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On January 14 2022 00:52 KwarK wrote:
Yeah, it’s a terrible idea. It just rankles me how thoughtlessly the west made their commitment to Ukraine.
That "thoughtlessness" (being charitable) means the US, UK, etc will have to provide even more training and material support to neo-nazis.
+ Show Spoiler +Canada, the US, France, the UK and other Western countries have helped train far-right extremists in Ukraine, a report by the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at George Washington University revealed last month [Sept 2021].
The report found that members of Centuria, a far-right organization intent on reshaping Ukraine's military to align with its ideology, received training from Western countries...
Centuria describes itself as a military order of "European traditionalist" military officers who aim to "defend" the "cultural and ethnic identity" of European peoples against "Brussels’ politicos and bureaucrats," according to the report. The group is led by people with ties to Ukraine's far-right Azov movement. Members have been photographed giving Nazi salutes...
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry told IERES that it does not screen military recruits or cadets for extremist views and ties, while several Western governments training and arming Ukrainian troops said Ukraine was responsible for vetting the soldiers. www.jpost.com
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There are a lot of things where direct democracy would fail.
Taxation for instance. Raise sales tax 1%? Who would vote in favour, even if roads were deteriorating, and you had 40 kids to a classroom in schools.
You do need some way to pass unpopular legislation, despite the populace being against it. More representation to mitigate gerrymandering under the current system would be my way. For the USA, increase the number of representatives in the House to double or triple the current amount, and gerrymandering becomes immediately more difficult. You also get better proportional representation with smaller gaps in representation between the largest and smallest states.
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On January 14 2022 03:16 Lmui wrote:
There are a lot of things where direct democracy would fail.
Taxation for instance. Raise sales tax 1%? Who would vote in favour, even if roads were deteriorating, and you had 40 kids to a classroom in schools.
You do need some way to pass unpopular legislation, despite the populace being against it.
Though I sympathize with the point you're making, I think that's a bad example. On a state level, taxes are indeed often passed by way of a direct ballot initiative with a "should we support X program and fund it with Y tax increase?" question being put up to a vote. Conversely, unilateral decisions by a state legislature that tends to be very party-skewed, on tax increases but also alternative measures like debt financing or public-private partnerships, are a lot more controversial and often open the door to grift and bad dealings. In general you can see that legislature-coordinated deals like these reek of corruption, which is worse than the standard problem of the direct ballots (that it's hard to pass them).
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Direct democracy seems to work fine. Greetings from switzerland.
It has issues, but not the ones you guys are fearmongering about.
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On January 14 2022 03:52 Velr wrote:
Direct democracy seems to work fine. Greetings from switzerland.
It has issues, but not the ones you guys are fearmongering about.
Switzerland is a small, very rich, fairly homogeneous country though and the result of its direct democracy are often extremely dubious. I have quite specific examples of initiative populaires having results that made me want to jump a bridge.
I don’t have an opinion, but in a way, Switzerland has the same problem than Norway: the fact that something works great there doesn’t really mean it can be applied anywhere else because the country is a super specific case.
I personally think that delegating power to people who (hopefully) have skills, training and experience to see the big picture and understand the specifics is a good idea. I mean, France is a complete shitshow because everyone has a super strong opinion and nobody understands shit because folks are so passionate they have zero curiosity to look at issues in a balanced way, I don’t want to imagine what they would vote for if anyone could suggest a referendum about anything.
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On January 14 2022 04:18 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2022 03:52 Velr wrote:
Direct democracy seems to work fine. Greetings from switzerland.
It has issues, but not the ones you guys are fearmongering about. Switzerland is a small, very rich, fairly homogeneous country though and the result of its direct democracy are often extremely dubious. I have quite specific examples of initiative populaires having results that made me want to jump a bridge. I don’t have an opinion, but in a way, Switzerland has the same problem than Norway: the fact that something works great there doesn’t really mean it can be applied anywhere else because the country is a super specific case. I personally think that delegating power to people who (hopefully) have skills, training and experience to see the big picture and understand the specifics is a good idea. I mean, France is a complete shitshow because everyone has a super strong opinion and nobody understands shit because folks are so passionate they have zero curiosity to look at issues in a balanced way, I don’t want to imagine what they would vote for if anyone could suggest a referendum about anything.
Case in point: Brexit.
