> Brexit is a turning point in the history of western democracy. Never before has such a drastic decision been taken through so primitive a procedure – a one-round referendum based on a simple majority. Never before has the fate of a country – of an entire continent, in fact – been changed by the single swing of such a blunt axe, wielded by disenchanted and poorly informed citizens.
> Referendums and elections are both arcane instruments of public deliberation. If we refuse to update our democratic technology, we may find the system is beyond repair; 2016 already risks becoming the worst year for democracy since 1933. We may find, even after the folly of Brexit, that Donald Trump wins the American presidency later this year. But this may have less to do with Trump himself, or the oddities of the American political system, than with a dangerous road that all western democracies have taken: reducing democracy to voting.
> Isn’t it bizarre that voting, our highest civic duty, boils down to an individual action performed in the silence of the voting booth? Is this really the place where we turn individual gut feelings into shared priorities? Is it really where the common good and the long term are best served?
> The words “election” and “democracy” have become synonymous. We have convinced ourselves that the only way to choose a representative is through the ballot box.
> Electoral fundamentalism is an unshakeable belief in the idea that democracy is inconceivable without elections and elections are a necessary and fundamental precondition when speaking of democracy. Electoral fundamentalists refuse to regard elections as a means of taking part in democracy, seeing them instead as an end in themselves, as a doctrine with an intrinsic, inalienable value.
Nolan Cooper
>democracy is outdated
That's literally a fascist motto
Gabriel Baker
> This collective hysteria has made election fever permanent and has serious consequences for the workings of democracy. Efficiency suffers under the electoral calculus, legitimacy under the continual need to distinguish oneself, while time and again, the electoral system ensures that the long term and the common interest lose out to the short term and party interests. Elections were once invented to make democracy possible, but in these circumstances they seem to be a hindrance.
> What kind of democracy is appropriate to an era of fast, decentralised communication? How should the government deal with all those articulate citizens who stand shouting from the sidelines?
> But a much better way to let the people speak than through a referendum is to return to the central principle of Athenian democracy: drafting by lot, or sortition as it is presently called. In ancient Athens, the large majority of public functions were assigned by lot. Renaissance states such as Venice and Florence worked on the same basis and experienced centuries of political stability. With sortition, you do not ask everyone to vote on an issue few people really understand, but you draft a random sample of the population and make sure they come to the grips with the subject matter in order to take a sensible decision. A cross-section of society that is informed can act more coherently than an entire society that is uninformed.
Xavier James
>the will of the people when their team wins, calling democracy a broken system when they lose
progs gonna prog
Brandon Davis
> By talking to a diverse cross-section of Irish society, politicians could get further than they could have by just talking to each other. By exchanging views with elected officials, citizens could give much more relevant input than they could have in an election or a referendum.
> What if this procedure had been applied in the UK last week? What if a random sample of citizens had a chance to learn from experts, listen to proposals, talk to each other and engage with politicians? What if a mixed group of elected and drafted citizens had thought the matter through? What if the rest of society could have had a chance to follow and contribute to their deliberations? What if the proposal this group would have come up with had been subjected to public scrutiny? Do we think a similarly reckless decision would have been taken?
Evan Baker
...
Carson Rodriguez
>democracy only works when we get what we want
at least they're being honest for once
Asher Gray
Vote didn't go my way == Voting is bad
Levi Brooks
> The arguments put forward against sortition are often identical to the reasons once put forward for not allowing peasants, workers or women to vote. Then, too, opponents claimed it would mark the end of democracy. Do we think Brexit might still have been possible if citizens had been truly invited to express their grievances and search for solutions together with those they had voted for?
> If David Cameron had opted for the genuine participation of citizens, he would have obtained a much clearer view of what people really wanted, a powerful list of shared priorities, an agenda for further negotiations, and created much less distrust between the masses and the ruling class. On top of that, he would have gained global admiration for daring to tackle a complex challenge by an innovative process that values people’s voices instead of counting their votes. He could have set a new standard for democracy, rather than serving as its gravedigger.
Ian Martinez
>A bloo-bloo democracy doesn't work the way we want it to work. How come those racist holocaust denying goy- I mean people DISAGREE with our progrssive ideals?
Zachary Jackson
its only a matter of time before this thinking becomes mainstream
fascist left will win unless we purge the marxists from education
Joseph Perry
Wow, you guys are fucked.
