"Percentage points"

[kevinlms]

1 hour ago, Reorte said:

 

I agree that it'll be impossible to prove it, but I think it would be possible to get some idea, although making a dispassionate assessment would be very hard. It might be possible to get some idea of the degree of genuine political engagement and knowledge among the population, the amount of meaningful choice at elections, and some assessment of the behaviour of MPs.

 

Hope this isn't getting too political for RMWeb, I'm hoping to keep this clear of any specifics about any particular parties or MPs etc.

You can't 'force' people to take an active interest. In fact doing so raises a whole different argument - like who determines who has the knowledge or even sufficient IQ to be qualify for the right to vote?

 

Fact is those actually vote, tend to balance out, the extremes.

[Reorte]

2 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

You can't 'force' people to take an active interest. In fact doing so raises a whole different argument - like who determines who has the knowledge or even sufficient IQ to be qualify for the right to vote?

 

Fact is those actually vote, tend to balance out, the extremes.

Not sure what you're getting at there. I never mentioned or even hinted that there should be some sort of test to determine who could vote. What I was doing is pointing out that it might be possible to do some studies and comparisons to see whether or not compulsory voting was beneficial, and that measures of things like knowledge of and engagement with the system would be the type of criteria I'd use to determine whether or not it was a successful idea (just thinking off the top of my head anyway).

 

If, in a compulsory voting system, a greater proportion of the voting population have a good grasp of politics, the issues and the people, then I think it would be reasonable to conclude that more of them will be making a properly informed decision when they vote, and hence it's a success and produces a better democracy (although I'd still be against compulsion on principal). On the other hand if about the same number take an interest without it then all you've done is throw in a lot of essentially meaningless votes, even if they do balance out, with the added downside of having compulsion, and thus it would be a bad idea.

[Michael Hodgson]

4 hours ago, Reorte said:

 

 Increased turnout isn't a measure of working well when it's compulsory anyway.

It works so well that the incumbent wins 120% of the votes in some People's Demoratic Republics.

[Michael Hodgson]

2 hours ago, kevinlms said:

You can't 'force' people to take an active interest. In fact doing so raises a whole different argument - like who determines who has the knowledge or even sufficient IQ to be qualify for the right to vote?

 

IQ doesn't come into it. 

In the good old days when we had a simple choice between Whigs and Tories, you had to be a householder to get the vote.

 

I mean to say, one can't expect the servants to understand how to run the empire.  If we let the Lower Orders have their way, they will lose proper respect for their elders and betters.  Next thing you know, they'll be letting foreigners into the country. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Michael Hodgson said:

In the good old days when we had a simple choice between Whigs and Tories, you had to be a householder to get the vote.

 

And be a man.

[kevinlms]

12 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

IQ doesn't come into it. 

In the good old days when we had a simple choice between Whigs and Tories, you had to be a householder to get the vote.

 

I mean to say, one can't expect the servants to understand how to run the empire.  If we let the Lower Orders have their way, they will lose proper respect for their elders and betters.  Next thing you know, they'll be letting foreigners into the country. 

People (not saying anyone here has said so) have suggested that some people are too stupid to vote. If you decide that to be true, then a test has to be devised to select those who do/don't meet the criteria. Often that is where IQ tests come in and that is a rubbish state of affairs.

 

Isaac Asimov wrote an interesting short story on the business of voting.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franchise_(short_story)

[kevinlms]

17 hours ago, Reorte said:

 

By looking at other places.

 

How do you know it works well though? Increased turnout isn't a measure of working well when it's compulsory anyway.

I'm talking about Australia that has a Westminster type parliament and voting system (all be it compulsory), which is not to be confused with other places that have 100% turnout (or more!). These tend to be communist type countries or some sort of gerrymander.

It is grossly unfair to compare Australia with those.

[Reorte]

4 hours ago, kevinlms said:

I'm talking about Australia that has a Westminster type parliament and voting system (all be it compulsory), which is not to be confused with other places that have 100% turnout (or more!). These tend to be communist type countries or some sort of gerrymander.

It is grossly unfair to compare Australia with those.

Huh? Where did I even begin to suggest comparing with those places? I'm really struggling to figure out how on earth you're reading some of the things in to my posts that you appear to be reading. Firstly when I suggest you could use levels of interest as a gauge that appeared to get interpreted as arguing for people needing to be qualified to vote, and then the idea of a comparison is interpreted as trying to compare Australia with banana republics?!

