“since the 1980s the elites in rich countries have overplayed their hand, taking all the gains for themselves and just covering their ears when anyone else talks, and now they are watching in horror as voters revolt.”
This elite behavior is rampant on HN. The comments that I leave in favor of Brexit are labeled xenophobic, racist, simple-minded, etc without even thinking. When Obama wins the election, or "progressive" issue is advanced, the intellectual elite labels it as a genuine progress that's good for everyone. When Brexit or Trump happens, that's dumb masses that fail to comprehend the intellectual intricacies, hence that's bad, really bad. Never mind that people have real grievances, that Uber drivers barely make their ends meet, that societies been uprooted. That rampant immigration into countries that have never seen it before, from hostile lands, from illiterate masses, etc etc.
People have real grievances. We need to listen to them.
I think the last bit of your comment can't possibly help your case:
"Rampant immigration into countries that have never seen it before, from hostile lands, from illiterate masses"
How is that not a xenophobic and simple-minded statement?
Immigration into the UK from non-EU citizens is subject to many controls, including passport checks (which btw, EU citizens also are subjected to). As for intra-EU migration, I'm not sure I'd characterize Poland, Belgium, Holland, Germany, etc. etc. as hostile nations or illiterate.
This vote was for fear of change, insularity, a return to a past that never actually existed. This will likely harm those who voted for the exit the most. That and the young who will likely see their opportunities to work elsewhere in Europe complicated. Not to mention the very likely contraction of the British economy. Yes, these are "elite" ideas promoted by people who have studied economics and politics for decades, but who else would you rather have us listen to?
The problem these institutions have is taking themselves a little too seriously and completely failing to communicate a positive vision for the future. They have also failed to acknowledge and mitigate the downsides of good policies. This is leading to a backlash that will throw the good out with the bad, leaving Europe and especially England and Wales, (doubtful that the UK as constituted survives this) poorer. This is a sad state of affairs.
Also, immigration is way too complicated an issue for you to just flippantly paint opponents of unrestricted immigration as xenophobic. I grew up in Northern VA, which has a large population of Asian (particularly South-Asian) immigrants. Most are highly-educated, highly-skilled, upper middle class, and reliable democratic voters. But god forbid someone's kid comes out as gay or transexual. I'm one of those immigrants and I still have qualms about raising my kid around here, because I think a lot of my neighbors don't share my values.
Painting the whole UK as racist is unfair. Even if you accept the thesis that most brexit voters were racist, they only represent 52% of the population[0].
I am very skeptical of that study however. Japan has a reputation for being one of the most homogeneous countries in the world and there are a number of pretty terrible anecdotes of how foreigners are treated there. It could be the phrasing of the question, for example. Very few people would open admit racism here in the USA but studies have shown that systemic racism still exists here.
Also, just because South-Asian immigrants, as you claim, may have some issues with homophobia, I'm not sure restricting immigration is related to that or would help with that.
[0] 52% of those who voted, but let's say that's a representative sample.
I agree. From reports from friends: Japan remains openly and structurally racist. I am always surprised to hear how bad Japan still is about this stuff.
> How is that not a xenophobic and simple-minded statement?
Nitpicking, but xenophobia is the fear of what is strange and unknown. The problem is that immigrants are no longer strangers. People do not want more of them , not because they don't know them, but because the do know them. It's more immigranto-phobia rather than xenophobia. It's a rather rational reaction from a self-preservation standpoint. That doesn't make it right or wrong of course.
Now, seeing the reaction of brexit-supporters, it seems they chose the EU as their scapegoat of choice, but that won't fix any problems.
Nitpicking back, xenophobia is intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries or of that which is perceived as foreign or strange. His use of the word is correct, your nitpick is not. It is still xenophobic even whey they're not unknown.
There was a very noticeable correlation between support for leaving the EU and areas with few immigrants. Fear of the strange and unknown is about right, I think.
Exactly. Same here in Germany. The xenophobic Pegida movement is strongest in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, which incidentally are also the counties with the lowest fractions of immigrants among the population.
> Immigration into the UK from non-EU citizens is subject to many controls, including passport checks (which btw, EU citizens also are subjected to). As for intra-EU migration, I'm not sure I'd characterize Poland, Belgium, Holland, Germany, etc. etc. as hostile nations or illiterate.
There are a lot of practically illiterate people in every country. If you were an illiterate Brit working a simple construction job, wouldn't you be worried about competition from Poles and EU migrants from other countries?
> That and the young who will likely see their opportunities to work elsewhere in Europe complicated.
I would think that only a very small minority of Brits work abroad for extended periods of times. The benefit for British people to be able to work abroad might not be worth the cost in extra competition for low-skill jobs from very large number of EU immigrants.
From the way I see it, the giant illiterate mass that already exists here is pissed of at the straw man of illiterate immigrants trying to change America into a 3rd world country, and in protest are self destructing on the system.
There is a definite issue with income disparity and opportunity, but the way we are going about it is wrong. There are millions of job openings, but they can't be filled because of a skills deficit. Why is there a skills deficit? Because people are not being educated properly.
If immigration completely stopped right now, America would still have the same problem. The educated middle class families are not having enough children, leaving a vacuum in the labor force. Combined with the education gap, we have the primer for dissatisfaction with the government.
Welfare and medicare is costing the government billions of dollars. Who uses this benefits the most. The baby boomers and the poorly educated who require them to live, and they are the same population most supporting Trump.
All of this is just a comical clusterf* and the media perpetuates it so they can make bank.
If immigration stopped, we'd have quite a different problem, and one that looks like Japan and China and most of Europe: namely, an ageing population with no end in sight. The welfare state problems would be exacerbated.
Why is an aging population a problem? Older people are more experienced, wiser, and less likely to be violent.
If a young population was such a great thing, why are Chad, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Mozambique, South Sudan, Zambiam Malawi, Mali, Uganda, Niger all such basket cases?
The only real problem with an aging population is the pension system. This problem can easily be solved by raising the age of retirement.
> Why is an aging population a problem? Older people are more experienced, wiser, and less likely to be violent.
Older people can be just as selfish as young people. Relevant Brexit quote [0]:
> Woman on Radio 4 who voted Leave. "I'm pleased. Don't think it'll effect us cause we're elderly. For the young people I'm not sure."
That doesn't sound experienced or wise - actually, if anything it seems recklessly selfish and bordering on intergenerational violence.
> The only real problem with an aging population is the pension system. This problem can easily be solved by raising the age of retirement.
How exactly is that solution "easy" if all those old people vote consistently to keep the retirement age where it is? Older folks are the single most reliable constituency in America on election day.
I personally think the story behind all of this is the growing divide between young and old voters. IMO our aging population is indeed more experienced and wiser... when it comes to stacking the deck in their favor and keeping their awful policies from being reversed.
Which generation(s) have a problem with LGBT people? Which generation sold $1T in debt to its children and erected unprecedented barriers to discharging that debt? Which generation started the War on Drugs and refuses to admit to its failure, or even really fix the embarrassingly racist details like mandatory minimums? Which generation tells which generation that they can't possibly earn more than $7.25/hour, and which generation pours wealth into elections so they can maintain that status quo?
> Older people are more experienced, wiser, and less likely to be violent.
Great! I'm sure they wouldn't mind manning the tills, stocking shelves or driving buses.
The type of work you generally do (and can do) changes with your ages. The older generation can't or won't do jobs the younger generation does, which leads to pressure on services which rely on those people. You don't see many 70 year old nurses.
People do have real grievances, but the rants you posted against "Russian prostitutes" and "Polish kielbasa shops in London" were not among them. Those were some of the worst comments we've seen here recently--uncivil, unsubstantive and obviously unwelcome on this site. So it takes some brass, to borrow one elite globalist's colorful phrase, to diss the community ("this elite behavior is rampant on HN") and posture above it. Doing so is nearly always a marker of a bad comment, if not a bad commenter.
To the extent that we have threads about Brexit or politics on HN (and we do have some, as the guidelines explicitly allow), people are welcome to argue either side of the issues, and indeed do. What they're not welcome to do is vent, spew, stomp their feet, impute ill motives to others, and all the rest of bad internet manners. They're also not welcome to diss the community whilst participating in it.
Precisely the point of the article: you don't hear us (me). The Polish and Russian comment was to illustrate the immigration situation, not to question the culture or people. I am from Ukraine, and have no problems with Russians or Polish, really, they are my people. Automatically, in accordance with prevailing political correctness, I am labeled racist, xenophobe, etc.
It might be OK for Istanbul to have a mix of Polish transients and Russian prostitutes and Muslims etc etc, since it is on the crossroads of East and West, but for London to look like Damascus is not such a great idea, in my opinion. Again, just my opinion that has nothing to do with racism or intolerance. As a matter of fact, I shiver when I think how Europe can go fascist and turn these poor immigrants into corpses.
> Police are investigating suspected post-referendum racism after hate mail aimed at the Polish community was allegedly distributed in Cambridgeshire.
> Laminated cards reading “Leave the EU - no more Polish vermin” were found in Huntingdon, north west of Cambridge.
> The Polish language newspaper, Nasze Strony, reports on the incident and on the fact that the cards even had a translation in Polish on the reverse.
> Teachers at a school near to where some of the cards were found yesterday reportedly threw them away but more were left on a path leading to it later.
> Inspector Nick Percival of Cambridgeshire Constabulary told the Guardian that police were aware of the incident.
> He added: “We are aware of it and have had a report from a member of the public. We are following up are taking it seriously as it does represent a hate crime. We would encourage anyone who is either a victim or is aware of the source of this to come forward.”
>> The comments that I leave in favor of Brexit are labeled xenophobic, racist
>We're already seeing an increase in hate crime. Here's one example, but there are others.
>http://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2016/jun/25/brexit-....
Fallacy of composition: incidences of hate crime offer no insight into parent's comments. Having said that, parent's comment also offers no insight into what parent does say about Brexit.
The main failure is of established intellectual organizations that have been unable to stop the erosion of their provably correct positions by those who want to undermine them for their own personal gain. It doesn't prove those institutions are wrong, just that all those things people that were so crazy that no one would take them seriously actually were taken seriously but a certain group of people.
This didn't happen overnight -- it's been a concerted effort by certain interests for a long time.
One unrecognized issue by most of the west but recognized in places like Russia, Japan, SKorea, China, is while they may promote equality and universal values, they are careful not to subvert their own people. That is the gain for others is not at the expense of their working class. They typically extoll thru working class --even if sometimes, they betray them. But at least they make an effort rather than vilify and denigrate them as illiterate, lumpen masses of bigoted people who deserve being swept aside by a tide of workers willing to undercut them because however underpaid the newcomers are, they are much better off than remaining back home.
>One unrecognized issue by most of the west but recognized in places like Russia, Japan, SKorea, China, is while they may promote equality and universal values, they are careful not to subvert their own people.
Then how come Russia and China keep their working classes poor, Japan and South Korea rabidly overwork people, and Japan has allowed three Lost Decades?
Among other reasons, from my experience, they are homogenous enough that failures are attributed to character, rather than someone else taking something from them. If I were to give a homeless person money in Asia, many people would frown at it because they ask, why do you support a good for nothing, they don't deserve it, they are able bodied, they can get a job, if they were so inclined. That's the attitude I've come across.
> "The solution is not to subserviently cling to corrupt elite institutions out of fear of the alternatives. It is, instead, to help bury those institutions..."
Starting with the deeply corrupt policy of quantitative easing and zero interest rates, which seek to protect incumbent and bankrupt financial institutions by increasing the value of assets already in the hands of the elites, and devaluing liabilities, amongst which, wages.