Condolences.
Angel Morris
>Tfw you've wanted a facist dictatorship for years >tfw the people you wanted to purge are making their own in real time before your eyes
Where did it all go so wrong?
Parker Cox
Again. The saltiest of johns right now. You left something to a vote and suddenly the group that won were "uninformed"?
And even if you did do sortition, your millennial ass wouldn't of even shown up to make the decision. All this writer wants is someone they can locate, fill with a bunch of information then send them off to make their decision for them.
Jace Perez
>Reybrouck
oh well no surprises this lunatic has been shilling against democracy for years.
Carter Morgan
>
Thank you, Mr. Goldstein for showing us that demmocratic elections are bad for the ruling elite...err I mean, the goyim.
Aiden Foster
These people need to get out. I can only imagine how they would implement this lot system with affirmative action quotas and feeding biased information to these selected people.
Jaxson Adams
Europe is gonna make it 3 for 3 aren't they?
Good thing I'm too old to do much more than tend my garden and resent my prostate.
Brandon Cook
>draft a "random" sample of citizens, but of course make sure that it is sufficiently diverse and multicultural >"educate" them by subjecting them to turbo propaganda created by the government and various special interest groups >then let them decide the fate of 65 million people
Welcome to Neoliberal capitalism. You had your chance. All you had to do was organize.
Joseph Wood
Unlike the rest of the those in this thread that probably never read more than paragraph and decided to post anyway, I for one have to agree that sortition is a system that deserves some attention.
Basically you find and draw up an eligible pool of citizens ( no felons, drug addicts etc. ), hold a drawing and from it comes a small group representing a large swathe of a society.
Along with preferably a secondary elected group, they input their voices into the system.
It has a lot of merit, for one it can't be bought, if you don't know who's going to be in charge, how can you pay people off?
Zachary Scott
It's a sad day when even the Daily Mail seems more intelligent. The Guardian used to be alright, now it's blairite, love-the-smell-of-your-own-farts, shit 'hip' healthy recipes, SJW-tier bullshit
Oh, and everyone who reads it are psuedo-intelluctal idiots who are either 18 and 'progressive' or older than that and clearly think they're young
Robert Long
Agreed. Back to pre-French Revolution times imo.
Colton Morales
Or, alternatively, it was just a bad system. As stated in the OP:
>Never before has such a drastic decision been taken through so primitive a procedure – a one-round referendum based on a simple majority
This was a referendum called by a right-wing PM scared of being outflanked to the right. He assumed he could guarantee the result and put Farage back in his box. Unfortunately, Boris the Bold threw his hat into the ring on the other side. A split Leave campaign allowed each partner free to delegate the bits of the argument they found distasteful to the other partner. This was all compounded by an electorate fed up with a lot of things and keen to show them leets wot 4.
Result, a complex decision reduced to monkeys ticking boxes. And I have to ask you, is that any way to fun a fucking ballroom?
Ryan Barnes
>Liberals have hijacked the narrative surrounding the Brexit, immediately turning it into a negative event and pushing the idea people regretted it. >With the UK gone, the EU can slowly eliminate the individual nation-states. >Now the practice of Democracy can be separated from the word. The term can now be used to meaning anything.
Ok. I believe in conspiracy theories now.
Nolan Gomez
...
John Kelly
lol too real
Brandon Myers
>Why elections are bad for democracy
Couldn't even read the title with a straight face.
Noah Peterson
And heaven forbid that person vote "the wrong way" they'd be a goddamn social pariah.
Jackson Bailey
They really don't like the anonymity of the voting booth obviously.
Joseph Parker
Civil war is coming to my country. I know it. I just know it.
Hudson Morris
You dont expect the (((elites))) to go quietly now do you?
They've allready managed to convince 99% of your people that whites are uniquely bad and dissallowed from having racial pride. Do you think they cant convince you that not having a vote isnt better than actually having a say, and that it's actually undemocratic to have the demos (common people) kratos (rule)
We allready live in opposite-land. Their latest meme was "reportes need to be protected from mean commoners free-speech". People bought that one. Why wouldnt they buy "Democracy needs protection from the people to be democratic"?
Hudson Smith
>for one it can't be bought
yeah nah... the people who draw the lot who is who and once that is known its even easier to manipulate since now you just need to bribe, threaten, brainwash, replace a few people and be "ok".
