Colombian Referendum 2016

[mboy]

WTAF?

[maxque]

Oct 2, 2016 22:53:29 GMT Jack said:

I can't even begin to understand this decision.

Completely mad.

It's in the like of Trump, Duherte, Orban and other alt-right/far-right insanity.

They'll take power in some countries, will do some massacre of their local population and WW3, like WW2, will be to remove them just as we did with their forefather Hither.

[mondialito]

Oct 2, 2016 23:05:49 GMT maxque said:

Oct 2, 2016 22:53:29 GMT Jack said:

I can't even begin to understand this decision.

Completely mad.

It's in the like of Trump, Duherte, Orban and other alt-right/far-right insanity.

They'll take power in some countries, will do some massacre of their local population and WW3, like WW2, will be to remove them just as we did with their forefather Hither.

There weren't any nukes in 1940 though...

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Perhaps we Britons lost the right to brand other nations' unexpected referendum votes as mad, around about 4 AM on 24 June.

[curiousliberal]

Oct 2, 2016 23:26:47 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

Perhaps we Britons lost the right to brand other nations' unexpected referendum votes as mad, around about 4 AM on 24 June.

I am inclined to agree, but this is several orders of magnitude more mad than Brexit. That said, I think the past few years - the disastrous Swiss immigration referendum, the Scottish referendum that was too close for comfort, the rather hypocritical and racially charged Hungarian referendum, Brexit, and now this one (amongst countless more, the most harmless of which I can think being the New Zealand flag referendum) - have been a damning indictment of direct democracy.

When the fallout of this referendum comes raining down, perhaps the widely derided idea of 'career politicians' - people who train to govern representatively - will come back into fashion, and deservedly so.

[mondialito]

Oct 3, 2016 1:16:21 GMT curiousliberal said:

Oct 2, 2016 23:26:47 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

Perhaps we Britons lost the right to brand other nations' unexpected referendum votes as mad, around about 4 AM on 24 June.

I am inclined to agree, but this is several orders of magnitude more mad than Brexit. That said, I think the past few years - the disastrous Swiss immigration referendum, the Scottish referendum that was too close for comfort, the rather hypocritical and racially charged Hungarian referendum, Brexit, and now this one (amongst countless more, the most harmless of which I can think being the New Zealand flag referendum) - have been a damning indictment of direct democracy.

When the fallout of this referendum comes raining down, perhaps the widely derided idea of 'career politicians' - people who train to govern representatively - will come back into fashion, and deservedly so.

I dunno, I think the anti-politics mood still has more to give. Although I wouldn't be aggrieved if 2016 comes to be known as the year referenda died.

[The Bishop]

And whilst referenda are terrible things generally, lets not forget that "career politicians" didn't become widely discredited just on a whim.

As for this utter horror - still can't get over the absolutely pathetic poll for something so important. Proof that these things need a turnout threshold, at least?

[mboy]

No, if it had failed to reach the turnout threshold then it would still have been rejected - by default for missing the threshold. To have a peace treaty that was backed by the public fail because not enough of them voted "no" to take it over the threshold would be utterly absurd. Turnout thresholds are utterly absurd.

[The Bishop]

Well, being rejected by a razor thin margin in a turnout well under 40% isn't exactly ideal either.

[curiousliberal]

Oct 3, 2016 10:13:51 GMT The Bishop said:

And whilst referenda are terrible things generally, lets not forget that "career politicians" didn't become widely discredited just on a whim.

As for this utter horror - still can't get over the absolutely pathetic poll for something so important. Proof that these things need a turnout threshold, at least?

At the top tier, career politicians do not get anywhere near the amount of respect that they should. Most could be in much better paid jobs without intense, unfair media scrutiny, with a private life of their own and without a concerted, party-bankrolled attempt to make them redundant every few years.

They definitely weren't discredited on a whim (in this country, at least, Blair's spin machine significantly damaged their reputation) but they were always better than the alternative.

Right up until polling day, Yes had a very strong lead. Many voters wouldn't bother to turn out, and as @odo wrote earlier, the pro-peace deal parties made minimal efforts to boost turnout because they, too, thought it was a done deal. Perhaps things would have been different if they'd bothered to vote.

One of the more tragic, and telling, things about this result was that those more likely to be worse affected by a continuation of the war - that is, the poor - voted Yes in greater numbers.

[Jack]

Oct 2, 2016 23:26:47 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

Perhaps we Britons lost the right to brand other nations' unexpected referendum votes as mad, around about 4 AM on 24 June.

[oddroutes]

I'm so glad the CIA has propped up Uribe for at least 2.5 decades. What a monster.

[oddroutes]

Oct 2, 2016 23:05:49 GMT maxque said:

Oct 2, 2016 22:53:29 GMT Jack said:

I can't even begin to understand this decision.

Completely mad.

It's in the like of Trump, Duherte, Orban and other alt-right/far-right insanity.

Duterte is - as much as I hate to say it - an outgrowth of left antiimperialism.

[mboy]

Yes, he is more like Chavez than anyone else.

[oddroutes]

Oct 3, 2016 22:39:56 GMT mboy said:

Yes, he is more like Chavez than anyone else.

that is completely unfair to Chavez.  Chavez never had any death squads nor make calls for extrajudicial execution.  or any execution at all - the Death Penalty is illegal in Venezuela.

[Andrew_S]

Are they really talking about Brexit in Colombia?

"Shortly after the vote count came in, a young Colombian woman, crushed to tears by the No win, told me, “Uribe is like Colombia’s Voldemort.” She and some of her friends were also dismayed by the low voter turnout, of around thirty-seven per cent, and talked about leaving the country. “First Brexit, now this,” she said. “This means Trump is going to win in the United States. What will you do?”

www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/how-colombias-voters-rejected-peace

[Sibboleth]

Well young people with the internet will certainly be aware of it. Why wouldn't they?

[Devil Wincarnate]

Oct 4, 2016 19:48:26 GMT Sibboleth said:

Well young people with the internet will certainly be aware of it. Why wouldn't they?

Brexit does appear to be a lazy way of describing something one doesn't like.  See, for the opposite, lazy comparisons to Leicester City.

[Richard Allen]

Oct 4, 2016 19:08:07 GMT Andrew_S said:

Are they really talking about Brexit in Colombia?

Are we really talking about the Colombian referendum?

[Jack]

Brexit isn't anywhere near as disastrous as voting to continue a civil war.

But then again, I'm biased.