I don't think that's intentional. CSPAN had the Yellen congressional grilling on this week; at least nobody was able to formulate this question in a way to make me suspect it's anything but a side effect.
Poor comfort, but it's something.
Certain classes of assets are under fairly severe devaluation. When the winners are companies like Apple - which is a company with a pretty anti-elitist, popular product - this also presents headwinds to this sort of theory.
IMO, I rather like Steve Randy Waldman's essay "Depression Is a Choice".
Today's Fed, led by Yellen, has become a technocratic institution blinkered by "data", unable to rise above its econometric myopia to see what really is happening in the society which it serves. It has essentially been subjugated to the same economic doctrines and dogmas which serve the elites so well, and which are rolled out every time a brexit or a trump rears its head: "careful, this is bad for The Economy" (read: this is bad for the elites).
Say what you like about Greenspan, but at least he had a self-determined intellect and swagger, which he used without needing to justify himself constantly with a spreadsheet's output (even if he used said swagger to serve his own class of capitalists).
So I don't blame Yellen. She genuinely believes she is doing the right thing by the rules of the game she has been carefully selected to be unquestioning in.
As someone with Monetarist leanings ( which arguably makes me more "data driven" than the other branches, ironically ), I relate all this back to the Bank of England, that solemn engine of colonial oppression, being used as the template for all banking. The Fed balance sheet is being used as a prop in an economic horror movie.
It is indeed econometric myopia. We set 2% inflation targets and then fail to meet them. But production is inherently extrinsic to central banks. With a populace that thinks more and more like retired people, it's harder to get the fire lit.
> Say what you like about Greenspan, but at least he had a self-determined intellect and swagger, which he used without needing to justify himself constantly with a spreadsheet's output (even if he used said swagger to serve his own class of capitalists).
Intentional or not, it's definitely created a world where labor is flat or declining while energy, food, education, health care, and especially housing are inflating like crazy.
I think the point about Apple is a non-sequitur here. Low interest rates may also have benefited the tech industry, but that's secondary and doesn't affect as many people as real estate hyperinflation.
Energy isn't close to stably inflating. All the zero-coupon on the Eagle Ford is unwinding and the service companies are in an anorexic phase.
Health care, education and housing? Concentrated, deliberate subsidy means it costs more and there's more of it. Less so for health care, but housing and education are default "investments" - for when you're out of ideas.
I just picked Apple because they appear to be a present day winner with a model that wasn't widely predicted. I'm down to grumbling about Keynesian animal spirits ( the retiree mentality ) for the rest of the economy.
Consider this. I am a physician, a Harvard trained cardiac anesthesiologist. I was born in Soviet Union, and I traveled all over the world. I consider myself to be well read and fairly well educated. And yet when I air my conservative views they are labeled dumb and not intelligent. How's that possible?
In terms of grievances, they extend beyond white rednecks. (BTW, I read somewhere that the talented white redneck kids have the highest level of discrimination against them when applying into elite schools.) Consider African Americans: 73% of kids born to single mothers and huge level of incarceration. How is it not a failure of political science and Democrats that represent African Americans on all levels of government?
>How is it not a failure of political science and Democrats that represent African Americans on all levels of government?
It could be a systemic racist system that marginalizes them even in the post-civil rights era--the sort of thing that Black Lives Matter and the NAACP propose. I'm not sure what "political science" or "Democrats" have to do with that other than tangentially.
Neither your education nor your literacy level lends innate substance to your views. Maybe your are over-relying on your credentials and completely missing the real issues of your audience?
Dumb views are dumb views, never mind the precedence.
The idea that African Americans statistics have nothing to do with African Americans personal and collective history and it's just 'the way they are' (and, basically, that it's what you are implying) it's pretty dumb in my book.
> Consider African Americans: 73% of kids born to single mothers
Why the value judgement on single mothers? Also, the 73% is out of wedlock, not necessarily single mothers. Single mother numbers are actually 67%.
>and huge level of incarceration.
Incarceration policies put in place by republicans and democrats.
>How is it not a failure of political science and Democrats that represent African Americans on all levels of government?
It is a failure of American political policy. However, the answer isn't to build a wall or stop immigration. The answer is to improve education, train people for the jobs that actually exist in our economy, and if all else fails, figure out what we do when there just aren't enough jobs, not just pretend like manufacturing is going to come back. American manufacturing has never produced more goods than the present, but it also employees almost no one, because automation is amazing [1].
>Why the value judgement on single mothers? Also, the 73% is out of wedlock, not necessarily single mothers. Single mother numbers are actually 67%.
Because if you look at black communities with low single motherhood you also see less poverty, violence and incarceration rates at the same time. Even for white people single motherhood is often the biggest factor that decides whether you end up in poverty or not.
Poverty in parents is highly predictive of poverty in children. Single motherhood is also correlated with poverty. It's possible that single motherhood increases the chance that a child will also live in poverty as an adult, but the vast majority of the effect is probably explained by generational poverty.
> Consider this. I am a physician, a Harvard trained cardiac anesthesiologist. I was born in Soviet Union, and I traveled all over the world. I consider myself to be well read and fairly well educated. And yet when I air my conservative views they are labeled dumb and not intelligent. How's that possible?
It's possible because you being smart in one area of your life doesn't automatically translate to you being smart in your political views. It's entirely possible to be a smart doctor and be dumb and unintelligent on political matters. Maybe your "conservatives views" are dumb, that's a distinct realistic possibility, no matter how good a doctor you are.
Sounds like you are up against the echo chamber of the soft sciences. Logic and standards of proof are out the window. There is no point in arguing against such points of view, since who is right is predefined and the result of pseudoacademic popularity contests - not science.
Soft sciences these days are for people that want to appear as though educated, but don't want to be burdened by evidence, proofs etc. It is time to clear the fog on that matter.
Many "average persons" are damned tired of watching their own welfare and their communities become ever more hollowed out.
The spectre of global welfare is akin to a chimera, when your own circumstances and productive years are being wiped out.
And no, not everyone has the resources and flexibility to "just move".
People will divide back up into smaller, more cohesive communities, if that's what it takes to protect their own, immediate interests.
If you don't like this, then stop discounting the notion of "winners" and "losers" and put some effort into spreading those winnings. Or, buy more guns and, now, robots. Including robots to shoot the guns at the "less equal".
"In this Brexit vote, the poor turned on an elite who ignored them"
Not in any rational sense. They voted for the even more elite: an ex-stockbroker (Farage) and an old Etonian (Johnson).
If anything I'd say the leave camp is entirely composed of the elite who want to take even more away from the working class. They didn't like being told what to do by the EU because they didn't like its left-of-centre policies.
And Johnson and Farage are amongst those who could possibly gain the most from this result. So how is it not in the interest of the elite to reinforce this distrust? I'd say that kind of interpretation is valid to explore.
You can explore it as much as you want. There will always be those who are well-to-do found in every cause.
They voted for self-governance and sovereignty. Many had their own reasons and desires for that sovereignty, but that's what they voted for.
Why should any people have a desire to be a part of a political organization over which they have zero control, but must pay taxes to? That is antithetical to democracy and good governance.
> Why should any people have a desire to be a part of a political organization over which they have zero control, but must pay taxes to?
That's called a strawman argument. Of course no one would want to be part of such an org, if that was all there was to it. But you conveniently left out all the benefits of being in that org (some of which were mentioned in this thread).
I'm guessing you believe every US state should be calling to secede, because they "have zero control" and "have to pay taxes" to the federal government? Since US states, just like Britain in the EU, participate in the larger governing body through representatives?
> Since US states, just like Britain in the EU, participate in the larger governing body through representatives?
Not quite. For the US federal government, you get to vote for 2 senators, a number of congressmen, and the president. You get to vote for zero in the EU.
Members of parliament? Plus, commissioners are appointed by the member state governments, so indirectly you can vote for those, too.
There are no kings or queens running the EU, nor do people just randomly show up and get power. Everyone who has power is either elected or was appointed by someone who was elected.
> Not quite. For the US federal government, you get to vote for 2 senators, a number of congressmen, and the president.
Senators used to be picked by the state congress and presidents are elected via the electoral college, not the popular vote, so when the US was founded and for much of its history, the people's voice was solely from the house of representatives which was the original intention of the founders. Like the US, the EU will evolve, but like the original US, the EU members are elected by the people's representatives, which is hardly no control or will of the people.
> when the US was founded and for much of its history
When the US was founded and for much of its history, women couldn't vote. And this was the intention of the founders. And it's irrelevant.
You judge a political entity by its current state. They can vote now. And now, you elect your Senators directly. You also elect your President directly, albeit within the confines of your state.
> Like the US, the EU will evolve
I disagree with you here, there is no guarantee of this. It may, it may not.
> the EU members are elected by the people's representatives, which is hardly no control or will of the people.
Selection is very different from election, even if done by those who were elected. Nobody is screaming dictatorship here, but it really isn't the same thing.
> And this was the intention of the founders. And it's irrelevant.
It was relevant to the next point made (not the founders intentions), that everything evolves even the U.S.
> disagree with you here, there is no guarantee of this. It may, it may not.
It will, because nothing stays static, every generation has their own views about issues and all societies continually evolve, so yes, there is a guarantee of this.
> Selection is very different from election, even if done by those who were elected.
They're effectively the same thing and it's what elected representatives are for. You can't claim you don't have a say in the people selected when you elect the selectors.
I agree with you here, but the insinuation was that it would evolve toward something better. Things don't always get better. History has borne this out.
> They're effectively the same thing
Disagree. You're playing broken telephone. After inserting enough people in between the original vote and the final appointee... you get a completely different message.
> I agree with you here, but the insinuation was that it would evolve toward something better. Things don't always get better. History has borne this out.
Things don't always anything, but history shows over time societies are in general getting better and it's perfectly reasonable to expect the EU will as well.
> Disagree. You're playing broken telephone. After inserting enough people in between the original vote and the final appointee... you get a completely different message.
One layer, i.e. representatives, is standard fair for how most governments operate and no one complains they don't have any representation. It's unrealistic to accept only direct democracy as meaningful.
Make that 2/3 please. I assume that with your 1/3 you are referring to the European Parliament, and the other two you are considering are the European Commission and the Council of the EU, right? But the latter is chosen directly, because it is composed of the ministers of the respective member states. So of the three, only the Commission is appointed instead of elected.
Of those, only the parliament is directly elected. The council consists of elected officials who are automatically appointed and the presidency rotates. While that isn't necessarily a bad scheme, it isn't exactly democratic ... more like sequential?
Nope, still wrong. If you want to count all the institutions, it is 3/7: the European Parliament, the European Council, and the Council of the EU.
And are you really suggesting that people in the UK and in the rest of the world really do elect their judges, treasury officers, and accountants? Even in the US, the much-vaunted example, Supreme Court judges and the Federal Reserve chairman are appointed, not elected.
> Even in the US, the much-vaunted example, Supreme Court judges and the Federal Reserve chairman are appointed, not elected.
And this causes much strife and conflict.
> And are you really suggesting that people in the UK and in the rest of the world really do elect their judges, treasury officers, and accountants?
What I am suggesting is that democracy is a release.
As a citizen of the EU, you end up voting for a tiny fraction of those in power. Tiny. Even if I accept your fraction of 3/7 ... keep in mind that out of those for the UK, you get to elect 10% at best of those institutions.
3/7 * 10% = 4%
That's a tiny number. And because the presidency rotates, 90% of the time the figurehead is someone you didn't even have a chance to vote for or against. That's a horrible feeling.
That feeling is amplified if things are happening that you don't like. You blame that lack of control. Even if you lose the election, at least you had a voice.
