Finland taking first steps in direct virtual democracy, this what Ireland needs

Godge

SaoriseBiker wrote: »

:rolleyes: As Kaiser stated " Democracy would have been the government accepting the people's decision in the first result and not making them "do it again", it couldn't be simpler :rolleyes:. I knew the divource referendum would come up, the 2nd divorce referendum was held 11 years later and it wasn't on the same bill as in 1986 when Fitzgeralds typically inept attempt failed.

It is not just the divorce referendum I used as an example.

I also used the example from earlier decades of FF attempts to change the voting system to the UK one. This was defeated twice. The people had the chance to change their mind and did not do so.

Also, there are many examples from abroad of electorates changing their minds. The history of minority rights in the U.S. would be illustrative of this. If you were not going to allow electorates to change their minds, the US would be a worse place to live for minorities.

What it comes down to is the people are always right (within constitutional limits but if you are voting to change the constitution, this is moot). Anything else is an attack on democracy and a symbol of sour grapes from the defeated side.

Finally, what you and others fail to realise is that one man's warning or threat is another man's reasoned calculation of the effects of a particular action. The people have spoken. End of.

SaoriseBiker

Godge wrote: »

It is not just the divorce referendum I used as an example.

I also used the example from earlier decades of FF attempts to change the voting system to the UK one. This was defeated twice. The people had the chance to change their mind and did not do so.

Also, there are many examples from abroad of electorates changing their minds. The history of minority rights in the U.S. would be illustrative of this. If you were not going to allow electorates to change their minds, the US would be a worse place to live for minorities.

What it comes down to is the people are always right (within constitutional limits but if you are voting to change the constitution, this is moot). Anything else is an attack on democracy and a symbol of sour grapes from the defeated side.

Finally, what you and others fail to realise is that one man's warning or threat is another man's reasoned calculation of the effects of a particular action. The people have spoken. End of.

Ofcourse I never said nor inferred that the constitution should be set in stone and never changed, however it's an abuse of the sysytem when the their is a referendum and the people vote against Nice or Lisbon or whatever but the Fine Fáilers demand another one and use scare tatics to blackmail the public into voting the way they want them to until they get the result. So if their is an election, say the EU ones, and the Govt don't happen to like the results, then going by your logic they could ignore the outcome, use scare tatics and then rerun the election until they get the results they want. They would if they could, and doubtless the Fine Fáil apologists would cheer them on.

But like I said in my reply to the suggestion of virtual democracy in the OP, since FG/Lab/FF ignore the democratic wish of the people if they vote no to some EU bill, the same people wouldn't support virtual democracy. Gombeenism rules for now unfortunately.

Godge

SaoriseBiker wrote: »

So if their is an election, say the EU ones, and the Govt don't happen tio like the results, then going by your logic they could ignore the outcome, use scare tatics and then rerun the election until they get the results they want. They would if they could, and doubtless the Fine Fáil apologists would cheer them on.

Nope, that is a ridiculous argument, you cannot rerun a European election or a local election, the dates are legislatively fixed. In a general election the parties that take government decide (either voluntarily or by losing members and therefore a confidence vote) when the next election takes place be that in one month or five years. You can't re-run a general election if you lose.


If you are referring to referenda, I am not suggesting that you could keep running a referendum until you got the right result. If a government lost two referenda on Europe in a row, the government would most likely go for a general election with the question being the future of the country.

SaoriseBiker

Godge wrote: »

Nope, that is a ridiculous argument, you cannot rerun a European election or a local election, the dates are legislatively fixed. In a general election the parties that take government decide (either voluntarily or by losing members and therefore a confidence vote) when the next election takes place be that in one month or five years. You can't re-run a general election if you lose.

Yes of course you cann't rerun an election, but it's not that they wouldn't if they had the chance now is it as can be shown with their attitude to referendum decisions that they don't like.

If you are referring to referenda, I am not suggesting that you could keep running a referendum until you got the right result. If a government lost two referenda on Europe in a row, the government would most likely go for a general election with the question being the future of the country.

I would have thought if the Govt lost one, never mind two referenda they would just accept the result, that's just what they are supposed to do accept the result. But no, expediency and cute hoorism rule in the political culture of Fine Fáilers and their apologists.

Godge

SaoriseBiker wrote: »

But like I said in my reply to the suggestion of virtual democracy in the OP, since FG/Lab/FF ignore the democratic wish of the people if they vote no to some EU bill, the same people wouldn't support virtual democracy. Gombeenism rules for now unfortunately.

You don't get it, they didn't ignore the democratic wish of the people, they just asked them are you sure and clarified the consequences. Happens all the time in normal conversations and normal decisions.

You get annoyed about something and you show someone in your office what you propose to do and they ask you are you sure you want to do that because x and y will happen, you reconsider and change your mind. That is life.

There is a referendum when people are annoyed with government and with the EU. They vote no. The government painstakingly explain again what is involved with the amendment, get some clarifications from Europe, set out the consequences of a no vote and ask the electorate are you sure. The electorate change their mind and vote yes. All fully democratic. All fully reasonable. That is life.

