of the last ten years suggests that society is dividing into small sub-cultures that don't understand each other, or talk to each other.
  - sillygoose 11y ago
    Do ordinary people want to fight in a war, when the best possible outcome for them is getting back alive? If not, how would democracy make them any less willing to wage wars?
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > The big winners are the big corporations world-wide, because they know how to play the game or at least how to pay the people who know. This isn't true equally across democracies, its most true in "democracies" that feature political systems that structurally limit practical choices for the electorate, because that mitigates the ability of the public to effectively check influence peddling. And, unsurprisingly, these limited-choice features also correspond to systems, among established democracies, in which the public has the least satisfaction with their government. (Note that among the worst systems in this regard among modern, first-world democracies here are those in the United States, United Kingdom, and France.)
- oldmanjay 11y ago
  As tempting as it is to blame the corporations, due to the ease of blaming a faceless, shapeless enemy, the real problem is powerful people. Corporations do not act autonomously, and you will literally never take powerful people out of politics. Any sort of actual fix will need to take that reality into account. Edit:typo

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

PythonicAlpha 11y ago
The "monarchy" in GB today, I think, can be compared to the German "Bundespraesident" -- who is on paper the "head of the state" but has nothing to say, but has to sign the laws, others made. He can only delay the signing or call the judges, if he things that the law is against constitution. The worst thing about the monarchy in GB is, that it costs a huge stack of money -- whereas the Bundespraesident in Germany is relatively affordable.
- jmkni 11y ago
  There's a popular CGP Grey video which claims the opposite, ie that the monarchy is a money spinner for the UK, and not just because of tourism Are you saying this is incorrect? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhyYgnhhKFw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhyYgnhhKFw
  - PythonicAlpha 11y ago
    I don't know. It was just a side note on my side and to be frank, I don't care to much, since I am not British and when the British think they can afford it ....
    - arethuza 11y ago
      The Royals received something like £36 million public funds last year - which I think is pretty small compared to the cost of things like the US presidency (£1 billion) and not really that much more than the German presidency (£26 million). They have no real political influence and, to be honest, I'd far rather have the current crowd than an overtly political head of state - the fact that they choose to serve in the Armed Forces earns them a lot of credit in my book.
      - pbhjpbhj 11y ago

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago

It's not a secret law, the contents are public.

freddealmeida 11y ago
Secret today is no longer hidden. It is simply undisclosed. And with our countless tweets and posts on fb, do we really look for these things? How many other laws were passed in such ways.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  Possibly, but this still isn't "secret law" going by the definition in the book. It's a public statute you can easily read yourself, it's not hidden from you, the text isn't secret. But the problem is that, yes, you may not know it exists.

anon1385 11y ago

Well, people have been out in the streets over the last couple of weeks over a variety of issues. The difficulty is that there was just a general election where the Tories won a majority of seats and got the largest share of the popular vote. The vast majority of things the new government has proposed doing are things that they were quite open about before the election (or which any politically aware person could have predicted that they would do). So the media narrative is basically just 'sore losers on the left', and there is some justification for that - a lot of people in the country clearly support these kinds of policies.

Silhouette 11y ago
The difficulty is that there was just a general election where the Tories won a majority of seats and got the largest share of the popular vote. I would suggest that part of the difficulty here is that while the Conservatives won a majority of seats and the largest single share of the popular vote, they did not win anywhere near a majority of the popular vote. However you choose to look at our electoral system, the fact is that roughly 3/4 of those entitled to vote did not choose to vote for the Conservatives (or roughly 2/3 if you prefer to look at only those who chose to vote at all). So even if you believe that voting for a party gives a mandate to every policy in their manifesto -- which clearly not everyone does -- in this case, a heavy majority of the electorate did not vote for a party that has these controversial policies. It is therefore not surprising that when the new government have picked a series of big fights within a week of taking office, they are already encountering widespread concern about or outright opposition to their actions. Given their narrow majority, I don't expect the new Cameron administration to get much of a honeymoon period or any sort of free ride over controversial policies like this.
- evgen 11y ago
  Are you joking, or just unaware of how the voting actually ended up in various ridings? With any sort of proportional vote system it would have been a Tory/UKIP coalition running the country. Roughly 37% voted for the tories and 13% voted UKIP. If anyone has a reason to complain it is UKIP, and frankly I am quite happy to accept the downsides of FPTP if it keeps UKIP out of government.