In the US, everyone has a chance to vote for or against the president, 100% of the time. Contrary to popular opinion, the presidency in the US is extremely limited and he can be overruled by the legislature or the supreme court at any time. And of course, in the legislature, any one citizen can only vote for a tiny fraction ... but because every citizen votes for the president, they feel they have some semblance of control over the system.
If the desire is to turn the EU into a federal system like the US, then you need EU-wide elections where every citizen has the same set of choices. That will make them feel like they have a stake in the government. It would be a release. At that point the conversation would change from do I leave or do I stay, to how do I empower the guy I voted for.
This breaks the HN guidelines by being uncivil. Please edit such bits out of your comments here. Your comment would be much better with just the last sentence.
It's what people have been made to feel by twenty years of UKIP (a.o.) anti-EU posturing. Pointing out that that "feeling" is based on lies is not any more belittling than using lies to win an argument is belittling your opponent.
We have the same here with no UKIP. Politicians have tried twice to get Norwegians into EU using dubious arguments and people mobilized broadly twice to avoid it.
Edit: removed "all kinds of" in font of dubious to be less hyperbolic.
This whole thread started because of this assertion:
Why should any people have a desire to be a part of a political organization over which they have zero control, but must pay taxes to?
You defended this with:
while not mathematically correct this is what lots of people feel.
I object to your assertion that lies should stand unchallenged just because they illustrate what people feel, especially when it is lies that informed their feelings in the first place. I don't care enough about the Norway situation to involve myself in that.
Why should any people have a desire to be a part of a political organization over which they have zero control, but must pay taxes to?
For one, because the political organization benefits them? Control is not the only desirable property of an organization.
Furthermore, the UK did not have zero control over the EU. It had one commissioner (the same amount as any other member state), and 10% of the seats in parliament (second only in representation to Germany) -- So your question misrepresents the situation. If you do not like to be called out for that strawman argument, please inform yourself or be more articulate next time.
Ironically, the situation "zero control, with tax obligations" (i.e. the Norway solution) is now the most likely option for the UK.
And when did the people of the UK have a chance to vote him in? I must have missed that election.
> and 10% of the seats in parliament (second only in representation to Germany)
I must have missed this election as well!
> If you do not like to be called out for that strawman argument, please inform yourself or be more articulate next time.
I was quite articulate, thank you. The problem really is that when people such as yourself are incapable of making a coherent argument in turn, they resort to passive/aggressive nonsense like you're displaying here.
> Ironically, the situation "zero control, with tax obligations" (i.e. the Norway solution) is now the most likely option for the UK.
The commissioner is appointed by the PM, so you vote for him every general election. The idea that the EU is undemocratic is absurd. It's doubly absurd considering we still have a House of Lords...
The reason people feel they don't have a say in the EU is because they keep voting for UKIP, whose entire mandate was to make the EU look bad by racking up expenses and not doing anything.
The gall of Farage when he was campaigning for the fishermen during the referendum was astounding. He attended 1, ONE, out of 42 fisheries council meetings while he was an MEP and he was on the committee. Then he turns around and says that it was the EU that screwed our fishing industry.
No, he betrayed the fishing industry just to make the EU look bad.
Do the people vote for ministers in member states? Commissioners are appointed and they are appointed because the governments they appoint them are so horny for power, they want to exactly pick the person they want.
I want Commisiooners that are appointed by a president that is elected by the parliament (that's just how the German government works) or a similar system, but such a system would take too much power away from the governments of the member states (and give too much power to democratically elected EU institutions like the parliament) and as such was, while discussed, always disliked by members like the UK.
The EU is structured the way it is because the (elected) member state governments want to preserve their power and influence. They don't want some other democratically elected EU institution taking away their power. Commissioners are basically member state government surrogates. And this doesn't even yet touch upon the fact that hardly anything in the EU gets done without member states' governments direct involvement, either the Head's or the ministers (all democratically legitimated, by the way).
You are lacking a very basic level of understanding of how the EU works and why it is structured the way it is. Member state governments typically actually have a problem with democratically electing more people in the EU. They would much rather just send someone they appoint or go themselves (for obvious reasons). You are calling for something the UK has always blocked.
Also, you don't seem to know that there is an European Parliament? Democratically elected? Seats assigned proportionally? The last election was in 2014.
Norway: they are not a member of the EU but a part of the common market. That gives them the option to opt out of some things (but not even most things and especially not central ones like freedom of movement of labour), but they still have to pay membership fees and get no say when the rules are decided on.
> You are lacking a very basic level of understanding of how the EU works and why it is structured the way it is.
Thank you for educating me.
> You are calling for something the UK has always blocked.
I think you're confusing the populace at large with their representatives. That is exactly the distinction I was trying to make. You can have a desire to not be a part of an institution that was designed by the very representatives you elected.
> Also, you don't seem to know that there is an European Parliament?
Based on my reading of the subject, they can't introduce legislation? Merely vote on it? And if they approve, another body which is not elected, must also approve before legislation is enacted?
resort to passive/aggressive nonsense like you're displaying here.
Aww. You were still wrong though, and were attacking the first commenter that pointed this out to you.
Care to expand on this?
If the UK wants to keep access to the EU single market (the EEA, European Economic Area), it can still do so through membership of the EFTA (European Free Trade Area). Membership of the EFTA requires a membership fee, likely less than the EU "tax". But it also means that the UK is no longer in a position to influence EU product regulations directly.
The first links I could find, they look quite comprehensive but I can't really judge their contents:
The primary problem for the UK is that free movement of people is a nonconditional part of the single market treaty, which seems to be the very idea that was the focal point of the leave campaign. So it's not a certainty that this deal will fly in the UK. Switzerland, for example, does not partake in the EEA but still has to abide by the Free Movement clause:
One of the reasons they are such a large economy is because they are the financial gateway to Europe. If your global rank is conditional on having single market access to the EU, you can't really use that as a bargaining power for getting access to that same market...
But yes, they should be able to negotiate a better deal than Norway.
You can't say this though, without also saying that in reality, only 1/3 feel strongly about leaving. 2/3 of the population did not vote to leave.
It's not really relevant to make a comparison with the total population, and when 70% of the population polled, it is probably more than representative of the full picture anyway. If it's distributed randomly across the country, the remaining 30% would have voted in the same manner.
This is why referendums are so terrible. Whatever the question is, it will be hijacked to some degree as a tool to protest some other issue independent of whatever the referendum is actually supposed to be about. Usually people will protest against an unpopular system/government by voting contrary to whatever the system/government supports.
So your argument is basically that governments should not allow democratic votes on issues because if there are enough citizens that are unhappy with their governments they might vote in protest of the current government?
The problem is not the referendum or the people who vote in an undesired way, the problem is always the government.
The people have an opportunity to get rid of the government and that is during an election.
Some random referendum about an issue that may have nothing to do with the government of the day is not the appropriate time to lash out at the government.
I don't buy this argument. The author is trying to fit the Brexit vote into his broader thesis about economic inequality, but it doesn't quite fit the facts.
Does the author really consider the heavily pro-EU residents of Liverpool, Glasgow, or Northern Ireland to be establishment elites?
I think the relation seems plausible on the surface because the same groups that were pro-brexit were the ones who are pro-trump, the /pol/-lurking, redpill types for example. I'm not sure it fits into inequality too, but Brexit has a similar mantra of "taking back the country" from a larger authority and had populist elements. In that sense, I do agree it is a reaction to the "elites" in some people's minds.
I think we should be talking about inequality of opportunity rather than inequality of wealth. Someone seems to have kicked the social ladder above the middle class.
We forking off onto a tangent, but one would say in the current system, wealth buys opportunity, so they are the same. Indeed, if opportunity were near equal for all, then many fewer would be complaining.
Hey i m no expert. I would wager the young are more informed and they know that the EU is the least of their problems (In fact, less than a problem). Or their young age allowed them to feel less desperate about their prospects.
This comment is emblematic of the point Greenwald is trying to make here. If only those old people had more of the correct facts and the better answers, then they would line up behind the best decisions.
There are many possible explanations. I'm sure it will be the talking point of many studies in the following months/years. Some things I can think of:
- They've grown up in a united Europe, and may have a different view of their world than the older generation.
- The younger generation is more likely to be bilingual, while the older generation speaks only English. That means they have more experience with other cultures, and fear them less.
- They have less ties to Britain, and perhaps more likely to consider a career on the mainland.
- The younger generation really is less racist.
- The younger generation is less affected by illusions of grandeur about their empire and relative importance in the world.
I think his theory is inconsistent with the pro-brexit group being older, and the anti being younger.. But I think both the brexit group and Trump express the right wing disillusionment, which seem to be older people that thought they were in the political/economic in group and ended up marginalized with nothing relevant to the globally connected youth. I'm not sure older Scotts would have believed they were in the in-group in terms of UK power or economy.
I don't buy this argument. The author is trying to fit the Brexit vote into his broader thesis about economic inequality, but it doesn't quite fit the facts.
I echo that.
While I completely agree with "Western Establishment Failure" being at work, it cannot be reduced to "globalization loosers".
More factors at work:
1) "collusive arrangements" emerge over time within societies. The EU served as proxy against those collusions in many countries (Freedom of movement, Gay Rights, Customer Protection), as did the Unionists for many against the Federalists during US Civil War. But over time new collusions emerge.
Many Europeans don't see the many positives the EU brought them, but fear the precedent it set in implementing those positives (usually by ruling over a country's laws) now being used for many more collusions.
2) social media's impact on western culture like
- "Filter Bubbles" (Recommended/Shared content forming personalized propaganda) and
- encouraging communicational behaviour different than the classical "shame"- and "guilt"-culture models, in that in online discussions guilt and shame is virtually non-existent for one self. They are only attributes to lay on others
- both are translating into real-world elite-phenomenons like "vindictive protectiveness" - were things like restrooms become a heated debate, but old-school-phenomenons like safety, income inequality, health are not
3) the loss of the West's common enemy. Nations are "imagined communites" and while they are made of many things, the finishing usually happened when the common enemy emerged. And that's working for supra-nations as well. The Soviet Bloc is gone and our new "culprits" don't fit into its shoes: Not China, not Russia and also not Islam
I often point to the 1998 Minnesota gubernatorial election[1] as an example. Polling was awful (Ventura was given no chance). Reporters were jokingly dismissive, and the comments coming out of the University of MN were downright shameful. Election night was a "big surprise".
I get the feeling the US is going through that scenario writ larger. I get the feeling (I'm not from UK) that Brexit was similar. The BBC seemed like it picked a winner, and the US media does the same while dismissing all others. If I remember right the last UK election was pretty surprising to the BBC and its pollsters.
In the US, the average person has grievances, is made fun of constantly on TV, and watches as people argue solutions that don't seem to have anything to do with the problem but sure fit their "let no crisis go to waste" mentality. Religious people are always portrayed as secretly corrupt or idiots[2]. Your jobs can get shipped off, replaced by someone on a visa, or a robot will do them. Celebrities are constantly shown knowing more about your job than you and calling you stupid or a villain. It seems chalk on a sidewalk with a candidates name is a national trauma? Never mind the number of government agencies that can just take your stuff without any recourse on your part.
and people wonder why the old Top Gear was so popular
I fear its going to get to the point that we really have no common ground left. I hope pasbesoin[3] isn't right, but I've lost a lot of hope.
1) and no, I dislike the winner intensely - suing a widow is a no go
2) MASH, Babylon 5, and The West Wing for the exception. At least The West Wing had the decency to portray Republicans as sometimes heroes.
Well, there were people voting to leave and using "immigration" as their justification. I would never claim it was 52%, or that 52% of the UK are 'racists'.
However, it was a factor for some portion, and it may have been enough of a portion of votes to be part of the few % that gave 'leave' the victory.