This stupid idea that the government bullies people is laughable. We elect them, if they bully us, we can just vote them out if we don't like them. If not enough people vote them out, then we weren't really been bullied.

I can tell you this, if we governed a country based purely on initial reactions to something, we would be even worse off. In fact the only time we did do something in a hurry and on intial reaction was the bank guarantee in September 2008 that messed up the country.

Godge

SaoriseBiker wrote: »

Yes of course you cann't rerun an election, but it's not that they wouldn't if they had the chance now is it as can be shown with their attitude to referendum decisions that they don't like..

That is like saying that because I save game before the match in Football Manager and re-run the game when I lose that I would like to do it in the Premier League each weekend if I had the chance. Either you can do it or you cannot.

SaoriseBiker wrote: »

I would have thought if the Govt lost one, never mind two referenda they would just accept the result, that's just what they are supposed to do accept the result. But no, expediency and cute hoorism rule in the political culture of Fine Fáilers and their apologists.

I have been over this many times and we are now in a circular argument. If the people agreed with you, they wouldn't have voted for FG, Labour and FF in such numbers. The fact that the turnout went up between the referenda, the fact that those parties still had majority support in the subsequent elections shows that the people agree with my view on this and that you are the real anti-democrat.

SaoriseBiker

Godge wrote: »

You don't get it, they didn't ignore the democratic wish of the people, they just asked them are you sure and clarified the consequences. Happens all the time in normal conversations and normal decisions.

You get annoyed about something and you show someone in your office what you propose to do and they ask you are you sure you want to do that because x and y will happen, you reconsider and change your mind. That is life.

There is a referendum when people are annoyed with government and with the EU. They vote no. The government painstakingly explain again what is involved with the amendment, get some clarifications from Europe, set out the consequences of a no vote and ask the electorate are you sure. The electorate change their mind and vote yes. All fully democratic. All fully reasonable. That is life.

This stupid idea that the government bullies people is laughable. We elect them, if they bully us, we can just vote them out if we don't like them. If not enough people vote them out, then we weren't really been bullied.

I can tell you this, if we governed a country based purely on initial reactions to something, we would be even worse off. In fact the only time we did do something in a hurry and on intial reaction was the bank guarantee in September 2008 that messed up the country.

Waffle and Bertie speak, you shouldn't have bothered.

SaoriseBiker

Godge wrote: »

That is like saying that because I save game before the match in Football Manager and re-run the game when I lose that I would like to do it in the Premier League each weekend if I had the chance. Either you can do it or you cannot.

Never played Football Manager, don't know the first thing about it.

I have been over this many times and we are now in a circular argument. If the people agreed with you, they wouldn't have voted for FG, Labour and FF in such numbers. The fact that the turnout went up between the referenda, the fact that those parties still had majority support in the subsequent elections shows that the people agree with my view on this and that you are the real anti-democrat.

When people vote in a Dail election, they aren't voting for a party just on their policy they took on a EU referendum :rolleyes: And though they may vote Fine Fáil, however I might not like it, I accept the result and don't go asking for a rerun like Fine Fáilers do when they loose a referendum on a EU treaty. I am a real democrat and not a "lets rerun it until we get the result we want" one.

Godge

SaoriseBiker wrote: »

When people vote in a Dail election, they aren't voting for a party just on their policy they took on a EU referendum :rolleyes: And though they may vote Fine Fáil, however I might not like it, I accept the result and don't go asking for a rerun like Fine Fáilers do when they loose a referendum on a EU treaty. I am a real democrat and not a "lets rerun it until we get the result we want" one.

No problem, you are entitled to your opinion, you want to ban divorce in Ireland and homosexuality in the US, the people are always right first time around.

The Chileans voted twice for the military dictatorship of Pinochet, I suppose we should respect those democratic decisions and reinstate his successor by force if necessary.

Alcohol should still be banned in Iceland as the first referendum banned it.

I could go on at length about the contradictory referenda in Switzerland and the US but you can research that yourself. What two strange countries they would be if you only accepted the result the first time a question was asked.

View

The arguments being made in this thread about a second referendum being somehow "undemocratic" were argued before in the Supreme Court in a case in September 09 and completely dismissed by the judges.

From memory, the points made by them in response to the case were:

1) referenda are always democratic since it is the demos that get to make the decisions in them,
2) each of the demos' decisions are equally democratic, there is no "order of merit" to them,
3) the demos, in a referendum, gave the Oireachtas the authority (and absolute freedom) to choose when, and if, to call a referendum or referenda on a topic,
4) in the case of both these referenda, the Oireachtas decided to exercise that authority in a democratic vote, hence the decision to hold a "second" referendum is no more or less democratic than the decision to hold a "first" referendum.

This entire thread seems - to my mind to hinge on a misapprehension - namely that the electorate are asked about their opinion of the EU Treaties. We aren't and the confusion about this point must call the whole method being used by the Oireachtas to deal with them into question.

SaoriseBiker

View wrote: »

The arguments being made in this thread about a second referendum being somehow "undemocratic" were argued before in the Supreme Court in a case in September 09 and completely dismissed by the judges.

