Free Allegiance Forums

Sharpfish, please please please go out and try and convince people to vote no for AV. And don't forget to be your verbose self.

SharpFish wrote:QUOTE (SharpFish @ Apr 9 2011, 09:11 PM) Well then why bother with individual representatives at all? Lets just give parties a block vote and trust them to act in the best national interest, yes?

No, that doesn't follow at all.

Adept wrote:QUOTE (Adept @ Apr 9 2011, 02:55 AM) This weirds me out btw.

The MPs job is to do what is best for the whole nation. It's a pretty miserable parliament if everybody is trying to fight for the local advantage of their homies, rather than looking out for the nation as a whole.

A nation of people who only care about their own interests (and reps who only care about local interests) should sufficiently bog down government to the point where it doesn't do anything, preventing greater abuses.

Because when they look out for the "nation as a whole" you get unsustainability of stupid programs.

SharpFish wrote:QUOTE (SharpFish @ Apr 8 2011, 02:04 PM) I'm suggesting that there is a fundamental tension between capital and labour, and that this fact is what causes the two part systemn to occur so widely. An attempt to make it go away by by artififical means will not alter this underlying tension, it will simply obscure it, and deny people the ability to act on it.

So yes, I AM saying it's better for democracy. Becuase otherwise you get a false consensus that refuses to look reality in the eye.

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles". Although I'd argue that it has nothing to do with the two-party system; the only effect that capital has on elections is the slow corruption of every political party involved. As such, an ideal political system means low entry barriers for new parties, allowing a new populist pro-labor underdog party to rise up every time the old one is co-opted. Otherwise you end up with something like the US, where both parties ultimately support capital and populist movements are simply absorbed into those rich political behemoths and successfully marginalized.

Camaro wrote:QUOTE (Camaro @ Apr 9 2011, 11:17 PM) A nation of people who only care about their own interests (and reps who only care about local interests) should sufficiently bog down government to the point where it doesn't do anything, preventing greater abuses.

Because when they look out for the "nation as a whole" you get unsustainability of stupid programs.

Camaro is such a hater.

Adept wrote:QUOTE (Adept @ Apr 14 2011, 09:18 AM) Camaro is such a hater.

Its true, I hate history and would like to make the future different.

Jimen wrote:QUOTE (Jimen @ Apr 13 2011, 12:40 AM) "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles". Although I'd argue that it has nothing to do with the two-party system; the only effect that capital has on elections is the slow corruption of every political party involved. As such, an ideal political system means low entry barriers for new parties, allowing a new populist pro-labor underdog party to rise up every time the old one is co-opted. Otherwise you end up with something like the US, where both parties ultimately support capital and populist movements are simply absorbed into those rich political behemoths and successfully marginalized.

If it's a fight they want...
If it's a fight they want...
They came to the right place, raised up in the rat race
Rats have grown real fat now, got our eye on the cat's place
Know the gaps, sniff the traps, who's been up there in master's lap
Licking cream off his face

Ratty's eyes are ratty slits
As he sharpens up his razor teeth to match his razor wits
Allready honed bone-crunching as he sees how it all fits
The @#(!, the scum, the still-to-come
And therefore where he sits
In this...

- AOS3

From our prime minister
QUOTE Too often debates about AV are less like political arguments, and more like scientific discussions, where people get lost in a language of proportionality and preferences, probabilities and possibilities.

“Of course, some of these things are important. But for me, politics shouldn't be some mind-bending exercise," he added. "It's about how you feel in your gut, about the values you hold dear and the beliefs that you instinctively have.

"And I feel in my gut that AV is wrong."[/quote]
OMG the condescension in the above quote is staggering.

Is he seriously saying we shouldn't approach things rationally and give it some thought?

* notjarvis softly weeps for the state of British politics.

Edit
http://atomicspin.wordpress.com/2011/04/18...-need-evidence/

A lot of the no campaign seems to be predicated on the idea that the British electorate are too dumb to be able to count and are only barely capable of scrawling an X in a box. I find that a little patronizing to say the least.

It may be true though.