Bear in mind the level of immigration to the UK has risen very rapidly over the past 10-15 years and it has not been evenly distributed across the country. There are places where people have seen the racial makeup of their neighbourhoods changed greatly, where once they could reasonably walk down a street and expect to hear conversations in their own language now it won't be unusual for them to not understand half or more of the conversations going on around them. A lot of people find that quite alienating especially considering it's happened so quickly.
When people talk about immigration that's really what they mean, I do genuinely believe that the UK is not a particularly racist place that the huge majority of people even those who cite immigration as an issue believe in "live and let live", but I think they feel that tolerance has been abused by a system that says free movement of people is meant to benefit them but so far as they can see it does not.
That hypothesis doesn't square with the fact that the most populous regions, London in particular where immigrants are much more likely to settle voted overwhelmingly for remaining.
In the British Social Attitudes Survey, 30% of the population said that they have "some level of racial prejudice". Given the stigma of those beliefs, I expect the real number could be significantly higher.
Attributing Brexit solely to racism and xenophobia is clearly unreasonable, but it is equally unreasonable to dismiss it entirely as a factor. There are some striking demographic correlations between Leave voters and people who admitted to being racially prejudiced.
There are some striking demographic correlations between Leave voters and people who admitted to being racially prejudiced.
I think self-assessments on negative habits are wrought with problems, I wouldn't rely on those for anything.
But your comment made me realize something else: if people identify problems that you recognize, and you then see those people vilified as racists, you may start to question your beliefs. But the second and third time this happens, you may start to question the label itself.
I'm not happy with the above phrasing, so I apologize for my runaway train of thought. But I think people are happy to self-assess as racists because they identify with demonized politicians, not necessarily because they are aware of their own racism. It becomes a badge of honour, so to speak.
There's a rather wide chasm, though, between "some level of racial prejudice" and the fantastical "52% of the UK is racist." The first is plausible, the second is not.
I think almost all people are racists if they're coldly honest. Few are. They may recognize the feelings as "wrong" and be ashamed and deny having them, but it's human nature. We are drawn to people who look and act like we do, and we are suspicious of people who look and act differently from our group.
You're confusing thoughts with behavior, a racist is someone who exhibits racist behavior, those who recognize those thoughts as wrong, and don't act on them, are not racist. All people have wrong thoughts constantly, it's whether they act on them or not that matters.
In addition, Labor was against the EU before Blair, recently a Labor leader (Corpyn) who has been historically critical of the influence of the EU was voted in with a landslide (and establishment media called them idealistic young idiots); now the only reason to be against the EU is to be a small-minded racist pensioner.
edit: This is the cry of financial services who were using the UK as an EU tax vehicle, and the uncritical middle-class are following along with their complete blanketing of the media. The only benefit that the EU gave to the left is that British elites on average hate workers more than European elites. This credibility was completely lost by the way Greece was treated.
Given that the "Establishment" is seen as a very London thing and very pro EU (see the results for London) I'm not sure that hangs together. Nobody was rebelling by voting Remain!
I meant that, from their perspective, "Establishment" wickedness of the sort being discussed in the article comes from London rather than Brussels, so supporting Brexit wouldn't make any sense.
> The BBC seemed like it picked a winner, and the US media does the same while dismissing all others. If I remember right the last UK election was pretty surprising to the BBC and its pollsters.
I don't know anything about Minnesota, but wrt this referendum and the last UK General Election it wasn't so much "picking a winner" as that relentless vilification of the non-establishment side led to people concealing their actual voting intentions from pollsters. In the case of the GE this even applied to exit polling, i.e. after people had voted. There wasn't any official exit polling for the referendum, but some major banks did it privately and I think Leave's premature concession early in the results points to the same thing happening there.
Thank you for a very thoughtful and measured post, by the way; we could do with more of that. The atmosphere here in the UK at the moment is just poisonous, with some fairly mortifying behaviour on both sides.
> relentless vilification of the non-establishment side led to people concealing their actual voting intentions from pollsters
I get the same thought and would love to know how someone would do a study on the subject. I know it was true in MN at the time (who wants to admit they're voting for a wrestler because they are sick of the other two)[1].
> The atmosphere here in the UK at the moment is just poisonous, with some fairly mortifying behavior on both sides.
Yep, the edges always show up, more to prove the other sides point than help really.
1) I clenched my teeth and voted by party, although I couldn't say I was surprised by the outcome - and here I am doing the exact thing by making it clear I didn't vote for him - sigh.
> would love to know how someone would do a study on the subject
It's normally called the "Shy Tory Factor" in the UK; Wikipedia has a page [1] but it's a bit thin.
After the 2015 GE the British Polling Council commissioned an independent inquiry on the subject, whose findings you can read here [2]. (Disclaimer: I haven't.)
What strikes me is how counterproductive this all is - in this week's case the inaccurate polling made the final result far more of a shock and thus presumably far more disruptive than it would otherwise have been. It may even have caused the final result - I think turnout for the under-25 demographic, which skewed heavily Remain, was only about a third, and I've seen several comments to the effect of "I didn't think I needed to vote, Remain was ahead anyway".
I've seen several comments to the effect of "I didn't think I needed to vote, Remain was ahead anyway".
I've even seen someone explain (on the BBC): "I didn't think my vote mattered, so I voted leave. I'm a bit worried now".
I really hope that that's a minor occurrence, I really don't want to consider the possibility that large parts of the voting public treat elections/referenda with less seriousness than the average talent show vote.
Nothing I've seen points to that being anything more than BBC spin. According to this poll [1] 4% of Remain voters are happy with the outcome while 1% of Leave voters are unhappy with it.
In an era where every quack with an opinion is broadcasting it online, the media can basically concoct whatever narrative they want by choosing to elevate a few people's ramblings to the level of news.
An honest headline for a lot of the news in the past couple days is "People on losing side of election unhappy". But then people would realize how stupid it is. And when the news is about people's reaction to the news, you begin to wonder what the real cause and effect is.
As an American, that's why I'm kind of shocked that this kind of issue only required a simple majority. Usually out in the states a change of this magnitude requires a super-majority. For example, to ban guns in the US would require a two thirds majority of states to be for.
in the US, concealing unpopular opinions from pollsters is known as the "Bradley effect". It was massively over-diagnosed in 2008 and 2012, but seems to be back in play now.
Ridiculing ordinary people over years is what made Brexit and made Trump a possible candidate.
I did not argue for Brexit (I knew too little) and I don't like Trump but I am smart enough to understand why people are fed up.
Your point about Christianity rings true as well: I understand why a religious villain makes a better character in a plot but somewhere it has to stop (unless someone is pushing an agenda but they don't do do they ? ;-)
The BBC purposefully tries to be impartial, the "picking the winner" part was based on polling data and the actions of the financial markets. Other media organisations did the same.
As there was no exit poll, they had nothing to talk about for 2 hours before the start of the results came in so just had endless speculation from pollsters and their ilk
If there is one lesson to be learned, it's never ever trust polling organisations, they get it wrong time and time again, but somehow keep getting paid?
I think the BBC does a reasonable job of remaining neutral between political parties - as you say, the complaints more or less balance out. But as an institution they very definitely have a strong ideology (pro-EU, pro-multiculturalism) which doesn't accurately reflect the country as a whole. Part of that is just the London filter bubble, but not all of it.
A recent memo by the BBC's head of political research admitted this:
“It seems to me that the London bubble has to burst if there is to be any prospect of addressing the issues that have brought us to our current situation. There are many millions of people in the UK who do not enthuse about diversity and do not embrace metropolitan values yet do not consider themselves lesser human beings for all that. Until their values and opinions are acknowledged and respected, rather than ignored and despised, our present discord will persist. Because these discontents run very wide and very deep and the metropolitan political class, confronted by them, seems completely bewildered and at a loss about how to respond (“who are these ghastly people and where do they come from?” doesn’t really hack it). The 2016 EU referendum has witnessed the cashing in of some very bitter bankable grudges but I believe that, throughout this 2016 campaign, Europe has been the shadow not the substance.”
They give at least an estimation. I think that giving some error margins would make them more useful but I doubt the general public would appreciate it. Take for example the data here: https://ig.ft.com/sites/brexit-polling/ Percentage for remain varies a lot depending on the poll on June 22, from 41% to to 55% (although some polls don't seem to consider undecided voters, not sure how it affects the result).
>Never mind the number of government agencies that can just take your stuff without any recourse on your part.
I keep hearing this on the internet being portrayed as if the "average person" thinks "taxes are too high". The truth is this[0], it isn't just that they are too high for some groups, it's actually a plurality who feel taxes are too low on some groups and institutions.
Do you consider the amount of federal income tax you have to pay as too high, about right, or too low?
2016 Apr 6-10
-------------
51% Too high
37% About right
3% Too low
3% No opinion
Is pretty much what I expect. I would imagine the whole "feel taxes are too low" on others is generated by the large people not paying federal taxes, and the constant barrage of news about others having these loopholes that the normal person just doesn't get.
I mistook your comment on asset forfeiture as another "the poor man thinks taxes should be lower on the rich." I agree with your sentiment about asset forfeiture, which I'd argue is an indirect consequence of tax cuts on the wealthier end of the spectrum being made up by "revenue" in the form of fines and seizures from the lower and middle classes.
...but since you referenced my comment, I think its context needs to be validated. In order to give context to this, I'll post the information from the poll here. I'll just list data from the most recent poll, April 6-10, 2016.
As I read off some different groups, please tell me if
you think they are paying their FAIR share in federal
taxes, paying too MUCH or paying too LITTLE? First, how
about ... ?
LOWER-INCOME PEOPLE
31% Fair share
46% Too much
20% Too little
3% No Opinion
MIDDLE-INCOME PEOPLE
39% Fair share
53% Too much
6% Too little
2% No Opinion
UPPER INCOME PEOPLE
21% Fair share
15% Too much
61% Too little
3% No Opinion
CORPORATIONS
16% Fair share
12% Too much
67% Too little
5% No Opinion
I encourage all to actually look at these polls to see how the attitudes have changed over time. It's important to realize the sentiment of the American populace as it stands now; it certainly helps us keep from creating cartoon versions of the "average person" as the OP submits some do.
I don't think the US news media works that way. I think that the news media makes every person feel that they are the sensible person of non-extreme nature, and that to the sensible person their views are so obvious, and that other outside people are hostile and ignorant.
I don't think anyone would tolerate even 5 whole minutes (!) of mockery from their favorite news distributors. I also think most people aren't looking for news, but opinions. They want already-respectable sounding narratives that they can adopt themselves without spending any effort.
So no, I don't think religious people of America watch in pain as their news distributors, represented by a few faces, mock them for their stupidity, but I do think that news distributors sell a very poor-hostile message to poor people as part of an aspirational twist.
You aren't the lowest, you're actually kind of normal, but elites have been stepping all over you. But the people below you, those are the losers, and those people don't deserve help because they're lazy, they're drug users, they're impulsive, they're unprincipled and selfish, they're Godless, and if the government gave them any help they'd spend it all on drugs and having 6 babies.
You can just picture that dirty-faced skank with ultra-short denims and a tank top, an utterly unkempt look of unabashed poverty, with her no-good boyfriend. She probably votes Democrat all the time because if the government gave her a handout, hey of course she's going to vote for them, the Democrats are basically buying drugs for her. (to be read in the voice of a younger Rush Limbaugh)
> I don't think anyone would tolerate even 5 whole minutes
And we don't. Still, it's called "mass media" for a reason. If you don't watch TV, you read the same on the internet, billboards, in the movies, video games, from your friends and family, co-workers, people calling your home at the dinner time etc. etc.