From memory, the points made by them in response to the case were:

1) referenda are always democratic since it is the demos that get to make the decisions in them,
2) each of the demos' decisions are equally democratic, there is no "order of merit" to them,
3) the demos, in a referendum, gave the Oireachtas the authority (and absolute freedom) to choose when, and if, to call a referendum or referenda on a topic,
4) in the case of both these referenda, the Oireachtas decided to exercise that authority in a democratic vote, hence the decision to hold a "second" referendum is no more or less democratic than the decision to hold a "first" referendum.

This entire thread seems - to my mind to hinge on a misapprehension - namely that the electorate are asked about their opinion of the EU Treaties. We aren't and the confusion about this point must call the whole method being used by the Oireachtas to deal with them into question.

Any link to substantiate that or do we have to rely on your ' opinion ' only ?

The Oireachtasalso has the authority to obfuscate and bury reports and issues allegedly in the public interest and the state etc, doesn't mean to say it's morally right even if they can get away with it as they too often do. But if you can back up your ' opinions ' as above, thanks

View

SaoriseBiker wrote: »

Any link to substantiate that or do we have to rely on your ' opinion ' only ?

As I said, it was from memory but here are three links to reports about the case - two of which are behind a "pay per view" wall, I'm afraid:

RTE news report - last two paragraphs only

Irish Times report on the High Court case about it

Irish Times report on the Supreme Court case about it

After reviewing them, it is possible, the comments I remember may be from the High Court case but it is 3 years ago in fairness.

Either way, the comment from the last report though is fairly clear:

The Chief Justice, Mr Justice John Murray, said the submission by Mr Burke, of Duncummin House, Emly, that the same question as put to the Irish electorate in the first referendum could not be posed in a second vote was manifestly unfounded.

SaoriseBiker wrote: »

The Oireachtasalso has the authority to obfuscate and bury reports and issues allegedly in the public interest and the state etc, doesn't mean to say it's morally right even if they can get away with it as they too often do. But if you can back up your ' opinions ' as above, thanks

An interesting point but the issue under discussion is democracy rather than morality. As, you are essentially arguing a dubious moral proposition - namely, that the electorate should be denied the possibility of considering an issue again, even though the constitution contains no such constraint, an appeal to morality is perhaps not the best argument.

Godge

View wrote: »

An interesting point but the issue under discussion is democracy rather than morality. As, you are essentially arguing a dubious moral proposition - namely, that the electorate should be denied the possibility of considering an issue again, even though the constitution contains no such constraint, an appeal to morality is perhaps not the best argument.

A good point but even the morality argument is fatally flawed. Unless you hold two referenda one day after another, events have intervened and changed perspectives.

Consider similarly a murder case carrying a death sentence in the US. Can it be morally argued in such a case that if events intervene and perspective changes the original judgement must stand?

SaoriseBiker

View wrote: »

As I said, it was from memory but here are three links to reports about the case - two of which are behind a "pay per view" wall, I'm afraid:

RTE news report - last two paragraphs only

Irish Times report on the High Court case about it

Irish Times report on the Supreme Court case about it

After reviewing them, it is possible, the comments I remember may be from the High Court case but it is 3 years ago in fairness.

Either way, the comment from the last report though is fairly clear:

The only link that's working is stating the obvious - that there is nothing in the Constitution to prevent the holding of a referendum. However it's clearly wrong except to a Fine Failers holding another rweferendum with lies about economic armageddon etc if we don't vote yes as much as Fine Failers getting away with taking bribes etc and claiming them to be " dig outs " :rolleyes:

An interesting point but the issue under discussion is democracy rather than morality. As, you are essentially arguing a dubious moral proposition - namely, that the electorate should be denied the possibility of considering an issue again, even though the constitution contains no such constraint, an appeal to morality is perhaps not the best argument.

If morality isn't the basis of Govt policy - what the f*** is But that's Fine Failers for you !!!!!

And nowhere did I state that peopel shouldn't have the right to a second referendum such as the one divorce which happened 11 years later with a different bill, it's another thing demanding a rerun on a treaty along with threats of economic disatser as happens with our servile, slavish little Gombeen state.

Godge

SaoriseBiker wrote: »

And nowhere did I state that peopel shouldn't have the right to a second referendum such as the one divorce which happened 11 years later with a different bill, it's another thing demanding a rerun on a treaty along with threats of economic disatser as happens with our servile, slavish little Gombeen state.

So now we can agree that there is nothing wrong with holding second referenda.

It is just that there are particular second referenda that you disagree with. It is not a principled objection just an objection based on the subject matter and circumstances of the particular second referenda. The issue rather than the principle as I suspected all along this debate is more to do with the particular result than anything else.

As for the repeated derogatory references to Fine Failers, grow up.

C14N

The direct democracy idea sounds good in theory but it will be interesting to see how it pans out. Assuming we were to do the same thing in Ireland and require 1% of the population to get a motion into the Dáil (around 45,000 people) I could imagine a lot of joke proposals being put through which will just waste time. At the same time if too many ideas just get thrown out then people will become disillusioned and stop bothering.

This is still a bit away in Ireland though due to our much weaker broadband infrastructure.