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Post by uthacalthing on Aug 16, 2023 10:43:44 GMT
Somewhat true. However, the usual alternatives offered to democracy are to not have democracy. I dont think you would deny that the UK was a democratic nation fifty years ago. Even a hundred years ago. Even 150 years ago. Maybe even 190 years ago. I wonder if carlton43 could identify a point in history where the franchise was wide enough to be regarded as democratic but narrow enough to tend to exclude people who lacked the ability to exercise that franchise. There are legitimate questions to be asked around the optimum age for voting. 16 or 18. Or 21. There are legitimate questions to be asked around the citizenship requirement. UK national or local resident. There are legitimate questions to be asked around criminals and voting. There are legitimate questions to be asked around showing ID or accessing postal votes. I tend to think they are not being asked by any political parties in good faith but rather for tribal advantage.
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 13,725
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Post by J.G.Harston on Aug 16, 2023 10:44:25 GMT
The wider the franchise the lower the level of education and understanding and even interest in that electorate. So you are in effect arguing for a position where a more ignorant and irrational electorate decide the affairs of the nation. Is that because your desire for the absolutist principle of inclusion trumps your own inherent rationality of what is obviously best? Or that a large, lazy, ignorant electorate is far easier to manipulate by simple rhetoric and bribery to support you blindly in what you do? A wider franchise must always mean a poorer and weaker and more corrupt outcome. It is a common falsity to regard a universal suffrage to be a given or a good thing, when all the evidence suggests quite the opposite. What I'm arguing is that people who complain about universal suffrage are people who can't deal with the fact that their opinions are unpopular and that they should grow up and learn to deal with it. The people advocating a reversal of democracy always seem to assume they will still be in charge.
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Post by carlton43 on Aug 16, 2023 10:47:19 GMT
The wider the franchise the lower the level of education and understanding and even interest in that electorate. So you are in effect arguing for a position where a more ignorant and irrational electorate decide the affairs of the nation. Is that because your desire for the absolutist principle of inclusion trumps your own inherent rationality of what is obviously best? Or that a large, lazy, ignorant electorate is far easier to manipulate by simple rhetoric and bribery to support you blindly in what you do? A wider franchise must always mean a poorer and weaker and more corrupt outcome. It is a common falsity to regard a universal suffrage to be a given or a good thing, when all the evidence suggests quite the opposite. What I'm arguing is that people who complain about universal suffrage are people who can't deal with the fact that their opinions are unpopular and that they should grow up and learn to deal with it. Quite the reverse of that. I just see through the utter self-serving hypocrisy of people like you who pay lip service to a pseudo demi-semi form of very partial democracy that keeps the usual suspects in power with little or no scrutiny at all whilst maintaining the fiction that we are self governing, which is an abject lie. It suits your purposes to have a large pig ignorant uncaring electorate (especially of barely literate immigrants) where you can harvest the vote to maintain a raft of seats in perpetuity. You don't want a smaller cleverer electorate taking a close interest and causing practical and policy difficulties and challanging all that you say and do. You are actually the anti-democrats; the we know best party; the government always wins party. I am the radical that wants to upset your cozy corrupt apple cart.
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Post by carlton43 on Aug 16, 2023 10:51:04 GMT
Somewhat true. However, the usual alternatives offered to democracy are to not have democracy. I dont think you would deny that the UK was a democratic nation fifty years ago. Even a hundred years ago. Even 150 years ago. Maybe even 190 years ago. I wonder if carlton43 could identify a point in history where the franchise was wide enough to be regarded as democratic but narrow enough to tend to exclude people who lacked the ability to exercise that franchise. There are legitimate questions to be asked around the optimum age for voting. 16 or 18. Or 21. There are legitimate questions to be asked around the citizenship requirement. UK national or local resident. There are legitimate questions to be asked around criminals and voting. There are legitimate questions to be asked around showing ID or accessing postal votes. I tend to think they are not being asked by any political parties in good faith but rather for tribal advantage. The 18thC with a much stronger HOL. Then we were cruising towards a form of world supremacy. Socialism, democracy and Christianity put an end to all that. And look at us now ...... And weep those bitter tears!
