"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." - Winston Churchill
What's revealed in this article is almost as tragic all the portmanteaus coming out of these events.
- Electoral services workers have reported calls from people asking if they could change their decision after Friday’s result became clear, while some publicly admitted they intended to use a “protest vote” in the belief the UK would remain the European Union.
The anxiety – dubbed “Bregret” – emerged as the value of the pound tumbled and the markets crashed, while others felt betrayed by Nigel Farage’s admission that a Vote Leave poster pledging to spend millions of pounds supposedly given to the EU on the NHS was a “mistake”....
...”I'm shocked that we voted for Leave, I didn't think that was going to happen. I didn't think my vote was going to matter too much because I thought we were just going to remain.“
Man, first Dala's post about people in the UK googling about how they voted and now this. I guess the British don't have much room to make fun of American Politics any more.
Once you've spent a decent amount of time in any other country you realise the spectrum of people is the same the world over. There are dumb and intelligent people everywhere. Just as there are those with superiority and inferiority complexes about their own country.
That's also a good pretext for dictatorship. "British voters are too short-sighted, ignorant and xenophobic to know how their country should be governed, therefore they shouldn't decide" (In case it wasn't clear, I am opposed to dictatorship. But this is where that sentiment can leave you.)
Or was it a secret ploy by the intelligence agencies of Britain to trick those xenophobic voters into getting them out of needing to comply with all these pesky "respect each other's sovereignty" privacy spying laws that they've already been breaking for decades? Victory for establishment and surveillance state.
The EU has been unaware of what GCHQ was doing until recently (Snowden). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10144217/EU-demands-answers-on-GCHQ-snooping.html And then they ruled it was likely illegal now that they've been investigating: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/09/nsa-gchq-illegal-european-parliamentary-inquiry After Brexit? GCHQ doesn't care what the EU thinks anymore, and any legal action EU could have taken and seemingly wanted to take against GCHQ is gone. It's not about the intelligence agencies caring or not caring about breaking the law, it's the fact that they have now been publicly accused of breaking it only a couple of years ago by the EU. The EU works at the speed of tortoise, so nothing has been done about it yet but it was likely it would have. And of course, in the style of their actions against Microsoft and Google monopolies, they probably would have screwed it up by missing the point, but it would have still made GCHQ's job more complicated for sure and GCHQ definitely is partying this weekend whether it was their idea to start Brexit or not.
Sarcasm doesn't travel over the internet. My original post was to more jokingly say they were behind it while simultaneously pointing out the real fact that they are clearly going to benefit from it. They probably already had a plan to deal with EU privacy laws, much like NSA has dealt with US privacy laws by using legal arguments to make "national security" exceptions to constitutional amendments like there are free speech exceptions for shouting "fire" in a movie theater. All they really have to do is hire some lawyers to argue in their direction (which I'm sure they necessarily have anyway), since the warhammer wasn't going to come down for many years anyway they could just have 2 lawyers in office dicking around half of the time and still come up with a logical legal defense. -Robert Anton WilsonLieutenant Eacher, before entering the service, had been an expert at Contract Law, the rules by which the primates determined and marked their territories. Remember: other mammals do this by leaving excretions which geometrically define the size and shape of the claimed turf, but domesticated primates do it by excreting ink on paper. Eacher was a lawyer, an expert at proving either that the ink excretions meant what they said (if he were being paid to prove that) or that the ink execretions didn't mean what they said (if he were being paid to prove that).
Michael Gove has said that the referendum isn't legally binding and that the European court isn't bound by the decision until the respective treaties have been changed. Cameron said: It seems the formal process of negotiation treaties won't start until Article 50 is invoked and Cameron looks reluctant to do that himself. Seems Churchill was right, but maybe there's a glimmer of hope for those ignorant fuckwits who are already regretting their decision."A negotiation with the European Union will need to begin under a new prime minister and I think it's right that this new prime minister takes the decision about when to trigger Article 50 and start the formal and legal process of leaving the EU."