One of my subpoints was that what you call "mass" media is not that mass, but quite segmented and self-selecting, as are friends, and I also think that political belief and frame tend to be passed down through family.
"Friends and family" does not literally mean your bff and your mother, jfyi. As for self-selecting other things - sure, you can go completely dark, quit your job, do not read or watch anything and, probably, in your opinion, it's not entirely ridiculous.
Why is whether someone is a widow or not relevant to whether or not they can be sued in your mind?
Would it be different if it was a widower? Or is that acceptable because men can deliver with things like that whereas women can barely cope with the grief of losing a man let alone all the legal stuff that is probably way over their head.
He was basically suing a widow because of a remark her husband made in a book (husband's version of a story). In other words, the person who he had a problem with was killed. He then continued to sue the estate (widow).
"Would it be different if it was a widower?"
I would still have a problem with continuing a lawsuit because of something a man's wife said.
"Or is that acceptable because men can deliver with things like that whereas women can barely cope with the grief of losing a man let alone all the legal stuff that is probably way over their head."
sigh... Its lines like this that make me think the divide is too great and our better angels are long gone. Sadly, I'm reluctant to give up my seat on buses or hold the door open these days because I don't know if I'll offend. Its so much easier to just ignore others and tune it all out and make like I'm oblivious.
The person he was suing wrote a book and repeated the story. In addition to claiming it on a talk radio show. Dead or not the story was now to a national audience due to even more publicity from the movie about Kyle. A jury judged that story a lie. Having a widow has no bearing on this situation.
Would you let a lie about your character and stating you wanted more SEALs killed stand?
> Would you let a lie about your character and stating you wanted more SEALs killed stand?
I would fight the lie (if it is a lie), but I would never continue to sue when the person who has offended me is dead. It just makes you a bully. Your reputation is the important thing and not the money. Frankly, going after the money just shows its was probably true. The appeals course reversed the judgement, we'll see how he continues it.
I think you are misrepresenting the situation. I have had a read up on this and assume we are talking about the widow of Chris Kyle, he made money off the false statements, money his wife was still making. He was entitled to sue and just because the guy was killed doesn't mean he should not be able to sue, especially because the book was still being sold.
Personally I hold doors and offer seats. I find that if someone makes an issue of it most/all people think they are the idiot and not me.
Mr. Kyle is not here to defend himself. He might be entitled to sue, but if it is supposed to clear his name, it won't. It shows he's a person of low character.
I think you are misrepresenting the situation. I have had a read up on this and assume we are talking about the widow of Chris Kyle, he made money off the false statements, money his wife was still making. He was entitled to sue and just because the guy was killed doesn't mean he should not be able to sue, especially because the book was still being sold.
Personally I hold doors and offer seats. I find that if someone makes an issue of it most/all people think they are the idiot and not me.
> In the US, the average person has grievances, is made fun of constantly on TV, and watches as people argue solutions that don't seem to have anything to do with the problem but sure fit their "let no crisis go to waste" mentality. Religious people are always portrayed as secretly corrupt or idiots[2]. Your jobs can get shipped off, replaced by someone on a visa, or a robot will do them. Celebrities are constantly shown knowing more about your job than you and calling you stupid or a villain.
I'm not from the US but I find this surprising. My experience is that politics and the media tell the people what the people want to hear which most of the time are simple solutions to complex problems. Most of the time the problems are someone else's fault, of course. So, yes, people have been deceived but the solution is not yet another vote for absurd reasons. BTW, tomorrow we have (again) elections in Spain. Whatever the result the discussion has already left me dissapointed.
The point about the Iraq war is a good one, and highlights one of the biggest blind spots of the western media. Take, for example, the U.S. media's handling of Trump's opposition to the Iraq war. It has been bizarre. They've turned it into a debate about whether he was sufficiently publicly opposed to it before it happened, and whether he said that Bush lied to get us into the war, or whether he merely said it was the biggest mistake any President has ever made. The whole time ignoring its own consistent and vociferous support of the single most disastrous undertaking in U.S. and U.K. history.
Additionally, consider how Cruz and Rubio pretended to have some meaningful difference in their stance on the gang of eight immigration reform bill. There was no real substantive debate about immigration in general - the focus was on drawing a contrast for voters.
The downside of indirect democracy coupled with corporate meritocracy is that the strongest players rise quickly and then rig the game to enshrine their elite position. This is what happened shortly after WW2 and we've been pawns in their experiments since.
This is probably the best thing Greenwald has ever written. Everyone in (or interested in) media, politics, government, academia, etc. should read it carefully and with a wide open mind. Grappling with this piece, its linked pieces, and Twilight of the Elites should be something that is now done in earnest; this is a chance for elites in other troubled western countries to work on getting ahead of the problem, as they failed to do previously, before it really gets out of hand.
The status quo is a failure, and continued denial will only lead us down an ever-darker road. We need a new way.
Except few Leave voters would agree with his explanations of their vote or want him as their representative, I'd guess. So him talking about failure to listen is a bit funny.
Sure, that's probably true. They don't need to listen to him, though; elites do. Then elites, through various mechanisms, need to a) communicate effectively to do those who are now disaffected and more importantly b) create conditions where bigotry (and other forms of exclusion) do not overtake good sense because of economic pressures / scarcity / perceived scarcity.
It certainly won't be overnight, but the sooner they start, the sooner we can start fixing things.
What if you and TFA are both wrong in that the opposite of bigotry and exclusion is completely open borders and that the latter is desirable? What if control over immigration policy is a legitimate thing to seek regardless of "perceived scarcity"? Or what if it's not legitimate but that's what the public genuinely wants? What if (much of) the root cause is in many other issues with European integration that many Europeans don't like even though you and TFA think integration is the cat's whiskers?
There were also people who voted for Hitler because they were racist. But maybe there were voters who did not really hate the jews. Perhaps they only wanted to seize their property. It's important to make the distinction.
WTF? I specifically did not say "everyone" anywhere. "It was a factor for some portion". And yes, some people voted for Obama specifically because of his race (and some voted against him because of his race). Others had other reasons for voting; same with Brexit voters.
I suspect it's more about public perception than hard facts: There's a huge difference in opinion about the EU in its member states, even those in ostensibly similar economic circumstances.
Take some of its smaller members with a similar GDP per capita (entries 37-42 of [1]), and compare their agreement with the statement (OUR COUNTRY) could better face the future outside the EU according to Special Eurobarometer 415 from 2014 [2][3]:
The Eurobarometer poll had the UK at 47% agree / 41% disagree, so one could have predicted a result of 53% in favour of leaving the EU, which is not far off and likely influenced by common anti-EU rhetoric among British media and politicians.
This article made lots of great points, but I fundamentally disagree with bucketing everyone into "elites" (whatever that means) and "everyone else". Every leader (within the media, a government, a political party, etc.) is an elite by the definitions used here. Trump is an elite. The politicians behind Leave are elites. They may be trying to displace other elites with different views, but that doesn't mean they themselves aren't elites. They're just really good at convincing people that they are disenfranchised.
I'm with you on the elites bit. It strikes me as the kind of ambiguous blanket term that will leave some student 20-40 years from now reading a primary source from this time period scratching their head, trying to understand exactly who the elites the author mentioned so many times were.
I've been thinking things like this for years, especially about a "general loss of confidence."
For me the two most confidence-destroying events of the past two decades were Iraq and the 2008 financial bailouts/crisis (and the housing bubble that caused it and is still delivering pain). Both of these occurred under the Bush Jr. administration or very shortly after it. For years I've seen Bush Jr. as the worst president of the past 100 years -- far worse than Nixon and Johnson -- and now I'm seeing quite a bit of real world confirmation of this.
On the other hand I'm not a huge Obama fan either. He ran as a "change" candidate, but seems to have more or less stayed the course. That's been disastrous.
A very lengthy article. Still, he is correct about the Republican, Democratic, and British political elites ignoring the working class. The Republican Elite complain about Trump, yet, they offered nobody, nobody at all that addressed the concerns of the working class.
Charles Murray (The Bell Curve) has spoken about this a similar manner.
Here is an interesting article from The Guardian about Trump that is consistent with the OP article:
When the international bankers couldn't pass the Aldrich bill, they renamed it the federal reserve bill, started a public campaign about how "bad for the banks" the bill would be, while secretly funding economics professors across the country. The people, thinking anything bad for the bank was good for the people, campaigned for the federal reserve bill, and it was passed by only a few people after much of the house/senate had gone home for the holidays.
I highly suspect a similar style of propaganda going on with the brexit, up to and including voting fraud. I think the electronic voting systems are highly likely to be manipulable.
As long as globalization was working in favor of the western population it was perfectly fine, now suddenly when you guys find that the Chinese and Indians are as good as you the white westerners you are suddenly insecure and globalization is bad. Where were your morality when globalization killed hundreds and thousands of traditional industries in the emerging markets, when it destroyed the cultural fabric ruthlessly of these countries and the forces of globalization was unleashed like a storm on those countries?
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 251 ms ] threadThis elite behavior is rampant on HN. The comments that I leave in favor of Brexit are labeled xenophobic, racist, simple-minded, etc without even thinking. When Obama wins the election, or "progressive" issue is advanced, the intellectual elite labels it as a genuine progress that's good for everyone. When Brexit or Trump happens, that's dumb masses that fail to comprehend the intellectual intricacies, hence that's bad, really bad. Never mind that people have real grievances, that Uber drivers barely make their ends meet, that societies been uprooted. That rampant immigration into countries that have never seen it before, from hostile lands, from illiterate masses, etc etc.
People have real grievances. We need to listen to them.
"Rampant immigration into countries that have never seen it before, from hostile lands, from illiterate masses"
How is that not a xenophobic and simple-minded statement?
Immigration into the UK from non-EU citizens is subject to many controls, including passport checks (which btw, EU citizens also are subjected to). As for intra-EU migration, I'm not sure I'd characterize Poland, Belgium, Holland, Germany, etc. etc. as hostile nations or illiterate.
This vote was for fear of change, insularity, a return to a past that never actually existed. This will likely harm those who voted for the exit the most. That and the young who will likely see their opportunities to work elsewhere in Europe complicated. Not to mention the very likely contraction of the British economy. Yes, these are "elite" ideas promoted by people who have studied economics and politics for decades, but who else would you rather have us listen to?
The problem these institutions have is taking themselves a little too seriously and completely failing to communicate a positive vision for the future. They have also failed to acknowledge and mitigate the downsides of good policies. This is leading to a backlash that will throw the good out with the bad, leaving Europe and especially England and Wales, (doubtful that the UK as constituted survives this) poorer. This is a sad state of affairs.
Also, immigration is way too complicated an issue for you to just flippantly paint opponents of unrestricted immigration as xenophobic. I grew up in Northern VA, which has a large population of Asian (particularly South-Asian) immigrants. Most are highly-educated, highly-skilled, upper middle class, and reliable democratic voters. But god forbid someone's kid comes out as gay or transexual. I'm one of those immigrants and I still have qualms about raising my kid around here, because I think a lot of my neighbors don't share my values.
I am very skeptical of that study however. Japan has a reputation for being one of the most homogeneous countries in the world and there are a number of pretty terrible anecdotes of how foreigners are treated there. It could be the phrasing of the question, for example. Very few people would open admit racism here in the USA but studies have shown that systemic racism still exists here.
Also, just because South-Asian immigrants, as you claim, may have some issues with homophobia, I'm not sure restricting immigration is related to that or would help with that.
[0] 52% of those who voted, but let's say that's a representative sample.
Nitpicking, but xenophobia is the fear of what is strange and unknown. The problem is that immigrants are no longer strangers. People do not want more of them , not because they don't know them, but because the do know them. It's more immigranto-phobia rather than xenophobia. It's a rather rational reaction from a self-preservation standpoint. That doesn't make it right or wrong of course.
