The State is your friend
Isn’t democracy wonderful?
The theory:
People cast votes and the majority decision is accepted as the will of the people.
The practice:
If the state doesn’t like the outcome then force the people to keep voting until they get the right answer. [Lisbon]
If the state doesn’t like the outcome then it does everything in its power to nullify the vote, find legal loopholes and eventually resort to calling the winning side senile, racist or brain-dead. [Brexit]
It the state doesn’t like the probable outcome then send in the storm troopers riot police to beat up the electorate and smash up the polling stations. [Catalonia]
What a fucking wonderful world we live in.
Democracy is dead.
Long live democracy.
“People cast votes and the majority decision is accepted as the will of the people.”
Not quite. In a parliamentary democracy we cast votes to empower others to make decisions on our behalf (or put more simply ‘to protect us from ourselves’, otherwise we’d still be hanging people, smoking anywhere, caning small children and using currency and measurements based on Ancient Babylonian mathematics).
As to the current nonsense in Spain (and I need only say the word ‘Gibraltar’ to sum up the Spanish state’s inherent fascism) I have a sneaking suspicion the Catalan leaders knew precisely how Spain would react and banked on it.
Both the Catalan and Spanish governments are anti-democracy IMO. As were the Scottish government and the Brexϟϟshiteurs.True democracy would be that a regional parliament votes and a ‘constitutional majority’ (about 70% most places) votes for independence. Referendum are poison for democracy and little more than mob rule.
“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”
― Winston S. Churchill
I can see your point GD. The thing that concerns me with democracy is that it could become a dictatorship of the majority. Imagine there was a vote between those who wanted the country run by puritans and those who want to live their life the way they see fit and the puritans won 50.1% to 49.9% and you were one of the losing 49.9%?
I’m with Winny on this one.
The problem is not so much with democracy [and I’m with Winny too] as the way it is abused. If the vast majority of Catalonians [reports today of 90%] want independence then I would consider that the will of the people. If the result is ignored then there will be trouble ahead.
Spain deciding Catalonia’s fate would be akin to the EU demanding that Brexit be decided by all of Europe and not just the UK. In fact I am very surprised that they didn’t demand just that.
as the way it is abused
Yeah that’s true, democracy like everything else can be abused and used for positive or negative ends. The Force being used by both Darth Vader and Yoda for example.
How does it go? Something like “we had to destroy democracy in order to save it”?
Side note: methought, if the Spanish riot police had been issued with white uniforms instead of black, it would have been hard to spot the difference from scenes in “The Hunger Games”
Well, at least it takes the attention off Brexit. I suppose that’s something…
Caning small children is not good but I’ll bet you half a crown that the other three aren’t.
“otherwise we’d still be hanging people, smoking anywhere, caning small children and using currency and measurements based on Ancient Babylonian mathematics).”
Democracy is simply defined as the biggest mob gets to run the show for a while. Biggest in terms of ‘getting the largest number of votes’ in any election. Naturally this means 49% get ruled by 51% assuming every registered elector trundles out and votes. So around half the population of any governed area is pissed off with the mob running the show. Brilliant system for those who gain, the mob.
Theory is registered electors turn into voters when they put a cross on a piece of paper. That is said to indicate the individual electors choice of
wardenrepresentative. Not in the government though but a representative in a talking shop Dáil Éireann over there Parliament over here. Of course it isn’t told like that it is sold as ‘choosing the next government’.Theory is government can be trusted 100% to run things fairly and squarely. Truth is it a tad different as government doesn’t care which party gets the most votes, counted of course by the not fair not square government, all it requires is the consent of the governed to be governed.
Voting is not consenting. Being a registered elector is where the consent is given. If you are a registered elector you are consenting to be goverened by a government the only purpose of which is more government.
No government on earth works to make itself redundant. The Finns tried that once and the ‘reducing government’ government lasted one term if memory serves and then it was back to ‘more government’ government.