 

As you mention in your very post Australia has a Westminster type parliament and voting system, the main difference being it's compulsory. There's one comparison for starters.

Edited January 13, 2023 by Reorte

[62613]

16 hours ago, 30801 said:

 

And be a man.

There were still men who were unable to vote in 1918, when the franchise was extended in the act of that year. Besides Lunatics, felons and peers, the excluded groups were policemen, manservants and one other. My understanding is that there was still a property qualification as late as the early 1970s in Northern Ireland. It was part of what the civil rights movement there was all about.

[jjb1970]

The issue of democracy and whether or not voters understand what they're voting for often comes up. I think it's a complex argument that defies a simple answer. 

 

At the most fundamental level, people have a right to vote, that right is not contingent on how intelligent or otherwise they might be. Therefore it's a non-argument in some ways, and one of the positives I see of voting is it is one of the few experiences in life which is genuinely egalitarian, one person - one vote.

 

The case that people should have some understanding of what they're voting for stems from the consequences of election outcomes and the fact that making an informed decision does require a certain understanding of the choices on offer, state of the country, sensitivity to external influences (no country is a political island etc) and perhaps most pertinently in many election cycles an understanding of numbers.

 

I have some sympathy for those concerns, but usually they are only aired by people not happy with the outcome of an election. There is an increasing tendency to dismiss those holding other views as stupid, spreading misinformation, dangerous, threats to democracy etc. In some cases that is probably true, in other cases people hold differing opinions and have a right to express those opinions. If it's about stopping stupid people voting why is it only ever people who made the 'wrong' choice who are too stupid to vote?

 

What really annoys me is the habit of telling other people what they think, what they want and why they voted the way they did. I suspect most of us have done it so I don't want to be too hypocritical, but how do pundits, politicians, journalists etc know what anybody else thinks and why they voted the way they did? To try and establish that needs a detailed exchange with an individual and even then would depend on the honesty of the answers provided. I tend to just make non-committal answers and go with the flow if politics comes up in the office, with friends etc as I can't be bothered getting into arguments unless it is with people I know well enough to have a robust argument with.

[kevinlms]

19 hours ago, Reorte said:

Huh? Where did I even begin to suggest comparing with those places? I'm really struggling to figure out how on earth you're reading some of the things in to my posts that you appear to be reading. Firstly when I suggest you could use levels of interest as a gauge that appeared to get interpreted as arguing for people needing to be qualified to vote, and then the idea of a comparison is interpreted as trying to compare Australia with banana republics?!

 

As you mention in your very post Australia has a Westminster type parliament and voting system, the main difference being it's compulsory. There's one comparison for starters.

You mentioned 'By looking at other places' on the previous page.

 

I was responding to that comment by mentioning Australia and a Westminster system. Perhaps you could explain why you mentioned 'looking at other places'?

[Michael Hodgson]

22 hours ago, 62613 said:

Besides Lunatics, felons and peers,

 

Is there a difference ?

[Reorte]

On 14/01/2023 at 06:13, kevinlms said:

You mentioned 'By looking at other places' on the previous page.

 

I was responding to that comment by mentioning Australia and a Westminster system. Perhaps you could explain why you mentioned 'looking at other places'?

Because all I was suggesting is that a possible way of assessing whether or not the system produces a better result is to study places with different systems, nothing more. And indeed Australia and the UK would indeed provide a good example of different places, but it would also be useful to find more than one relevant example of each (since there are doubtless countless other factors which could also explain any differences).

 

I'd have thought this was all pretty obvious, but you seem to be putting quite a lot of effort in to drawing bizarre conclusions about what I'm saying.

[woodenhead]

On 08/01/2023 at 17:39, spikey said:

I've just been on the BBC News website for my daily dose of lamentable English, and it's reminded me that I've been meaning to ask for ages - when did it stop being (for example) a rise of three percent and become instead a rise of three "percentage points".  What's nowadays wrong with plain old percent?

How did we get from this to discussions on democracy? lol

[Reorte]

On 14/01/2023 at 05:01, jjb1970 said:

The issue of democracy and whether or not voters understand what they're voting for often comes up. I think it's a complex argument that defies a simple answer. 