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Post by uthacalthing on Aug 16, 2023 10:56:27 GMT
What I'm arguing is that people who complain about universal suffrage are people who can't deal with the fact that their opinions are unpopular and that they should grow up and learn to deal with it. They tend to be. And I have been telling the Remainiacs to grow up and learn to deal with it for a while now. But unpopular with who? What age? How local? Should voters who dont live here yet, but who are hoping to get a flight here soon get a vote? Should voters in their third year at High School in Glasgow get a vote on housing development in Aberdeen where they may wish to live in ten years' time? Or only people in Aberdeen who already have homes? Or am I taking that too far? Have we identified that there is in fact a concept of too far as well as a concept of not yet far enough? And both should be discussed respectfully?
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Aug 16, 2023 11:02:35 GMT
What I'm arguing is that people who complain about universal suffrage are people who can't deal with the fact that their opinions are unpopular and that they should grow up and learn to deal with it. Quite the reverse of that. I just see through the utter self-serving hypocrisy of people like you who pay lip service to a pseudo demi-semi form of very partial democracy that keeps the usual suspects in power with little or no scrutiny at all whilst maintaining the fiction that we are self governing, which is an abject lie. It suits your purposes to have a large pig ignorant uncaring electorate (especially of barely literate immigrants) where you can harvest the vote to maintain a raft of seats in perpetuity. You don't want a smaller cleverer electorate taking a close interest and causing practical and policy difficulties and challanging all that you say and do. You are actually the anti-democrats; the we know best party; the government always wins party. I am the radical that wants to upset your cozy corrupt apple cart. This is what is technically known as loser talk.
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Post by uthacalthing on Aug 16, 2023 11:04:35 GMT
The 18thC with a much stronger HOL. Then we were cruising towards a form of world supremacy. we had lost the Americas and not yet gained India. The supremacy comes in Victorian times, after the Great Reform Act And if you want a better informed and educated electorate, then thick men need to be excluded to a greater extent than smart women. Thats before you even get to defining informed and educated in such a way that it affords my meaningless degree its honest value of nil, while still giving me the vote for having worked and paid tax in managerial positions, raised a family, and owned a home (outright) without the benefit of inheritance.
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Post by uthacalthing on Aug 16, 2023 11:11:04 GMT
This is what is technically known as loser talk. yep, neither of you is really a credit to your argument. You have a very good degree from a very good university. He owns his home outright and has oodles of investments. You can both do better. At what age should a person be permitted to vote? To operate a chainsaw? To drive an HGV? Hold a firearms certificate? Sit on a jury? Do time in HMP Shotts? Serve in Afghanistan? Co-star in Teens First Anal? Answer ideally without reference to their likelihood to vote Labour
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Post by Daft H'a'porth A'peth A'pith on Aug 16, 2023 11:20:31 GMT
Some potential voters know enough to know they don't know enough to choose, and therefore they don't vote, for that reason.
They may be the most enlightened of the whole elctotate.
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Post by uthacalthing on Aug 16, 2023 11:27:16 GMT
carlton43, can I ask your opinion, should the franchise include women?