Unsurprisingly, a year after it actually happened, a majority of those who voted in favour of it are now polling as "it was a bad idea".
That's not to say Brexit shouldn't have been decided in a referendum. There was bolloxed up decision making every step of the way. But asking a huge public an unnuanced question while blasting misleading propaganda at them is clearly an example of how not to do direct democracy.
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Northern Ireland27361 Posts
On January 14 2022 01:07 Silvanel wrote:
In 1994 everyone was hopeful that a new era in history of the world is starting and West vs East rivalry is a thing of the past. An error in hindsight, for sure. Or a calculated lie.
It has largely been the case, with the rather notable case of Russia being an exception.
Certainly a rather tricky thing to envisage happening now or in the recent past, but there’s been a rather large amount of stick, not a huge amount of carrot in the post-Soviet era.
Keep NATO structured around the Cold War paradigm and in general don’t really extend the hand to embed Russia more in Western multilateral institutions.
The contrast between EEC/EU connections and those made with post-Soviet Russia could scarcely be more stark.
Not by any means an area in which Russia is without fault of course.
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Northern Ireland27361 Posts
On January 14 2022 04:23 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2022 04:18 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 14 2022 03:52 Velr wrote:
Direct democracy seems to work fine. Greetings from switzerland.
It has issues, but not the ones you guys are fearmongering about. Switzerland is a small, very rich, fairly homogeneous country though and the result of its direct democracy are often extremely dubious. I have quite specific examples of initiative populaires having results that made me want to jump a bridge. I don’t have an opinion, but in a way, Switzerland has the same problem than Norway: the fact that something works great there doesn’t really mean it can be applied anywhere else because the country is a super specific case. I personally think that delegating power to people who (hopefully) have skills, training and experience to see the big picture and understand the specifics is a good idea. I mean, France is a complete shitshow because everyone has a super strong opinion and nobody understands shit because folks are so passionate they have zero curiosity to look at issues in a balanced way, I don’t want to imagine what they would vote for if anyone could suggest a referendum about anything. Case in point: Brexit. Unsurprisingly, a year after it actually happened, a majority of those who voted in favour of it are now polling as "it was a bad idea". That's not to say Brexit shouldn't have been decided in a referendum. There was bolloxed up decision making every step of the way. But asking a huge public an unnuanced question while blasting misleading propaganda at them is clearly an example of how not to do direct democracy.
It’s a tricky one, an additional problem there is you’re voting for a (predictable enough if you know things) hypothetical non-EU state, vs remaining in the EU
Contrasted to a referendum on say the Good Friday Agreement, where the deal was on the table already and it was a matter of the public ratifying it or not.
Plus, while not impossible, Brexit is quite destructive in the sense you can’t easily reverse the decision if it goes wrong. The EU may well take us back, but at the very least it’s exceedingly unlikely to be under the terms negotiated under Thatcher.
The EU referendum was a tad frustrating, to say the least
On the flip side the great British public would have made some good decisions if they had the choice in the past, it’s pretty likely if it was decided via referendum that the debacle of Iraq could have been avoided.
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Big news day. Supreme Court mostly blocks the vaccine mandate and the Oath Keepers founder is charged with seditious conspiracy for Jan 6 (as I understand, that is the first charge that goes beyond trespassing, assault, and parading in the Capitol, to something like "sedition" or "insurrection").
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Yeah Brexit will always be the cornerstone argument against direct democracy. Probably for a very long time.
Representative democracy requires robust systems to prevent disinformation and enhance education. It also requires good methods of keeping too much money out of political marketing. The US is a good example of a country that would do terribly with direct democracy. We probably would have just directly banned Muslims from the US shortly after 9/11 if there was a referendum, for example.
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On January 14 2022 03:30 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2022 03:16 Lmui wrote:
There are a lot of things where direct democracy would fail.
Taxation for instance. Raise sales tax 1%? Who would vote in favour, even if roads were deteriorating, and you had 40 kids to a classroom in schools.
You do need some way to pass unpopular legislation, despite the populace being against it. Though I sympathize with the point you're making, I think that's a bad example. On a state level, taxes are indeed often passed by way of a direct ballot initiative with a "should we support X program and fund it with Y tax increase?" question being put up to a vote. Conversely, unilateral decisions by a state legislature that tends to be very party-skewed, on tax increases but also alternative measures like debt financing or public-private partnerships, are a lot more controversial and often open the door to grift and bad dealings. In general you can see that legislature-coordinated deals like these reek of corruption, which is worse than the standard problem of the direct ballots (that it's hard to pass them).