The damage is done. FTSE crash. Sterling crash. Financial repercussions across the world. EU leadership calling for “a swift resolution” to the exit negotiations (quite rightly, to protect the union). They don’t want us any more and want to make an example of us to other EU states. Right wing EU parties calling for their own referenda. We legitimised that. US voicing a clear reluctance to favouring trade negotiations with UK over the larger and more efficient EU trading bloc. Our Prime Minister resigns. No viable replacement. Our EU Commissioner (who was a euroskeptic but changed his views over his career) resigns. No envisioned replacement. (These two would have been instrumental in any informed or strategic negotiations.) Edit 27/6/16: Virtually the entire shadow cabinet resigned or fired citing vote of no confidence in the opposition leader. Key promises from Brexit campaigners withdrawn literally the day after (Part of the platform was: a reduction in immigration, now rephrased as a reexamination and implementation of a points based system; the £350mm paid out to the EU channeled into NHS, the privatisation of which was a sore point in the UK for years, that promise now considered "a mistake". I mean, that one they had printed on a campaign bus.) Scotland calling for another separation referendum, will probably get it and will probably separate whatever happens. English society now philosophically and morally split across wealth (more so), age (will take a generation to heal) and race (between closet racists and settled immigrant nation). Cryptoracists posting notes through Polish immigrants' letterboxes demanding the "Polish vermin leave". Gove, a man so devoid of charisma one may now Google his name and accidentally fear one typed "Mr Bean", reviled for a late campaign quote "we've had enough of experts" now calling to hire hundreds of experts. Exit interviews with voters who thought their call to leave would prevent Syrian refugees migrating illegally in rubber boats but had "no problem with Europeans" living and working in the UK, or misunderstood that voting to leave might secure a result to leave. I mean as divine comedies go, it's certainly diverting, but I rather wish I'd stayed home and watched a drama on Netflix.
Coming from the other side of the pond, the Schadenfreude is strong. Of course, we have our own Stupid Populism thing going, so come November I may feel a little more empathetic.
What, that's still a thing? And to think that I was assuming that I have visited England in their shittiest anti-Pole state. Good for them, at least if they have any capacity to learn from this experience. Sorry, but this hits close enough to home and personal shitty experience. I know that not strictly all Brits are dickheads, but the reptilian brain in me can't help but smirk at this show of dumbassery. I know, that's shitty of me as well. Looks with contempt at the pile of letters from Cambridge Turns out that I made a really good decision by staying.Cryptoracists posting notes through Polish immigrants' letterboxes demanding the "Polish vermin leave".
The ones who are massive dickheads lower the average for the rest of us, sadly.
This post is not directed to anyone in particular here. If you get angry at me, do me a favour and take some deep breaths. I'm annoyed enough without someone lashing at me. I don't have a beef with you, I'm angry at generalization and respond as well. OK? Cool. How the fuck is that Polish fault? That's like having your car stolen by tour own stupidity (say, leaving it open and with keys on the board) and violently kicking arse of some random passerby 'because reasons'. I don't deny that I might be vastly uninformed on the issue, that said I have but one thing to say to such people: suck it up and stop blaming foreigners. Why not blame Indians while England is at it? It's not like I did not see twice as many of them than Poles while I was visiting. Britain, get your shit together. Do that stiff upper lip that you are so fond of saying and take the head out of your collective arse. It improves blood flow in the brain and shows that there are better scents than own fart. Sorry for outburst, I'll try to keep away from this otherwise good discussion and don't even expect more than scorn from you guys (although I don't think I deserve it, it's not like most of you would not be just as angry in my place), but that whole bullshit almost makes me sympathize with staunchest of Polish defenders. Just… fuck it, I'm going for a walk.Polish-language newspaper Nasze Strony wrote that Poles who are already scared about the effects of the Brexit vote did not expect to be harassed after the results.
I don't think you need to worry about any scorn from this community in response to these sentiments. Your exasperation reflects the way a lot of us in Britain feel towards those that fuelled the leave campaign with fear-mongering and bigotry. And, forgetting even the actual ramification of this vote, this is one of the reasons I think that the whole thing is so worrying. It used to be the case that you look at votes for such things and think: "it's scary that many people think like that, but they're in a minority." However, now a campaign full of lies and hate has actually claimed a majority.