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Post by carlton43 on Aug 16, 2023 11:34:54 GMT
What you are doing, quite effectively, is listing some of the undoubted downsides of democracy. But the thing people like you never demonstrate is how your alternative method (if any is proposed at all) would be better. This is one instance where a famous (almost cliched) Churchill aphorism still holds true. Yes it does hold an effect. And no I don't have an alternative and don't seek one. The fact a good alternative cannot be suggested does not confer value or status upon Democracy though. It is a quite awful system. I have banged on for years about us not really having a Democracy, but just pretending that we do, What we have is an occasional semi-elective perpetual oligarchy of like-minded people from one subsection, pretending that they are ruling at the 'Will of the People' and carrying out an agreed Manifesto, but actually doing no such things and often knowingly flouting the public will because they think they know better and have right on their side to do the obviously 'correct thing'. That attitude lost the the support of anarcho-rationaists like me decades ago. We despise the system and the hypocritical operatives within it who mouth platitudes but know that their scope for action is diminished by the realities of globalism and the strangle hold of a US dominated rather odd form of narrow uber-capitalism that they are scared to confront let alone challange. The public or 'electorate' know that they have a very small power rather like the nuclear deterrent. It is more apparent than real. They can turf out one party but they know the other party is pretty much the same because they all come from the same system and believe the same things and have the same givens and cannot countenance most of the choices the public might suggest. So in political terms our electorate is an ignorant child because it has never been permitted to grow up and be an adult and take any decisions at all; so it has become sullen and lazy or a minority angry and resentful; but crucially none are permitted to participate at all. If the HOC and all policies were made completely and directly democratic, the electorate would quickly take a closer and more informed interest and our policy decisions would start to change possibly quite radically. Now, at present we are all in a Soma-induced blur of nothingness called 'Democracy' of which we are proud for no reason at all. It stinks and we can all smell that stink.
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Post by carlton43 on Aug 16, 2023 11:48:09 GMT
carlton43 , can I ask your opinion, should the franchise include women? Yes you can of course ask. And you may ask as well.
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Post by Daft H'a'porth A'peth A'pith on Aug 16, 2023 11:50:52 GMT
What you are doing, quite effectively, is listing some of the undoubted downsides of democracy. But the thing people like you never demonstrate is how your alternative method (if any is proposed at all) would be better. This is one instance where a famous (almost cliched) Churchill aphorism still holds true. Yes it does hold an effect. And no I don't have an alternative and don't seek one. The fact a good alternative cannot be suggested does not confer value or status upon Democracy though. It is a quite awful system. I have banged on for years about us not really having a Democracy, but just pretending that we do, What we have is an occasional semi-elective perpetual oligarchy of like-minded people from one subsection, pretending that they are ruling at the 'Will of the People' and carrying out an agreed Manifesto, but actually doing no such things and often knowingly flouting the public will because they think they know better and have right on their side to do the obviously 'correct thing'. That attitude lost the the support of anarcho-rationaists like me decades ago. We despise the system and the hypocritical operatives within it who mouth platitudes but know that their scope for action is diminished by the realities of globalism and the strangle hold of a US dominated rather odd form of narrow uber-capitalism that they are scared to confront let alone challange. The public or 'electorate' know that they have a very small power rather like the nuclear deterrent. It is more apparent than real. They can turf out one party but they know the other party is pretty much the same because they all come from the same system and believe the same things and have the same givens and cannot countenance most of the choices the public might suggest. So in political terms our electorate is an ignorant child because it has never been permitted to grow up and be an adult and take any decisions at all; so it has become sullen and lazy or a minority angry and resentful; but crucially none are permitted to participate at all. If the HOC and all policies were made completely and directly democratic, the electorate would quickly take a closer and more informed interest and our policy decisions would start to change possibly quite radically. Now, at present we are all in a Soma-induced blur of nothingness called 'Democracy' of which we are proud for no reason at all. It stinks and we can all smell that stink. There is a deliberate strategy to provide news as entertainment rather than anything factual. I am not a member of a political party because as you say, when it comes to the differences in what they actually do, well you couldn't fit a fig leaf between them. One has to try and choose the least worst, which can be very difficult at times.
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Post by carlton43 on Aug 16, 2023 11:56:51 GMT
What I'm arguing is that people who complain about universal suffrage are people who can't deal with the fact that their opinions are unpopular and that they should grow up and learn to deal with it. The people advocating a reversal of democracy always seem to assume they will still be in charge. Oh! J G, you poor, poor boy! 1) I am not advocating a reversal of democracy. I don't care that much. 2) I contend that we do not enjoy anything that is even close to a democracy. 3) The electors are never even tenuously close to 'being in charge'. 4) The government is usually not very much in charge. 5) This government is not in power or in charge of anything at all. You have delusions that all this is useful and meaningful, whereas it is not.
