Senate The European Politics Thread

„No, old man, we are not doing the kiss hello!“



The Economists very optimistic take on the Austrian election

https://www.economist.com/news/euro...xenophobes-government-sebastian-kurz-flirting

 

The Economist is always the optimist.

 

I wouldn't have approved of a referendum on this issue either, even though I don't have anything against referenda per se. On principle, whether we should have any laws that allow the state to intrude in people's privacy at random is a matter for constitutional courts to decide (and they should decide that such laws don't have their place in democracies, obviously ). Also, in terms of strategy, you can't know which side will win in a referendum – and given the increasing number of people in Europe who don't mind the idea of a police state, I wouldn't feel particularly confident putting such an issue in the hands of the public.

 

The economist is very optimistic when the right wins.

 

The leader of international liberalism and democracy continues to march on..

Ignore the critics – Emmanuel Macron’s first 100 days has gone remarkably well

Running France is a thankless task and Macron’s schoolboy looks and can-do demeanour are bound to fade. But his actions and policies show he is a determined reformer

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices...-100-days-scandal-2024-olympics-a7893926.html

 

Constitutional issues should require consultation of the public, but not everyday issues. That's why we have Parliaments.

As GrandAdmiralJello points out, the political minority gets stamped out during a referendum and democracy becomes mob rule. For example, YouGov carried out a survey on British democracy in 2010 (20,000 people took part) and discovered the majority favoured:

• Reintroducing the death penalty
• Closing the border for 5 years
• Deporting immigrants
• IQ and literacy tests required for voting

...sometimes, it is best for voters to keep their opinions to themselves.

 

In theory that’s true, but the reality is that referendum‘s are usually decided by which side mobilized better, which usually comes down to who does a better job of fear-mongering.

 

I interrupt this serious discussion for a pleasant announcement. Norway has appointed its first female foreign minister. This was the last of the "big four" posts not to have been held by a woman before, as we have had (and currently have) a female prime minister, finance ministers and defence ministers.

 

To be fair, if literacy tests were required for voting, Brexit would probably never have happened...

 

This is the main reason I'm dissatisfied with them.

 

I don't think it's possible to like Mar17swgirl 's post enough

 

I think it's quite possible to be unenthusiastic about literacy tests and other deliberately exclusionary methods. Are we going to implement a wealth requirement, too?

 

Only if it excludes the monumentally stupid from voting in the UK.

 

I am pretty sure that some of the monumentally stupid are both literate and affluent. For my money, for instance, it was enormously stupid and selfish to put the entire well-being of the country on the line in a concession to a fringe faction of bigots in your own party because you wanted to personally stay in power.

It's the sort of thing supporters of these measures never seem to acknowledge. So yes, never mind any sort of responsibility or self-reflection. Better to blame others for voting in a referendum you went out of your way to create in a too-clever-by-half bit of political maneuvering, and for believing the senior political figures whose inflammatory rhetoric you never challenged, and for responding to someone that promised to address concerns you had manifestly ignored for over a decade.

Poor people are so terrible, am I right?

 

Srs Wocky is srs.

 

...aaaaaaand here come the American "left" to ruin everything.

"If we must be awful, all must be awful."

 

Oh sorry, were you finally going to explain your contention that David Cameron is somehow blameless in a referendum he literally authorized?

 

I was waiting for you defend Mr Obama's "too big to fail" bailouts first.

 

I can defend the bailouts (though I wish a couple more had been left to rot like Merrill), but also that was started under W Bush.

 

1. I don't have any problem with government intervention to try and stabilize a disorderly collapse in any economic sector.

2. Most of all, he didn't deliberately cause the problem he was trying to fix

So what's your excuse for Cameron then?

 

Except the bailout will only transfer the risk to later generations. It was bad policy.

Cameron triggered the referendum because in a parliamentary democracy, the leader is often pushed in directions they don't like, and has to make concessions to ideological factions within the party. Other times, they can isolate those factions too - Blair with socialists, Thatcher with "wet" Tories. It's the nature of a parliamentary democracy - and whilst polling showed 65% of the UK was "eurosceptic", only ~30% polled for leaving.

If you had been following parliamentary democracies at all you'd see several similar examples - May's election, Turnbull's election. But, you're American, so...

 

In what way was he "pushed?" Do you mean to say that he wouldn't have been able to retain leadership of his party? Or perhaps that his party would have lost its majority?

Because it still seems indefensible to put his personal career over the entire country in terms of importance.

 

Wocky it's hard to condense the differences between parliamentary democracies and your republican model. Suffice to say, the PM is less powerful innately than the president, and therefore can only lead the party and country with its consent. Cameron didn't torpedo the UK's participation in the EU; he sought to put the bloody issue to bed. Only, for some strange reason Brits voted to leave. Perhaps the indignation of farm subsidies pushed Wales out, in a fit of self-loathing, who knows. Hence why he resigned, though; he took accountability for the outcome, even if he probably had little choice in calling the vote initially.