 

At the most fundamental level, people have a right to vote, that right is not contingent on how intelligent or otherwise they might be. Therefore it's a non-argument in some ways, and one of the positives I see of voting is it is one of the few experiences in life which is genuinely egalitarian, one person - one vote.

Personally speaking I don't find it a non-argument, because for a good, meaningful outcome people voting need to know what they're voting for, but it's vastly outweighed by all the arguments for dismissing the notion of any restrictions. I completely agree that there should be no such restrictions, mostly from basic egalitarian decency, but also because any attempt at restrictions will inevitably be politically biased. In short, there are arguments for them, but none I find at all persuasive.

 

Please note that I only raised the level of understanding of political issues as a measure of how successful political engagement, and hence the health of the system, nothing more.

 

Quote

I have some sympathy for those concerns, but usually they are only aired by people not happy with the outcome of an election. There is an increasing tendency to dismiss those holding other views as stupid, spreading misinformation, dangerous, threats to democracy etc. In some cases that is probably true, in other cases people hold differing opinions and have a right to express those opinions. If it's about stopping stupid people voting why is it only ever people who made the 'wrong' choice who are too stupid to vote?

 

Definitely, and that's on the increase and is getting very concerning. I can be as opinionated as they come - or so I thought, but I've thought this even about people who nominally agree with me at times.

 

Quote

What really annoys me is the habit of telling other people what they think, what they want and why they voted the way they did. I suspect most of us have done it so I don't want to be too hypocritical, but how do pundits, politicians, journalists etc know what anybody else thinks and why they voted the way they did? To try and establish that needs a detailed exchange with an individual and even then would depend on the honesty of the answers provided. I tend to just make non-committal answers and go with the flow if politics comes up in the office, with friends etc as I can't be bothered getting into arguments unless it is with people I know well enough to have a robust argument with.

 

This can get tricky. I get very fed up of people telling me what I really think, as if I don't know myself, but then I also think that I put rather more thought in to this than most do (which admittedly sounds pretty darned arrogant, probably because it is).  It's pretty obvious that I have a dim opinion of a lot of the modern world, and I'm sick to the point of having a great deal of contempt for people who keep insisting that it's objectively best in every way and therefore I'm mistaken in what I really prefer.

[Michael Hodgson]

On 16/01/2023 at 10:51, Reorte said:

Personally speaking I don't find it a non-argument, because for a good, meaningful outcome people voting need to know what they're voting for, 

Not necessarily.  Sometimes it may be enough to know who you're voting against.

 

There are some who say it wasn't Biden's great oratorical skills or the merits of the Democrat manifesto that got him the Presidency, but because a lot of Americans voted for "Anybody but Trump".

[kevinlms]

30 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Not necessarily.  Sometimes it may be enough to know who you're voting against.

 

There are some who say it wasn't Biden's great oratorical skills or the merits of the Democrat manifesto that got him the Presidency, but because a lot of Americans voted for "Anybody but Trump".

Governments often fail because the voters get tired of mistakes and not listening, rather than the merits of what was the then oppositions policies.

[jjb1970]

3 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Not necessarily.  Sometimes it may be enough to know who you're voting against.

 

There are some who say it wasn't Biden's great oratorical skills or the merits of the Democrat manifesto that got him the Presidency, but because a lot of Americans voted for "Anybody but Trump".

 

Oddly, I think that's also a significant part of why Trump was elected in the first place as I suspect if almost anyone other than Hillary Clinton had stood against him in 2016 he'd never have won. I know a lot of American's, and they're not ignorant or dumb or especially conservative, who voted Trump in that election because whatever they thought about Trump (most seemed to view him as a clown with a big mouth) they really, really hated Hillary Clinton.

[kevinlms]

3 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

 

) they really, really hated Hillary Clinton.

That's true, but how much of it was due to Trump's campaign? The home based server, was certainly not a great choice.

 

Both sides appear to be very poor at selecting candidates. Biden was very much something that Trump was against - a career politician!

[jjb1970]

I think Trump tapped into a deep vein of disillusionment with politics and politicians. And although I don't like Trump I have a lot of sympathy with why people turned against the political establishment. In some ways we saw a similar dynamic in the Brexit referendum (though I'd be cautious about taking the comparison too far). 