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Post by carlton43 on Aug 16, 2023 12:37:41 GMT
This is what is technically known as loser talk. yep, neither of you is really a credit to your argument. You have a very good degree from a very good university. He owns his home outright and has oodles of investments. You can both do better. At what age should a person be permitted to vote? To operate a chainsaw? To drive an HGV? Hold a firearms certificate? Sit on a jury? Do time in HMP Shotts? Serve in Afghanistan? Co-star in Teens First Anal? Answer ideally without reference to their likelihood to vote Labour A Model Electorate to be composed from and only from 1) Full citizens of the UK for more than 20-years, who have only British citizenship and none other. 2) Only persons falling under Rule1 and none other. 3) Only persons that have never been convicted of a criminal offence resulting in any term of imprisonment. 4) Only persons that have become registered for elections by personal application and proved entitlement and undoubted identity. 5) That registration to be individual, personal, at registration office, demonstrating fluency in English and basic essential knowledge. 6) Only persons who have attained age 25 on election day or earlier. Other Matters Chainsaw No age restriction. HGV Age 20 Firearm Age 16 (but hedged about by many other rules and qualifications) Jury Age 20 Prison Age 16 Army Age 18 Porn No age restriction but much of the scope to be a criminal offence anyway No attention paid to gender, race, religion, etc. in any way.
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Aug 16, 2023 13:01:32 GMT
This is what is technically known as loser talk. yep, neither of you is really a credit to your argument. You have a very good degree from a very good university. He owns his home outright and has oodles of investments. You can both do better. At what age should a person be permitted to vote? To operate a chainsaw? To drive an HGV? Hold a firearms certificate? Sit on a jury? Do time in HMP Shotts? Serve in Afghanistan? Co-star in Teens First Anal? Answer ideally without reference to their likelihood to vote Labour As I say, I don't believe it is an argument that deserves to be taken seriously. My position is that the only people who argue for limiting the franchise are people who think they are better than the rest of the electorate, and that five minutes spent listening to them is an adequate disproof of the argument. On that basis, I've already spent ten minutes too long thinking about this.
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Post by johnloony on Aug 16, 2023 14:46:24 GMT
At what age should a person be permitted to vote? To operate a chainsaw? To drive an HGV? Hold a firearms certificate? Sit on a jury? Do time in HMP Shotts? Serve in Afghanistan? Co-star in Teens First Anal? 18 23 25 37 18 21 98 and I don’t know what the last thing is, so I can’t give a number for that
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Post by uthacalthing on Aug 16, 2023 15:55:11 GMT
As I say, I don't believe it is an argument that deserves to be taken seriously. My position is that the only people who argue for limiting the franchise are people who think they are better than the rest of the electorate, and that five minutes spent listening to them is an adequate disproof of the argument. On that basis, I've already spent ten minutes too long thinking about this. I thought carlton43 argument was pretty weak, but you have managed to offer a weaker one consisting of absolutely nothing other than ad hominem. Almost impressive in its own way although not enough to make me support Carlton. Off you trot back to your echo chamber where you can agree on how stupid people you can't offer an argument against are.
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Post by uthacalthing on Aug 16, 2023 16:01:49 GMT
That registration to be individual, personal, at registration office, demonstrating fluency in English and basic essential knowledge.what we have here is vetting. And since vetting can only be done by the establishment since whoever has the power and authority to do the vetting is by definition the establishment, what you are arguing for is a new and different establishment.
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neilm
Non-Aligned
Posts: 25,023
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Post by neilm on Aug 16, 2023 16:06:40 GMT
I think there is a case for having to show you have a basic knowledge of the political system, and in this case maybe a very basic understanding of how the police force works, but I agree its problematic to ensure it remains apolitical. I don't see that as a problem. Policing is inherently political, even if it is with a small p. In some ways a big dose of being politicised might benefit how policing operates in England and Wales.
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