Fair, it was the first one that came to mind.
Some other people have pointed out far better ones like Brexit. In general though, I'd agree that direct democracy is largely a mistake. It's better to have one educated person making decisions for thousands, and hope they're competent rather than hope for competence of the masses.
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On January 14 2022 03:30 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2022 03:16 Lmui wrote:
There are a lot of things where direct democracy would fail.
Taxation for instance. Raise sales tax 1%? Who would vote in favour, even if roads were deteriorating, and you had 40 kids to a classroom in schools.
You do need some way to pass unpopular legislation, despite the populace being against it. Though I sympathize with the point you're making, I think that's a bad example. On a state level, taxes are indeed often passed by way of a direct ballot initiative with a "should we support X program and fund it with Y tax increase?" question being put up to a vote. Conversely, unilateral decisions by a state legislature that tends to be very party-skewed, on tax increases but also alternative measures like debt financing or public-private partnerships, are a lot more controversial and often open the door to grift and bad dealings. In general you can see that legislature-coordinated deals like these reek of corruption, which is worse than the standard problem of the direct ballots (that it's hard to pass them).
Depends on the county. Wealthy Oregon counties tend to always approve tax increases. On the other hand, one of our Cletus counties made the news after they voted to eliminate all police work other than Monday-Friday 9-5. So if you called the police any time outside those hours, literally no one would answer. They did this to "reduce the tax burden". Totally nuts.
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Northern Ireland27361 Posts
On January 14 2022 05:26 Lmui wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2022 03:30 LegalLord wrote:On January 14 2022 03:16 Lmui wrote:
There are a lot of things where direct democracy would fail.
Taxation for instance. Raise sales tax 1%? Who would vote in favour, even if roads were deteriorating, and you had 40 kids to a classroom in schools.
You do need some way to pass unpopular legislation, despite the populace being against it. Though I sympathize with the point you're making, I think that's a bad example. On a state level, taxes are indeed often passed by way of a direct ballot initiative with a "should we support X program and fund it with Y tax increase?" question being put up to a vote. Conversely, unilateral decisions by a state legislature that tends to be very party-skewed, on tax increases but also alternative measures like debt financing or public-private partnerships, are a lot more controversial and often open the door to grift and bad dealings. In general you can see that legislature-coordinated deals like these reek of corruption, which is worse than the standard problem of the direct ballots (that it's hard to pass them). Fair, it was the first one that came to mind. Some other people have pointed out far better ones like Brexit. In general though, I'd agree that direct democracy is largely a mistake. It's better to have one educated person making decisions for thousands, and hope they're competent rather than hope for competence of the masses.
@Mohdoo The US, while frequently hamstrung in certain areas by it, does at least have a pretty rigid Constitution with certain inalienable rights and protections. So there is at least that.
I think referendums have more place as deciding on simpler binary issues, or establishing a moral imperative on an issue, the difficulty comes with practical problems in implementation and whatnot.
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On January 14 2022 05:09 Doc.Rivers wrote:
Big news day. Supreme Court mostly blocks the vaccine mandate
Unsurprising. Despite the media bonanza about how mandates are legally bulletproof, the authority for doing it through OSHA seemed like a broad overreach of executive authority. Glad that 6 justices agreed that it was so.
They didn't block the medical mandate, which makes some sense from the perspective of "it actually has a pretty clear effect on ability to serve as a healthcare worker." It does bode poorly for any prospect of stopping the federal employee vaccine mandate, which while understandably legal under the doctrine of "the government can ask people who work for them to do whatever they want" is really unfortunate from the perspective that it is unnecessarily stringent and without room for any form of exemption.
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On January 14 2022 05:56 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2022 05:09 Doc.Rivers wrote:
Big news day. Supreme Court mostly blocks the vaccine mandate Unsurprising. Despite the media bonanza about how mandates are legally bulletproof, the authority for doing it through OSHA seemed like a broad overreach of executive authority. Glad that 6 justices agreed that it was so. They didn't block the medical mandate, which makes some sense from the perspective of "it actually has a pretty clear effect on ability to serve as a healthcare worker." It does bode poorly for any prospect of stopping the federal employee vaccine mandate, which while understandably legal under the doctrine of "the government can ask people who work for them to do whatever they want" is really unfortunate from the perspective that it is unnecessarily stringent and without room for any form of exemption.