Now, seeing the reaction of brexit-supporters, it seems they chose the EU as their scapegoat of choice, but that won't fix any problems.
Source: https://www.destatis.de/DE/ZahlenFakten/GesellschaftStaat/Be...
There are a lot of practically illiterate people in every country. If you were an illiterate Brit working a simple construction job, wouldn't you be worried about competition from Poles and EU migrants from other countries?
> That and the young who will likely see their opportunities to work elsewhere in Europe complicated.
I would think that only a very small minority of Brits work abroad for extended periods of times. The benefit for British people to be able to work abroad might not be worth the cost in extra competition for low-skill jobs from very large number of EU immigrants.
There is a definite issue with income disparity and opportunity, but the way we are going about it is wrong. There are millions of job openings, but they can't be filled because of a skills deficit. Why is there a skills deficit? Because people are not being educated properly.
If immigration completely stopped right now, America would still have the same problem. The educated middle class families are not having enough children, leaving a vacuum in the labor force. Combined with the education gap, we have the primer for dissatisfaction with the government.
Welfare and medicare is costing the government billions of dollars. Who uses this benefits the most. The baby boomers and the poorly educated who require them to live, and they are the same population most supporting Trump.
All of this is just a comical clusterf* and the media perpetuates it so they can make bank.
If a young population was such a great thing, why are Chad, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Mozambique, South Sudan, Zambiam Malawi, Mali, Uganda, Niger all such basket cases?
The only real problem with an aging population is the pension system. This problem can easily be solved by raising the age of retirement.
Older people can be just as selfish as young people. Relevant Brexit quote [0]:
> Woman on Radio 4 who voted Leave. "I'm pleased. Don't think it'll effect us cause we're elderly. For the young people I'm not sure."
That doesn't sound experienced or wise - actually, if anything it seems recklessly selfish and bordering on intergenerational violence.
> The only real problem with an aging population is the pension system. This problem can easily be solved by raising the age of retirement.
How exactly is that solution "easy" if all those old people vote consistently to keep the retirement age where it is? Older folks are the single most reliable constituency in America on election day.
I personally think the story behind all of this is the growing divide between young and old voters. IMO our aging population is indeed more experienced and wiser... when it comes to stacking the deck in their favor and keeping their awful policies from being reversed.
Which generation(s) have a problem with LGBT people? Which generation sold $1T in debt to its children and erected unprecedented barriers to discharging that debt? Which generation started the War on Drugs and refuses to admit to its failure, or even really fix the embarrassingly racist details like mandatory minimums? Which generation tells which generation that they can't possibly earn more than $7.25/hour, and which generation pours wealth into elections so they can maintain that status quo?
[0] https://twitter.com/GameofThrowIns/status/746326764570427392
Great! I'm sure they wouldn't mind manning the tills, stocking shelves or driving buses.
The type of work you generally do (and can do) changes with your ages. The older generation can't or won't do jobs the younger generation does, which leads to pressure on services which rely on those people. You don't see many 70 year old nurses.
To the extent that we have threads about Brexit or politics on HN (and we do have some, as the guidelines explicitly allow), people are welcome to argue either side of the issues, and indeed do. What they're not welcome to do is vent, spew, stomp their feet, impute ill motives to others, and all the rest of bad internet manners. They're also not welcome to diss the community whilst participating in it.
It might be OK for Istanbul to have a mix of Polish transients and Russian prostitutes and Muslims etc etc, since it is on the crossroads of East and West, but for London to look like Damascus is not such a great idea, in my opinion. Again, just my opinion that has nothing to do with racism or intolerance. As a matter of fact, I shiver when I think how Europe can go fascist and turn these poor immigrants into corpses.
We're already seeing an increase in hate crime. Here's one example, but there are others.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2016/jun/25/brexit-...
> Police are investigating suspected post-referendum racism after hate mail aimed at the Polish community was allegedly distributed in Cambridgeshire.
> Laminated cards reading “Leave the EU - no more Polish vermin” were found in Huntingdon, north west of Cambridge.
> The Polish language newspaper, Nasze Strony, reports on the incident and on the fact that the cards even had a translation in Polish on the reverse.
> Teachers at a school near to where some of the cards were found yesterday reportedly threw them away but more were left on a path leading to it later.
> Inspector Nick Percival of Cambridgeshire Constabulary told the Guardian that police were aware of the incident.
> He added: “We are aware of it and have had a report from a member of the public. We are following up are taking it seriously as it does represent a hate crime. We would encourage anyone who is either a victim or is aware of the source of this to come forward.”
This didn't happen overnight -- it's been a concerted effort by certain interests for a long time.
Then how come Russia and China keep their working classes poor, Japan and South Korea rabidly overwork people, and Japan has allowed three Lost Decades?
Starting with the deeply corrupt policy of quantitative easing and zero interest rates, which seek to protect incumbent and bankrupt financial institutions by increasing the value of assets already in the hands of the elites, and devaluing liabilities, amongst which, wages.
Poor comfort, but it's something.
Certain classes of assets are under fairly severe devaluation. When the winners are companies like Apple - which is a company with a pretty anti-elitist, popular product - this also presents headwinds to this sort of theory.
IMO, I rather like Steve Randy Waldman's essay "Depression Is a Choice".
Say what you like about Greenspan, but at least he had a self-determined intellect and swagger, which he used without needing to justify himself constantly with a spreadsheet's output (even if he used said swagger to serve his own class of capitalists).
So I don't blame Yellen. She genuinely believes she is doing the right thing by the rules of the game she has been carefully selected to be unquestioning in.
It is indeed econometric myopia. We set 2% inflation targets and then fail to meet them. But production is inherently extrinsic to central banks. With a populace that thinks more and more like retired people, it's harder to get the fire lit.
That's not something to admire.
I think the point about Apple is a non-sequitur here. Low interest rates may also have benefited the tech industry, but that's secondary and doesn't affect as many people as real estate hyperinflation.
Health care, education and housing? Concentrated, deliberate subsidy means it costs more and there's more of it. Less so for health care, but housing and education are default "investments" - for when you're out of ideas.
I just picked Apple because they appear to be a present day winner with a model that wasn't widely predicted. I'm down to grumbling about Keynesian animal spirits ( the retiree mentality ) for the rest of the economy.
In terms of grievances, they extend beyond white rednecks. (BTW, I read somewhere that the talented white redneck kids have the highest level of discrimination against them when applying into elite schools.) Consider African Americans: 73% of kids born to single mothers and huge level of incarceration. How is it not a failure of political science and Democrats that represent African Americans on all levels of government?
It could be a systemic racist system that marginalizes them even in the post-civil rights era--the sort of thing that Black Lives Matter and the NAACP propose. I'm not sure what "political science" or "Democrats" have to do with that other than tangentially.
Or possibly your not clearly expressing the ideas.
The people you are talking to could also be misinformed.
Neither your education nor your literacy level lends innate substance to your views. Maybe your are over-relying on your credentials and completely missing the real issues of your audience?
The idea that African Americans statistics have nothing to do with African Americans personal and collective history and it's just 'the way they are' (and, basically, that it's what you are implying) it's pretty dumb in my book.
The same apply to 'rednecks' by the way.
Why the value judgement on single mothers? Also, the 73% is out of wedlock, not necessarily single mothers. Single mother numbers are actually 67%.
>and huge level of incarceration.
Incarceration policies put in place by republicans and democrats.
>How is it not a failure of political science and Democrats that represent African Americans on all levels of government?
It is a failure of American political policy. However, the answer isn't to build a wall or stop immigration. The answer is to improve education, train people for the jobs that actually exist in our economy, and if all else fails, figure out what we do when there just aren't enough jobs, not just pretend like manufacturing is going to come back. American manufacturing has never produced more goods than the present, but it also employees almost no one, because automation is amazing [1].
[1] Page 4 and 5: http://www.cs.rice.edu/~vardi/workawesome16.pdf
Because if you look at black communities with low single motherhood you also see less poverty, violence and incarceration rates at the same time. Even for white people single motherhood is often the biggest factor that decides whether you end up in poverty or not.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/426433/family-goes-so-...
It's possible because you being smart in one area of your life doesn't automatically translate to you being smart in your political views. It's entirely possible to be a smart doctor and be dumb and unintelligent on political matters. Maybe your "conservatives views" are dumb, that's a distinct realistic possibility, no matter how good a doctor you are.
Soft sciences these days are for people that want to appear as though educated, but don't want to be burdened by evidence, proofs etc. It is time to clear the fog on that matter.
Many "average persons" are damned tired of watching their own welfare and their communities become ever more hollowed out.
The spectre of global welfare is akin to a chimera, when your own circumstances and productive years are being wiped out.
And no, not everyone has the resources and flexibility to "just move".
People will divide back up into smaller, more cohesive communities, if that's what it takes to protect their own, immediate interests.
If you don't like this, then stop discounting the notion of "winners" and "losers" and put some effort into spreading those winnings. Or, buy more guns and, now, robots. Including robots to shoot the guns at the "less equal".
Not in any rational sense. They voted for the even more elite: an ex-stockbroker (Farage) and an old Etonian (Johnson).
If anything I'd say the leave camp is entirely composed of the elite who want to take even more away from the working class. They didn't like being told what to do by the EU because they didn't like its left-of-centre policies.
They voted for self-governance and sovereignty. Many had their own reasons and desires for that sovereignty, but that's what they voted for.
Why should any people have a desire to be a part of a political organization over which they have zero control, but must pay taxes to? That is antithetical to democracy and good governance.
That's called a strawman argument. Of course no one would want to be part of such an org, if that was all there was to it. But you conveniently left out all the benefits of being in that org (some of which were mentioned in this thread).
Stop whining.
> But you conveniently left out all the benefits of being in that org
I don't believe I said there weren't any. There are many. It seems the voters value their liberty and self-determination more.
Not quite. For the US federal government, you get to vote for 2 senators, a number of congressmen, and the president. You get to vote for zero in the EU.
There are no kings or queens running the EU, nor do people just randomly show up and get power. Everyone who has power is either elected or was appointed by someone who was elected.
Senators used to be picked by the state congress and presidents are elected via the electoral college, not the popular vote, so when the US was founded and for much of its history, the people's voice was solely from the house of representatives which was the original intention of the founders. Like the US, the EU will evolve, but like the original US, the EU members are elected by the people's representatives, which is hardly no control or will of the people.
When the US was founded and for much of its history, women couldn't vote. And this was the intention of the founders. And it's irrelevant.
You judge a political entity by its current state. They can vote now. And now, you elect your Senators directly. You also elect your President directly, albeit within the confines of your state.
> Like the US, the EU will evolve
I disagree with you here, there is no guarantee of this. It may, it may not.
> the EU members are elected by the people's representatives, which is hardly no control or will of the people.
Selection is very different from election, even if done by those who were elected. Nobody is screaming dictatorship here, but it really isn't the same thing.
It was relevant to the next point made (not the founders intentions), that everything evolves even the U.S.
> disagree with you here, there is no guarantee of this. It may, it may not.
It will, because nothing stays static, every generation has their own views about issues and all societies continually evolve, so yes, there is a guarantee of this.
> Selection is very different from election, even if done by those who were elected.
They're effectively the same thing and it's what elected representatives are for. You can't claim you don't have a say in the people selected when you elect the selectors.
I agree with you here, but the insinuation was that it would evolve toward something better. Things don't always get better. History has borne this out.
> They're effectively the same thing
Disagree. You're playing broken telephone. After inserting enough people in between the original vote and the final appointee... you get a completely different message.