Nathaniel Nguyen
>if you don't know who's going to be in charge, how can you pay people off? Umm...you wait until they've been picked, and then you sidle up to them in a parking structure and offer them large wads of cash?
Seriously, I agree that sortition is a worthy system, but it's not well suited to the 21st century.
Ayden Martin
The problem comes with who gets to decide whos eligible? The poor, the uneducated, even people with criminal records all deserve representation. Like it or not they belong to the same country you do and deserve to have their voices heard.
Eli Murphy
What kinda tom-fuckery is the Guardian printing now?
Ayden Lewis
Why even bother with elected bodies then? Seriously all this does is dilute the power of the people, which is of course what the neoliberals want.
Liam Taylor
Im sick an tired of having this nonsense shoved down my throat by these internet ((((((((((journalists))))))))))). This needs to stop. Now.
Cooper Hughes
This is what Germany is creating with the European Soviet Union.
Why do you think the Brits wanted out?
Jacob Cruz
>saltiest of Johns
Who do you main friendo?
Also, good post
Dylan Foster
>There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion. Winston Churchill, drunken tool of the jews.
Jack Miller
>make it so you must declare your vote infront of your peers and friends
I wonder who would win every election from now on
Andrew Edwards
I'm sorry, I seem to be behind on my memes. Can someone explain what ((((((this)))))) is all about? Thanks.
Samuel Cox
But you don't live in america.
The britbongs have never had a civil war, america has.
Elijah Lee
>The people, through democracy, prevail over the wishes of the establishment >bad year for democracy
Fucking doublespeak
Hunter Taylor
>leftists unironically calling for an end to democracy when they don't get their way
Jacob Myers
This. When you control who votes you control the outcome. It'll never be "random" or it will be until someone decides it can be used to tilt an election the way they want.
William Martinez
>democracy is only good when we get what we want
Adrian Cruz
There's nothing the left hates more than democracy.
Hunter Edwards
>The britbongs have never had a civil war 'murican edjoocashun
Nathaniel Richardson
We should have ONE person responsible, and if he people is dissatisfied he should be killed and replaced.
It worked for thousands of years untill ZOG found the kings too hard to controll and replaced them with democracy.
Read the protocols if you havent allready. It's all there verbatim.
(((is jewish, or run by jews)))
)))is a jew-conscious non-jew(((
Oliver Perry
Actual fascism? Alright time to convince my neighbors to buy a gun before refugees settle down here.
Luke Sanders
browser extension that flagged all jews in this manner, social media throw a fit and started to use this to throw it off.
Joshua Parker
The left sure did a fast 180 after Brexit. They now share more with Hitler than any true liberal
Benjamin Johnson
...
Daniel Thompson
We memed the wrong way. It's too late now!
Colton Barnes
Athens literally did shitloads of votes by the entire vote of the people on the Plinth. This stupid fucker doesn't know his history.
Only regular day to day functions were delegated to elected representatives, not huge shit like going to war or breaking an alliance.
Austin Adams
One of the few things that keeps me going and not having a breakdown is that at least the worldwide forces of globalism are starting to take their masks off.
They're becoming more and more open/brazen.
Ryder Thompson
Thanks
Austin Fisher
>we let everyone vote and a majority voted how we didn't want >if only we could have limited it to a "random" small group then we could have been sure they would vote how the people really want
Who the fuck is this kike?
Lincoln Cooper
The people vs the government the people win every time. They don't have enough people to police 350 million people, if the people ever rise they're fucked.
Jose Peterson
>This is the future working class of my generation
Goddamn you no child left behind
Landon Myers
>tfw Brexit causes the regressive left to shill for fascism and totalitarianism
Nathaniel Parker
>it's all wrong when it doesn't go my way Daily reminder: we win either way.
Levi Evans
They had two. War of the Roses and the actual English Civil War.
Adam Sullivan
It almost as if the globalist elite don't yet realize that they are basically the Bourbons at the dawn of the France Revolution.
Hudson Flores
Any day now they're going to come out for slavery.
Ethan Allen
>What is neoliberalism?
This is not a left or right wing thing.
Easton James
That's not true. I've only just read a single sentence of yours, and already I hate you more than I hate democracy.
You are, of course, free to interpret that as a measure of my lack of contempt for democracy, or alternatively that I take anonymous internet hatred to irrational extremes.