[woodenhead]

6 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

 

Oddly, I think that's also a significant part of why Trump was elected in the first place as I suspect if almost anyone other than Hillary Clinton had stood against him in 2016 he'd never have won. I know a lot of American's, and they're not ignorant or dumb or especially conservative, who voted Trump in that election because whatever they thought about Trump (most seemed to view him as a clown with a big mouth) they really, really hated Hillary Clinton.

 

3 hours ago, kevinlms said:

That's true, but how much of it was due to Trump's campaign? The home based server, was certainly not a great choice.

 

Both sides appear to be very poor at selecting candidates. Biden was very much something that Trump was against - a career politician!

 

3 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

I think Trump tapped into a deep vein of disillusionment with politics and politicians. And although I don't like Trump I have a lot of sympathy with why people turned against the political establishment. In some ways we saw a similar dynamic in the Brexit referendum (though I'd be cautious about taking the comparison too far). 

 

The Clintons have been tainted since Bill was Governor of Arkansas, whilst I don't think they were angels, not many politicians are, they were not what people were claiming on the nascent internet forums that later became 4Chan.  To me the disillusion with politics has come out of these forums where fiction quicly becomes a truth simply because enough people believe it and it snowballed.  It didn't help that these sort of rumours help the opposition, so rather than do anything about stamping it out it was allowed to grow and we now exist in a world where truth is a matter of opinion not fact.  You now have politicians spouting these same stories at rallies, everyone there believes them to be true and no-one listens to the people who try to raise an objection.  Now you can say what you like and if your 'people' like it, they lap it up and believe it.  Pizzagate in 2016 is an example of such stories becoming the truth for certain people and led to an individual walking into a pizza parlour with a gun which he shot several times to free children he believed were locked in a storeroom.   The belief that the 2020 election was stolen leading to people storming Congress.

 

Did the Republicans pick Trump, or did they really not have a choice once he aligned himself, I seem to recall he was once appeared to have Democrat leanings.

 

Soundbites can also he harnessed much quicker on the internet to discredit or elevate someone, who can forget the short clip of a prospective prime minister quoting taking funds from poorer areas to increase funds on the south coast.  You have to wonder, did that come from within the parties own ranks, perhaps from a colleague of another prospective prime minister??  Equally a sound bite can be used to make someone sound very intelligent and well meaning and show it enough around social media and people believe it.

 

Not only do we have professional politicians groomed from university into party political animals but the marketing, PR and spin has been taken to such a level that it is becoming more and more difficult for us the commoner to see what is really going on.  I can think of an event in 2016 that even those who were pro before the vote now recognise that actually what we've ended up with is not what was promised and perhaps the grass wasn't so green after all.

[62613]

13 hours ago, kevinlms said:

Governments often fail because the voters get tired of mistakes and not listening, rather than the merits of what was the then oppositions policies.

Is the correct answer. At least, since end of WW2 in the UK, I can't honestly think of an opposition that has "Won" an election, rather than a government which has "lost"

[jjb1970]

I think it is too easy to blame internet dark web type conspiracy kooks and a fringe of nut jobs. Such people exist but the disillusionment with political process is much wider than that. I know lot's of people who are deeply cynical about politics across all parties, most of whom are intelligent, articulate and well informed individuals. The thing I worry about is I see little chance of turning things around and restoring faith in political processes. 

[Kickstart]

20 hours ago, 62613 said:

Is the correct answer. At least, since end of WW2 in the UK, I can't honestly think of an opposition that has "Won" an election, rather than a government which has "lost"

 

Sometimes the idea that "politicians are like nappies, and should be changed often for the same reason" has a lot of merit.

 

All the best

 

Katy

[woodenhead]

59 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

I think it is too easy to blame internet dark web type conspiracy kooks and a fringe of nut jobs. Such people exist but the disillusionment with political process is much wider than that. I know lot's of people who are deeply cynical about politics across all parties, most of whom are intelligent, articulate and well informed individuals. The thing I worry about is I see little chance of turning things around and restoring faith in political processes. 

Nutjobs have always existed I agree, but the internet allowed them to reach massive audiences who listen to their lies and conspiracies without questioning them.  Some elements of political parties weaponise this sort of information to damage the opposition or distract people from the stuff they need to be talking about.  Misinformation is the playbook that politicians now use to get things through, and they use social media to spread it fast.  I also think most people believe and agree that politicians are now funded by vested interests and that means in reality they are not now working for us, but their vested interests and that is the source of a lot of the disillusion as well.