Things don't always anything, but history shows over time societies are in general getting better and it's perfectly reasonable to expect the EU will as well.
> Disagree. You're playing broken telephone. After inserting enough people in between the original vote and the final appointee... you get a completely different message.
One layer, i.e. representatives, is standard fair for how most governments operate and no one complains they don't have any representation. It's unrealistic to accept only direct democracy as meaningful.
The European Parliament is directly elected by EU citizens, with the UK getting 73 seats. [0]
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament
I will note that this legislative body has no capacity to actually introduce legislation, as noted in the very article you quoted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament#Legislativ...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutions_of_the_European...
Of those, only the parliament is directly elected. The council consists of elected officials who are automatically appointed and the presidency rotates. While that isn't necessarily a bad scheme, it isn't exactly democratic ... more like sequential?
And are you really suggesting that people in the UK and in the rest of the world really do elect their judges, treasury officers, and accountants? Even in the US, the much-vaunted example, Supreme Court judges and the Federal Reserve chairman are appointed, not elected.
And this causes much strife and conflict.
> And are you really suggesting that people in the UK and in the rest of the world really do elect their judges, treasury officers, and accountants?
What I am suggesting is that democracy is a release.
As a citizen of the EU, you end up voting for a tiny fraction of those in power. Tiny. Even if I accept your fraction of 3/7 ... keep in mind that out of those for the UK, you get to elect 10% at best of those institutions.
3/7 * 10% = 4%
That's a tiny number. And because the presidency rotates, 90% of the time the figurehead is someone you didn't even have a chance to vote for or against. That's a horrible feeling.
That feeling is amplified if things are happening that you don't like. You blame that lack of control. Even if you lose the election, at least you had a voice.
In the US, everyone has a chance to vote for or against the president, 100% of the time. Contrary to popular opinion, the presidency in the US is extremely limited and he can be overruled by the legislature or the supreme court at any time. And of course, in the legislature, any one citizen can only vote for a tiny fraction ... but because every citizen votes for the president, they feel they have some semblance of control over the system.
If the desire is to turn the EU into a federal system like the US, then you need EU-wide elections where every citizen has the same set of choices. That will make them feel like they have a stake in the government. It would be a release. At that point the conversation would change from do I leave or do I stay, to how do I empower the guy I voted for.
This breaks the HN guidelines by being uncivil. Please edit such bits out of your comments here. Your comment would be much better with just the last sentence.
>> That's called a strawman argument. Of course no one would want to be part of such an org, if that was all there was to it.
And here I think you repeat the mistake discussed here: belittling people who don't agree with you.
We have the same here with no UKIP. Politicians have tried twice to get Norwegians into EU using dubious arguments and people mobilized broadly twice to avoid it.
Edit: removed "all kinds of" in font of dubious to be less hyperbolic.
In hindsight it turns out the "No"-side was right and had been speaking the truth: staying out of the EU was not a problem and has been advantageous.
Why should any people have a desire to be a part of a political organization over which they have zero control, but must pay taxes to?
You defended this with:
while not mathematically correct this is what lots of people feel.
I object to your assertion that lies should stand unchallenged just because they illustrate what people feel, especially when it is lies that informed their feelings in the first place. I don't care enough about the Norway situation to involve myself in that.
Another commenter posted http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/ , I suggest you take a look at that page and count how many of those myths originated in English "newspapers".
For one, because the political organization benefits them? Control is not the only desirable property of an organization.
Furthermore, the UK did not have zero control over the EU. It had one commissioner (the same amount as any other member state), and 10% of the seats in parliament (second only in representation to Germany) -- So your question misrepresents the situation. If you do not like to be called out for that strawman argument, please inform yourself or be more articulate next time.
Ironically, the situation "zero control, with tax obligations" (i.e. the Norway solution) is now the most likely option for the UK.
And when did the people of the UK have a chance to vote him in? I must have missed that election.
> and 10% of the seats in parliament (second only in representation to Germany)
I must have missed this election as well!
> If you do not like to be called out for that strawman argument, please inform yourself or be more articulate next time.
I was quite articulate, thank you. The problem really is that when people such as yourself are incapable of making a coherent argument in turn, they resort to passive/aggressive nonsense like you're displaying here.
> Ironically, the situation "zero control, with tax obligations" (i.e. the Norway solution) is now the most likely option for the UK.
Care to expand on this?
The reason people feel they don't have a say in the EU is because they keep voting for UKIP, whose entire mandate was to make the EU look bad by racking up expenses and not doing anything.
The gall of Farage when he was campaigning for the fishermen during the referendum was astounding. He attended 1, ONE, out of 42 fisheries council meetings while he was an MEP and he was on the committee. Then he turns around and says that it was the EU that screwed our fishing industry.
No, he betrayed the fishing industry just to make the EU look bad.
I want Commisiooners that are appointed by a president that is elected by the parliament (that's just how the German government works) or a similar system, but such a system would take too much power away from the governments of the member states (and give too much power to democratically elected EU institutions like the parliament) and as such was, while discussed, always disliked by members like the UK.
The EU is structured the way it is because the (elected) member state governments want to preserve their power and influence. They don't want some other democratically elected EU institution taking away their power. Commissioners are basically member state government surrogates. And this doesn't even yet touch upon the fact that hardly anything in the EU gets done without member states' governments direct involvement, either the Head's or the ministers (all democratically legitimated, by the way).
You are lacking a very basic level of understanding of how the EU works and why it is structured the way it is. Member state governments typically actually have a problem with democratically electing more people in the EU. They would much rather just send someone they appoint or go themselves (for obvious reasons). You are calling for something the UK has always blocked.
Also, you don't seem to know that there is an European Parliament? Democratically elected? Seats assigned proportionally? The last election was in 2014.
Norway: they are not a member of the EU but a part of the common market. That gives them the option to opt out of some things (but not even most things and especially not central ones like freedom of movement of labour), but they still have to pay membership fees and get no say when the rules are decided on.
Thank you for educating me.
> You are calling for something the UK has always blocked.
I think you're confusing the populace at large with their representatives. That is exactly the distinction I was trying to make. You can have a desire to not be a part of an institution that was designed by the very representatives you elected.
> Also, you don't seem to know that there is an European Parliament?
Based on my reading of the subject, they can't introduce legislation? Merely vote on it? And if they approve, another body which is not elected, must also approve before legislation is enacted?
You didn't. You voted for Cameron, and he nominated Lord Hill. I suggest you take it up with Westminster if you wanted to vote directly:
http://www.politico.eu/article/jonathan-hill-to-be-uks-commi...
I must have missed this election as well!
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-27039093
resort to passive/aggressive nonsense like you're displaying here.
Aww. You were still wrong though, and were attacking the first commenter that pointed this out to you.
Care to expand on this?
If the UK wants to keep access to the EU single market (the EEA, European Economic Area), it can still do so through membership of the EFTA (European Free Trade Area). Membership of the EFTA requires a membership fee, likely less than the EU "tax". But it also means that the UK is no longer in a position to influence EU product regulations directly.
The first links I could find, they look quite comprehensive but I can't really judge their contents:
http://euquestion.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-cost-of-eu-member...
https://medium.com/@WhiteWednesday/the-norway-option-some-bo...
The primary problem for the UK is that free movement of people is a nonconditional part of the single market treaty, which seems to be the very idea that was the focal point of the leave campaign. So it's not a certainty that this deal will fly in the UK. Switzerland, for example, does not partake in the EEA but still has to abide by the Free Movement clause:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland%E2%80%93European_U...
I honestly doubt that the UK (fifth largest economy in the world) will not be able to get a significantly better deal than Norway.
Just look at how many exceptions and special conditions they previously received from EU treaties.
One of the reasons they are such a large economy is because they are the financial gateway to Europe. If your global rank is conditional on having single market access to the EU, you can't really use that as a bargaining power for getting access to that same market...
But yes, they should be able to negotiate a better deal than Norway.
The Brexit vote won because more people believed the current system is bad for them.
Btw, people keep saying half of UK want to stay in, which is not true.
Roughly 1/3 of eligible voters voted for exit. 1/3 voted for staying. And 1/3 didn't care enough to vote.
So in reality about 1/3 feel strong about staying.
In a nation where 13% of the UK population is foreign born.
It's not really relevant to make a comparison with the total population, and when 70% of the population polled, it is probably more than representative of the full picture anyway. If it's distributed randomly across the country, the remaining 30% would have voted in the same manner.
And politicians are elected with elections, not polling for a reason.
The problem is not the referendum or the people who vote in an undesired way, the problem is always the government.
Some random referendum about an issue that may have nothing to do with the government of the day is not the appropriate time to lash out at the government.
Making big companies pay their taxes: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/07/eu-multination...
Pumping money into impoverished areas: http://gov.wales/funding/eu-funds/?lang=en
EDIT - I forgot the most important one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_R...
Does the author really consider the heavily pro-EU residents of Liverpool, Glasgow, or Northern Ireland to be establishment elites?
- They've grown up in a united Europe, and may have a different view of their world than the older generation.
- The younger generation is more likely to be bilingual, while the older generation speaks only English. That means they have more experience with other cultures, and fear them less.
- They have less ties to Britain, and perhaps more likely to consider a career on the mainland.
- The younger generation really is less racist.
- The younger generation is less affected by illusions of grandeur about their empire and relative importance in the world.
I echo that.
While I completely agree with "Western Establishment Failure" being at work, it cannot be reduced to "globalization loosers".
More factors at work:
1) "collusive arrangements" emerge over time within societies. The EU served as proxy against those collusions in many countries (Freedom of movement, Gay Rights, Customer Protection), as did the Unionists for many against the Federalists during US Civil War. But over time new collusions emerge.
Many Europeans don't see the many positives the EU brought them, but fear the precedent it set in implementing those positives (usually by ruling over a country's laws) now being used for many more collusions.
2) social media's impact on western culture like
- "Filter Bubbles" (Recommended/Shared content forming personalized propaganda) and
- encouraging communicational behaviour different than the classical "shame"- and "guilt"-culture models, in that in online discussions guilt and shame is virtually non-existent for one self. They are only attributes to lay on others
- both are translating into real-world elite-phenomenons like "vindictive protectiveness" - were things like restrooms become a heated debate, but old-school-phenomenons like safety, income inequality, health are not
3) the loss of the West's common enemy. Nations are "imagined communites" and while they are made of many things, the finishing usually happened when the common enemy emerged. And that's working for supra-nations as well. The Soviet Bloc is gone and our new "culprits" don't fit into its shoes: Not China, not Russia and also not Islam
I get the feeling the US is going through that scenario writ larger. I get the feeling (I'm not from UK) that Brexit was similar. The BBC seemed like it picked a winner, and the US media does the same while dismissing all others. If I remember right the last UK election was pretty surprising to the BBC and its pollsters.
In the US, the average person has grievances, is made fun of constantly on TV, and watches as people argue solutions that don't seem to have anything to do with the problem but sure fit their "let no crisis go to waste" mentality. Religious people are always portrayed as secretly corrupt or idiots[2]. Your jobs can get shipped off, replaced by someone on a visa, or a robot will do them. Celebrities are constantly shown knowing more about your job than you and calling you stupid or a villain. It seems chalk on a sidewalk with a candidates name is a national trauma? Never mind the number of government agencies that can just take your stuff without any recourse on your part.
and people wonder why the old Top Gear was so popular
I fear its going to get to the point that we really have no common ground left. I hope pasbesoin[3] isn't right, but I've lost a lot of hope.
1) and no, I dislike the winner intensely - suing a widow is a no go
2) MASH, Babylon 5, and The West Wing for the exception. At least The West Wing had the decency to portray Republicans as sometimes heroes.
3) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11977593
This. I've heard far too many charges of racism and xenophobia, as if many legitimately believe 52% of England are racists.
Heaven forbid an electorate that has not been a beneficiary of globalism vote against the staus quo!
However, it was a factor for some portion, and it may have been enough of a portion of votes to be part of the few % that gave 'leave' the victory.
When people talk about immigration that's really what they mean, I do genuinely believe that the UK is not a particularly racist place that the huge majority of people even those who cite immigration as an issue believe in "live and let live", but I think they feel that tolerance has been abused by a system that says free movement of people is meant to benefit them but so far as they can see it does not.
Attributing Brexit solely to racism and xenophobia is clearly unreasonable, but it is equally unreasonable to dismiss it entirely as a factor. There are some striking demographic correlations between Leave voters and people who admitted to being racially prejudiced.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/may/27/-sp-racism-o...
I think self-assessments on negative habits are wrought with problems, I wouldn't rely on those for anything.
But your comment made me realize something else: if people identify problems that you recognize, and you then see those people vilified as racists, you may start to question your beliefs. But the second and third time this happens, you may start to question the label itself.
I'm not happy with the above phrasing, so I apologize for my runaway train of thought. But I think people are happy to self-assess as racists because they identify with demonized politicians, not necessarily because they are aware of their own racism. It becomes a badge of honour, so to speak.
edit: This is the cry of financial services who were using the UK as an EU tax vehicle, and the uncritical middle-class are following along with their complete blanketing of the media. The only benefit that the EU gave to the left is that British elites on average hate workers more than European elites. This credibility was completely lost by the way Greece was treated.
Glasgow, which has some of the most deprived inner city condition of anywhere in the UK, voted to remain.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-3659...
The only place in Scotland that came close to not voting to remain was Moray, which is quite rural and not really that deprived.
I don't know anything about Minnesota, but wrt this referendum and the last UK General Election it wasn't so much "picking a winner" as that relentless vilification of the non-establishment side led to people concealing their actual voting intentions from pollsters. In the case of the GE this even applied to exit polling, i.e. after people had voted. There wasn't any official exit polling for the referendum, but some major banks did it privately and I think Leave's premature concession early in the results points to the same thing happening there.
Thank you for a very thoughtful and measured post, by the way; we could do with more of that. The atmosphere here in the UK at the moment is just poisonous, with some fairly mortifying behaviour on both sides.
I get the same thought and would love to know how someone would do a study on the subject. I know it was true in MN at the time (who wants to admit they're voting for a wrestler because they are sick of the other two)[1].
> The atmosphere here in the UK at the moment is just poisonous, with some fairly mortifying behavior on both sides.
Yep, the edges always show up, more to prove the other sides point than help really.
1) I clenched my teeth and voted by party, although I couldn't say I was surprised by the outcome - and here I am doing the exact thing by making it clear I didn't vote for him - sigh.
It's normally called the "Shy Tory Factor" in the UK; Wikipedia has a page [1] but it's a bit thin.
After the 2015 GE the British Polling Council commissioned an independent inquiry on the subject, whose findings you can read here [2]. (Disclaimer: I haven't.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shy_Tory_Factor
[2] http://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/3789/1/Report_final_revised.pdf
What strikes me is how counterproductive this all is - in this week's case the inaccurate polling made the final result far more of a shock and thus presumably far more disruptive than it would otherwise have been. It may even have caused the final result - I think turnout for the under-25 demographic, which skewed heavily Remain, was only about a third, and I've seen several comments to the effect of "I didn't think I needed to vote, Remain was ahead anyway".
I've even seen someone explain (on the BBC): "I didn't think my vote mattered, so I voted leave. I'm a bit worried now".
I really hope that that's a minor occurrence, I really don't want to consider the possibility that large parts of the voting public treat elections/referenda with less seriousness than the average talent show vote.
[1] https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/746820394217259008
(Caveat - it says "via ComRes" but it hasn't appeared in ComRes' published polls page yet.)
An honest headline for a lot of the news in the past couple days is "People on losing side of election unhappy". But then people would realize how stupid it is. And when the news is about people's reaction to the news, you begin to wonder what the real cause and effect is.
Ridiculing ordinary people over years is what made Brexit and made Trump a possible candidate.
I did not argue for Brexit (I knew too little) and I don't like Trump but I am smart enough to understand why people are fed up.
Your point about Christianity rings true as well: I understand why a religious villain makes a better character in a plot but somewhere it has to stop (unless someone is pushing an agenda but they don't do do they ? ;-)
As there was no exit poll, they had nothing to talk about for 2 hours before the start of the results came in so just had endless speculation from pollsters and their ilk
If there is one lesson to be learned, it's never ever trust polling organisations, they get it wrong time and time again, but somehow keep getting paid?
A recent memo by the BBC's head of political research admitted this:
“It seems to me that the London bubble has to burst if there is to be any prospect of addressing the issues that have brought us to our current situation. There are many millions of people in the UK who do not enthuse about diversity and do not embrace metropolitan values yet do not consider themselves lesser human beings for all that. Until their values and opinions are acknowledged and respected, rather than ignored and despised, our present discord will persist. Because these discontents run very wide and very deep and the metropolitan political class, confronted by them, seems completely bewildered and at a loss about how to respond (“who are these ghastly people and where do they come from?” doesn’t really hack it). The 2016 EU referendum has witnessed the cashing in of some very bitter bankable grudges but I believe that, throughout this 2016 campaign, Europe has been the shadow not the substance.”
I keep hearing this on the internet being portrayed as if the "average person" thinks "taxes are too high". The truth is this[0], it isn't just that they are too high for some groups, it's actually a plurality who feel taxes are too low on some groups and institutions.
[0] http://www.gallup.com/poll/1714/taxes.aspx
As to your statement, the first question[2]:
Do you consider the amount of federal income tax you have to pay as too high, about right, or too low?
Is pretty much what I expect. I would imagine the whole "feel taxes are too low" on others is generated by the large people not paying federal taxes, and the constant barrage of news about others having these loopholes that the normal person just doesn't get.1) http://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2014/08/26/p...
2) http://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Prod... - gotta love png instead of a table
...but since you referenced my comment, I think its context needs to be validated. In order to give context to this, I'll post the information from the poll here. I'll just list data from the most recent poll, April 6-10, 2016.
I encourage all to actually look at these polls to see how the attitudes have changed over time. It's important to realize the sentiment of the American populace as it stands now; it certainly helps us keep from creating cartoon versions of the "average person" as the OP submits some do.[0] http://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Prod...
I don't think anyone would tolerate even 5 whole minutes (!) of mockery from their favorite news distributors. I also think most people aren't looking for news, but opinions. They want already-respectable sounding narratives that they can adopt themselves without spending any effort.
So no, I don't think religious people of America watch in pain as their news distributors, represented by a few faces, mock them for their stupidity, but I do think that news distributors sell a very poor-hostile message to poor people as part of an aspirational twist.
You aren't the lowest, you're actually kind of normal, but elites have been stepping all over you. But the people below you, those are the losers, and those people don't deserve help because they're lazy, they're drug users, they're impulsive, they're unprincipled and selfish, they're Godless, and if the government gave them any help they'd spend it all on drugs and having 6 babies.
You can just picture that dirty-faced skank with ultra-short denims and a tank top, an utterly unkempt look of unabashed poverty, with her no-good boyfriend. She probably votes Democrat all the time because if the government gave her a handout, hey of course she's going to vote for them, the Democrats are basically buying drugs for her. (to be read in the voice of a younger Rush Limbaugh)
And we don't. Still, it's called "mass media" for a reason. If you don't watch TV, you read the same on the internet, billboards, in the movies, video games, from your friends and family, co-workers, people calling your home at the dinner time etc. etc.
Would it be different if it was a widower? Or is that acceptable because men can deliver with things like that whereas women can barely cope with the grief of losing a man let alone all the legal stuff that is probably way over their head.
"Would it be different if it was a widower?"
I would still have a problem with continuing a lawsuit because of something a man's wife said.
"Or is that acceptable because men can deliver with things like that whereas women can barely cope with the grief of losing a man let alone all the legal stuff that is probably way over their head."
sigh... Its lines like this that make me think the divide is too great and our better angels are long gone. Sadly, I'm reluctant to give up my seat on buses or hold the door open these days because I don't know if I'll offend. Its so much easier to just ignore others and tune it all out and make like I'm oblivious.
Would you let a lie about your character and stating you wanted more SEALs killed stand?
I would fight the lie (if it is a lie), but I would never continue to sue when the person who has offended me is dead. It just makes you a bully. Your reputation is the important thing and not the money. Frankly, going after the money just shows its was probably true. The appeals course reversed the judgement, we'll see how he continues it.
Personally I hold doors and offer seats. I find that if someone makes an issue of it most/all people think they are the idiot and not me.
Mr. Kyle is not here to defend himself. He might be entitled to sue, but if it is supposed to clear his name, it won't. It shows he's a person of low character.
Personally I hold doors and offer seats. I find that if someone makes an issue of it most/all people think they are the idiot and not me.
I'm not from the US but I find this surprising. My experience is that politics and the media tell the people what the people want to hear which most of the time are simple solutions to complex problems. Most of the time the problems are someone else's fault, of course. So, yes, people have been deceived but the solution is not yet another vote for absurd reasons. BTW, tomorrow we have (again) elections in Spain. Whatever the result the discussion has already left me dissapointed.
Additionally, consider how Cruz and Rubio pretended to have some meaningful difference in their stance on the gang of eight immigration reform bill. There was no real substantive debate about immigration in general - the focus was on drawing a contrast for voters.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11977750 and marked it off-topic.
The status quo is a failure, and continued denial will only lead us down an ever-darker road. We need a new way.
It certainly won't be overnight, but the sooner they start, the sooner we can start fixing things.
There were people who voted for Mayor Khan because he was muslim. So everyone who voted for Sadiq supports ISIS.
There were people who voted for President Obama because he is black. So everyone who voted for Obama is a racist.
There are people who openly state that they will vote for Hillary because she is a woman. So everyone who votes for (dry heave) Hillary is a sexist.
That is your reasoning.
I bet Hitler liked spaghetti, too...
A little less "I call BS" and a little more Principle of Charity, please, if you want to keep commenting here. http://philosophy.lander.edu/oriental/charity.html
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11977900 and marked it off-topic.
Take some of its smaller members with a similar GDP per capita (entries 37-42 of [1]), and compare their agreement with the statement (OUR COUNTRY) could better face the future outside the EU according to Special Eurobarometer 415 from 2014 [2][3]:
The Eurobarometer poll had the UK at 47% agree / 41% disagree, so one could have predicted a result of 53% in favour of leaving the EU, which is not far off and likely influenced by common anti-EU rhetoric among British media and politicians.[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...
[2] http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_415_en.p...
[3] http://i.imgur.com/2kNwdtf.png
For me the two most confidence-destroying events of the past two decades were Iraq and the 2008 financial bailouts/crisis (and the housing bubble that caused it and is still delivering pain). Both of these occurred under the Bush Jr. administration or very shortly after it. For years I've seen Bush Jr. as the worst president of the past 100 years -- far worse than Nixon and Johnson -- and now I'm seeing quite a bit of real world confirmation of this.
On the other hand I'm not a huge Obama fan either. He ran as a "change" candidate, but seems to have more or less stayed the course. That's been disastrous.
Charles Murray (The Bell Curve) has spoken about this a similar manner.
Here is an interesting article from The Guardian about Trump that is consistent with the OP article:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/donald...
Vote leave have been explicit in about being globalist.
I highly suspect a similar style of propaganda going on with the brexit, up to and including voting fraud. I think the electronic voting systems are highly likely to be manipulable.