Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Quote of the Day

Have just been browsing through this Labour Home post about how the people of Machester voted against a congestion charge by margin of 79% against and 21% in favour. There is a rather brilliant quote in the comments by the user "swatantra" which deserves to be reproduced in full.
Well turkeys don't usually vote for Xmas. Its like asking someone would they mind paying more taxes. The question should never have been put to a referendum. The Council should just have gone ahead and done it. Same with Regional Government. Some questions should never go to the electorate to decide, because they will not make an informed judgment, but vote on prejudices.
Might just as well have post "stupid bloody proles, don't they know what is good for them?". It would have been quicker.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Shades of Dick Tuck. "The people have spoken - the bastards!"

Anonymous said...

They spoke last time 63% voted against Labour but the "The real bastards won"

Fenman

Anonymous said...

A graduate of the EU school of democracy no doubt.

JMB said...

I can remember many years (when the various extreme left wing groups had a lot of influence in Labour) someone from the Labour party was interviewed on the Today programme and said something about it being wrong that people who took no active part in politics should have the same voting power as the activists like herself who did all the hard work.

Lola said...

Or, it would be quicker to suspend democracy.......oh sorry, I was forgetting...........

Unknown said...

Or the council can do what they've done in Edinburgh in response to their NO vote to congestion charging. Just put up all the parking charges and take away all the free parking. That's what you get for not giving the right answer when we asked you to.

Just like they're doing in Ireland....keep on voting until we get what we want and you obviously don't know what's good for you because you didn't understand the question in the first place.

It ain't just Ireland where the sun don't shine!!!

Hacked Off said...

This wanker also infests the Grauniad. He's as thick as a short plank and completely "tribal" socialist.

Anonymous said...

Worth noting that there was an almost identical post on Platform10 the other day - and not in the comments section.

Anonymous said...

There are plenty of issues which would not be popular with voters (and therefore would be voted down at a referendum). Just because individual voters are against them, doesn't mean that they are wrong.

Referenda are a method of handing back responsibility for running Government to the people. Frankly, in most cases the majority of people are poorly informed and rationally self-interested, and therefore not well placed to make decisions on individual Government issues.

If the Council believed it was a good idea, and had evidence to suggest so, they should have implemented it. Holding a referendum on contentious topics such as this is political cowardice.

Ben Gray said...

It's their job to challenge the prejudices; if they can't be arsed to do that, they don't deserve to win. His is the argument of a lazy git.

If people aren't making informed judgements, it's the government's own stupid fault for failing to inform the electorate.

In a democracy, if you can't make your case, you lose. But it's better than the alternative.

cartermagna said...

Having looked a bit further down the comments this Swatantra character has posted again:
"Looks like the Irish are being given a second chance to redeem themselves and clear the egg off their faces. This time they might come in with the correct solution. "

I want to meet this person in the pub. A real pub where smoking, swearing and pint drinking still go on because the police and the council are too scared to go in there. *sigh*

Anonymous said...

Frankie said...
"in most cases the majority of people are poorly informed and rationally self-interested"

No doubt you are about to post the official statistics to support your argument. Perhaps you are as ill-informed as those you whinge about.

Being 'rationally self-interested' sounds pretty damned good to me.