Thanks. That judgement upon community was presumptuous on my part, sorry. I'm thinking a bit clearer now. However, part of me can't believe in this. I'm doing my best to keep away from bias, do my own research and achieve conclusions most of the time. My views are hardly radical in any direction, maybe aside of providing better funding to scientific and medical research, but that's my own recognized bias. I don't feel (at least lasting) hate toward anything or anyone, try to really apply "let's be excellent to each other" phrase in my life and be as reasonable as my own emotions and passion allow me. But then I see… this. Hate, preconceptions, manipulation of data and generally proclaiming isolationism and borderline patriotism (I think you know what word I almost used here) as good values. That breaks my heart on a level so fundamental that I have trouble finding words to describe it. I was wholeheartedly convinced that majority of people moved past it. That we, as a species, go toward progress and make steps toward understanding and unity. My limited knowledge of modern history shows slow but steady forward steps in that direction and it gives me hope. That we are becoming aware of our wilder or animalistic motives and natures and use it to find a way to work past it. Even when facing tragedies, both recent and ones that I read about in archives, I remind myself that we go forward. But right now, at this very moment, I feel like someone from Star Trek universe plunged into Crusade era. I'm past anger at this point. I want to break and cry and the only thing that stops me is the fact that it will not solve anything. But I can't even see anything that could be of any furthering use, even though I am perfectly aware that I am exaggerating my own view due to non-rational reasons. EDIT: Of course, to make it clear, oftentimes I can make a fairly benign comment and yet a lot of people on Hubski will start at best being derisive dicks toward me and my opinions. Either publicly or via PM or taking it out to the IRC. So, let's consider my judgement as not presumptuous but in this case I was aligned with hive-mind enough to get some level of understanding. So don't think that I don't find myself treated with a vastly different standard than a lot of the 'old guard' here. Which is, admit it, rather shitty of people.
Devac, I was going to post with a heavy heart an album of screen captures of reports of abuse and actual physical violence that has begun since the morning of the results but I decided it just makes for depressing reading. There are roots of bigotry concealed in the country from which, thanks to privilege of wealth, education and geography, I have been insulated from and never inherited. They have been nurtured over the last 20 years by domestic economic policy and this week bloomed into an ignorant, malformed flower. It's from a very tiny minority. It's no excuse. I've been away from that place for 15 years now. I returned, recently, for work. I'm disgusted with the ongoing sociological disaster. I've no idea if I will stay.
I was watching Sky TV as the results went down; in the same sentence, they pointed out that Scotland had voted almost 2 to 1 to stay in the union but argued that if the voter turnout in Scotland had been higher - believe it was like 69% - the UK might not be dealing with this calamity. Yeah. Sky was basically saying that that the Scots were to blame, despite every single borough coming out in favor of remain.
Och, obviously that must be true. On the other hand, if the Scotland would have a 100% turnout and the ~1300000 people who did not vote cast their votes to "remain" it could actually change the decision… by about 38000 votes. That's only 14000 votes more than rejected ballots. Data taken from: http://www.bbc.com/news/politics/eu_referendum/results Assumed Population of Scotland as about 3987370 people obtained by: Amount of people who abstained in Scotland derived by simple subtraction as: 1307857 Difference between total amount of votes in UK totaling in 1269501 obtained by: Difference between the above result and Scots who did not vote: Now that's a fucking slim margin. That's less than one percent of total electorate and guilt shifted at the only country that completely voted to remain. Of course it's their fault. Not that my very own margin of error is around that amount. That's a fucking joke. I had to do this math above just to see it myself. I actually wanted to not believe you klein, sorry about that but I think you can get my disbelief. This is a god damned pathetic play on part of media and everyone who does not have the stones to deal with consequence. And to think that I don't consider myself all that responsible for my actions when comparing myself to most people. Thanks for telling me about that one. (pro_votes + con_votes) / "decimal form of turnout" total_UK_remain - total_UK_leave = 17410742 - 16141241 = 1269501 Scots_abstained - above = 1307857 - 1269501 = 38356
Who's going to ask the real question, the question we are all really needing to know about? That question, of course, is how does Brexit affect Diplomaski?
This is how I'm not going to feel when 60 million other people vote for Limberbutt.