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The howl against democracy

Link here. Key quote:

In all the years I’ve been writing about political stuff, I cannot remember a time when anti-democratic sentiment has been as strong as it is right now. No sooner had an awe-inspiring 17.5m people rebelled against the advice of virtually every wing of the establishment and said screw-you to the EU than politicos were calling into question the legitimacy of their democratic cry. Apparently the people were ill-informed, manipulated, in thrall to populist demagoguery, and the thing they want, this unravelling of the EU, is simply too mad and disruptive a course of action to contemplate. So let’s overturn the wishes of this dumb demos.

The author then outlines the numerous calls by EU supporters in the UK to do anything possible to void the will of the people in a legitimate vote. Why would I not be surprised if these same people also align themselves politically with today’s American Democratic Party, which increasingly sees the Bill of Rights and freedom as an obstacle and an evil that must be destroyed.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
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"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

5 comments

  • Cotour

    Just like Zuckerberg, its do as I say, not as I do.

    http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/06/anti-trumper-zuckerberg-buys-hawaii-property-puts-wall/

    When these people begin to live the way that they propose everyone else lives then they will have some credibility. But until then (and that moment will never, ever arrive) they promote disrespect for the Democratic system and process and they certainly are I.D. (intellectually dishonest).

    This Brexit vote will certainly come under attack and the cry for another vote referendum to reverse it will grow. I say that the disruption and destruction will be of the constructive kind and the resulting regained sovereignty is well worth the trouble.

    Let the country’s that want / need to be allied with other country’s do as they please, but also allow those who find this kind of living arrangement oppressive to divorce from it. Its all about the money as usual, the British economy is the 5th largest in the world and IT contributes many more billions of Euros / dollars to the pot. They are tired of the inequity and having to live by laws created in Brussels. I never liked the concept of the European Union from the start.

    I think William Wallace said it best………………….FREEEEEEDOOOOOM!

  • Kirk

    Suppose a US President, ostensibly a supporter of gun rights, was elected following a campaign in which he promised to, sometime during his first term, hold a national, non-binding referendum on whether or not the Second Amendment should be repealed, and that the vote, perhaps influenced by a recent, high profile mass shooting, was 52% in favor of amending the Constitution to repeal the Second Amendment, as the Twenty-first Amendment repealed the Eighteenth. Should that be sufficient to repeal the Second Amendment?

    Clearly not. Article Five lays out specific procedures by which the Constitution may be amended, and non-binding plebiscites are not part of the process. A national referendum certainly should inform the members of Congress, and such a result would likely be sufficient for a proposed amendment to be introduced to Congress, but would in no way guarantee its success. Should the proposed amendment fail to receive either the two-thirds majority in the House and Senate or the simple majority in three-fourths of the state legislatures, then would its failure represent a failure of democracy?

    It would certainly be argued as such, much as the 2000 US presidential election was call undemocratic by those who pointed out that the winner of the popular vote lost the election. But the United States is a representative, constitutional democracy, not a direct democracy.

    The situation in the UK is more complex because the UK constitution is not a single document but a complex sum of laws and principles.

    See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Constitution

    I am not well informed on Brexit (and being insufficiently informed, have no personal opinion on the results), but my understanding is that legal scholars uniformly agree that the Prime Minister does not have unilateral authority to invoke Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union without a vote in Parliament. It has also been argued that exit from the EU would require an amendment to the Scotland Act 1998, which could be vetoed by the Scottish Parliament, although I believe that Westminster has the ability to somehow override that veto.

  • wayne

    Kirk:
    Interesting points, especially on “referendums” and Article 5 as it pertains to the USA.
    Tangentially– I would advocate repealing the 17th Amendment, (direct election of the Senate) which would go a long way toward making Senators accountable, once again, to the State Legislatures.

    I’m not ultra well-informed on Brexit myself, but I do know the Referendum is not binding on Parliament, they can & will do whatever they think they can get away with, & it will be interesting to see what actually transpires.

    Somewhat informative backgrounder Lecture on the 1975 Referendum:
    http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/learning-from-history-the-1975-referendum-on-europe

  • Edward

    A major difference between the United States and the European Union is that the US was founded by people and colonies who shared a common goal and culture. Indeed, when the US (Un)Civil War occurred, it was over the major issue(s) that divided the states. As additional states joined the Union, they also shared common goals and culture.

    Not annexing Mexico, as most conquering nations would have done, is probably for the best, as the goals and cultures of those people differed from the rest of the United States. Even the statehood of Hawaii is beginning to look like a mistake, as the Hawaiians complain that some science facilities in their state violate their culture.

    The European Union formed from nations that had been at each other’s throats — twice — earlier in the century. Goals and cultures were not shared. Trouble fomented as member nations put themselves into terrible financial trouble, due to cultural and societal desires, and asked (or demanded) the others (the culturally and socially responsible) to bail them out.

    Now the British are learning that losing their sovereignty and independence is not such a good thing. They are being abused by people who have no commonality with them, and they have lost their say in issues and matters that matter to them.

    I suspect that many of those who are now howling against the democracy that was recently exhibited were all in favor of that same democracy, until they did not get their way. Now, like children and like leftists, they cry in order to guilt the more responsible people into caving in to the will of the leftists rather than following the democratic principles that they had valued only a week ago.

  • Edward

    I came across William Briggs’s take on Brexit:
    http://wmbriggs.com/post/19164/

    “Remains, on the whole, are distrustful of The People and worry The People will blunder on matters of fundamental importance. This is why Remains use words like “populism” and “nationalism” to describe their enemies, and why they engage in ridiculous fallacies like the Wrong Side of History. Yet “populism” is by definition Democracy, the sovereign popular Will of The People. And it is Democracy Remains claim to love. But this love is proved false, as we saw above. Well, it was always obvious that what was loved was not The People, not the popular will, but the goal, the destination.”

    The goal and the destination being, of course, not what The People wanted but what the Remains (those who wanted to remain in the EU) wanted.

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