Dylan Miller
>88
Isaiah Harris
>The britbongs have never had a civil war
Caleb Jones
>Democracy is outdated
This is just contrarian bullshit spewing out of the mouth of some hipster who normally writes listicles so that he can feel intellectually superior to the entire western world, which was founded on democracy. Or maybe he really wants dictatorship, who knows.
>I'M MORE POLITICALLY ACTIVE THAN OLD PEOPLE, SO MY VOTE SHOULD COUNT FOR MORE!
But what did the creators of democracy even know, anyway? I mean, they didn't even read huffpo.
Ryder Sullivan
>The britbongs have never had a civil war Jesus dude, you're making the other burgers look bad
Eli Ross
It means 4chans (((kike))) detector script is working.
Kayden Rogers
>West: We need to invade countries to give them democracy and applaud their voting to make decisions!
>West: Meh, voting is dumb and doesnt even work
Samuel Morris
Let's say hypothetically the simple peasants in the UK actually did want out of the EU
By this person's rubric, how would such a thing be achieved?
Luis Martinez
What are student loans and being unable to find a decent-paying job?
Connor Kelly
>implying they haven't already done that in America with all their shilling for illegals and work visas
Jose Bailey
Grauniad cuckdom
Gavin Jackson
Just wait untill Trump wins in a landslide. This is just the beginning of (((their))) kevetching.
Juan Morris
Found the progressive liberal facist.
Anything can be bought if you have the right amount of money and any control group can be swayed a certain way when the question/polling data is swayed a certain way. The "education" will undoubtedly be biased to whatever is decided to be "best" for the whole rather than showing actual, unbiased, objective information on both sides without the mudslinging.
What these facists want is the same thing that we see in teh polls: biased data the conforms to a set style of beliefs/voting procedures which produce a result that looks more favorable to the narrative. Remember how the polls were saying Remain was going to win? What happened? Leave won. Why? Because polling data was gathered from biased sources in order to push the undecided a certain direction.
The reason this article even went up is to piss on democracy as a whole and to push for reform because it didn't go their way. If Remain had actually won, this article would have NEVER shown up at all because these biased progressive think that we should all become cucks and not stand up for our rights, beliefs, or freedoms. The UK proved that democracy works even in the face of biased polls, violence, and underhanded tactics.
Luis Martinez
yeah you have to be blind to not see the similarities. Brussels is basically versailles, the politicans there is the aristocracy and the media is their army.
Kayden Rodriguez
the brice of freedom D':
Aiden Jones
Using what? Forks?
Landon Cox
"Democracy is a dictatorship of the main democrat" is not a meme anymore
But eurofaggots will stay blind as always
Gavin Wood
God dammit it dude.
Dominic Watson
>the single most important factor for a system to be called democracy is bad for democracy
Jack Russell
...
Hunter Allen
Step 1. Stigmatize Democracy Step 2. Champion Meritocracy Step 3. Make education more scarce, shrinking qualified leader Step 4. Ruling class starts acting like dictators. Step 5. Lizard people openly walk around without disguises
Hunter Harris
I think you greatly underestimate just how stupid some of us burgers can be when it comes to world history.
Luis Cruz
Let's just say, hypothetically, the simple peasants in the UK actually did want to jump off a cliff because their mates did. How would such a thing be achieved?
Jaxson Green
THE GRAUNIAD MUST FALL
Asher Murphy
Fucker, when Athens did this IMPORTANT shit went to referendum. ALL citizens voted.
Actually since he brings up Athens, just white free males born in the city. Lets make those the only people able to vote and fuck yeah, I'm on board. You useless numales will never get a say in anything EVER again, because women and immigrants are the only people who agree.
The power of labor, if organized and united, can easily topple most governmental system.
Thomas Nguyen
Read the Federalist Papers. The idea that "too much democracy is a very bad thing" was a strong part of the philosophy that shaped America. It's why we don't do global referendums, why we have the electoral college, why the senate exists, why the house of representatives is not structured like a Parliament, and on and on. A robust structure designed to give a regional cross-section of the feelings of America was what shaped our United States.
Of course, the UK is not the USA, but frankly I think we do "Democracy" better. After all, I think the EU demonstrates why a society formed "from reflection and choice" is desirable to one formed "on accident and force."
John Flores
>one round referendum
They like having rounds until they get the results they want.