Yeah I haven't read it, but I pretty much assumed (and it certainly seemed from oral argument) that the media's legal commentators were being politically biased as usual and engaging in results-oriented reasoning. Good on the SC to resist executive overreach.
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On January 13 2022 13:30 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2022 12:40 gobbledydook wrote:
I think a key question is how much support should there be for a policy before it should be passed into law?
If 50.1% support and 49.9% reject a proposed policy, should it pass?
Yes? Obviously? Rejecting is a policy, just as much as approving. The options are the old policy and the new policy, and the new policy is more popular.
If next month some people start to have second thoughts and now it's 49.9% support and 50.1% reject do you go and repeal it?
I hope you understand where I'm going with this. It costs resources to implement change. So, if you are going to make a change, you had better be sure that it won't be reversed too easily or you just end up wasting resources.
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United States44287 Posts
On January 14 2022 12:46 gobbledydook wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2022 13:30 KwarK wrote:On January 13 2022 12:40 gobbledydook wrote:
I think a key question is how much support should there be for a policy before it should be passed into law?
If 50.1% support and 49.9% reject a proposed policy, should it pass?
Yes? Obviously? Rejecting is a policy, just as much as approving. The options are the old policy and the new policy, and the new policy is more popular. If next month some people start to have second thoughts and now it's 49.9% support and 50.1% reject do you go and repeal it? I hope you understand where I'm going with this. It costs resources to implement change. So, if you are going to make a change, you had better be sure that it won't be reversed too easily or you just end up wasting resources.
Implementing public policy is not a waste of resources, it is the intended purpose of those resources. The resources were collected with the express purpose of being used for public policy. It would be more wasteful to collect them and use them for something not supported by the public.
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On January 14 2022 12:56 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2022 12:46 gobbledydook wrote:On January 13 2022 13:30 KwarK wrote:On January 13 2022 12:40 gobbledydook wrote:
I think a key question is how much support should there be for a policy before it should be passed into law?
If 50.1% support and 49.9% reject a proposed policy, should it pass?
Yes? Obviously? Rejecting is a policy, just as much as approving. The options are the old policy and the new policy, and the new policy is more popular. If next month some people start to have second thoughts and now it's 49.9% support and 50.1% reject do you go and repeal it? I hope you understand where I'm going with this. It costs resources to implement change. So, if you are going to make a change, you had better be sure that it won't be reversed too easily or you just end up wasting resources. Implementing public policy is not a waste of resources, it is the intended purpose of those resources. The resources were collected with the express purpose of being used for public policy. It would be more wasteful to collect them and use them for something not supported by the public.
Implementing public policy is of course not a waste of public resources. Implementing it and canceling it two months later because public opinion shifted slightly is a waste of public resources.
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United States44287 Posts
On January 14 2022 13:10 gobbledydook wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2022 12:56 KwarK wrote:On January 14 2022 12:46 gobbledydook wrote:On January 13 2022 13:30 KwarK wrote:On January 13 2022 12:40 gobbledydook wrote:
I think a key question is how much support should there be for a policy before it should be passed into law?
If 50.1% support and 49.9% reject a proposed policy, should it pass?
Yes? Obviously? Rejecting is a policy, just as much as approving. The options are the old policy and the new policy, and the new policy is more popular. If next month some people start to have second thoughts and now it's 49.9% support and 50.1% reject do you go and repeal it? I hope you understand where I'm going with this. It costs resources to implement change. So, if you are going to make a change, you had better be sure that it won't be reversed too easily or you just end up wasting resources. Implementing public policy is not a waste of resources, it is the intended purpose of those resources. The resources were collected with the express purpose of being used for public policy. It would be more wasteful to collect them and use them for something not supported by the public. Implementing public policy is of course not a waste of public resources. Implementing it and canceling it two months later because public opinion shifted slightly is a waste of public resources.
The hypothetical public two months later made a deliberate decision to forfeit the capital invested and go in another direction. Not doing so would be a waste.
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Filibuster reform being shot in the head by Sinema is good news for student loan forgiveness. Biden’s agenda is essentially dead. So he’s left with nothing but executive orders right? There’s no more budget reconciliation right?
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EPT
