The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #165570   Message #3994276
Posted By: DMcG
28-May-19 - 02:46 AM
Thread Name: BS: Brexit #3: A futile gesture?
Subject: RE: BS: Brexit #3: A futile gesture?
In so far as Farage has another policy, it seems to be 'direct democracy', which is providing a mechanism to enable the general population to instruct the government what to do. It is really easy to present this as if it were a good idea, but it is incredibly dangerous. Democracy needs more than the ability to reflect the views of the populus - it needs then to be informed and to take account of the trade-offs. And it needs time to reflect to ensure all the trade offs have been properly considered. Lynch mobs were/are direct democracy. The attacks on the Jews in the Nazi era were direct democracy. Getting NICE to approve a cancer drug for treatment that costs £200,000 a course while not taking into account that is now twenty hip replacements per time that cannot now be afforded is an example of direct democracy.

But even worse than that: direct democracy is extremely vulnerable to advertising campaigns and social media manipulation: the cancer treatment example is an example of that in action - such a campaign is almost always behind the change of decision by NICE. And that means direct democracy is in many cases indirect dictatorship. The person who funds and runs the campaigns gets to pick the topics and with enough pressure often the result.