Tony Blair is correct.
But democratic government doesn’t on its own mean effective government.
Well, yes and don’t we know it. As a system it is better than the others of offer – or, perhaps, less worse. It is not of itself a golden bullet. Ultimately, it can lead to a tyranny of the majority – or, as has happened with our own, a tyranny of the largest minority. Hardly a ringing endorsement. Democracy should be the means by which we achieve and maintain liberty. Unfortunately, supposedly democratic governments use their mandate to crack down on liberty in the name of security. Ben Franklin would be spinning in his grave.
Then we get this…
We are in a long haul transition in the Middle East. It is difficult, time-consuming and expensive. We feel it should be someone else’s job to help sort it out. But it is our job.
No! It is not our job. Did Iraq teach you nothing? The turmoil in the Middle East is for them to sort out, not us. We must stay well out of it and stop bloody well meddling. But we won’t because every prime minister that walks through the doors of number 10 thinks that they can solve all of the world’s problems. They can’t and they won’t and most of those problems are none of their damned business.
This struggle matters to us. The good news is that there are millions of modern and open-minded people out there. They need to know we are on their side, their allies, prepared to pay the price to be there with them.
I’m so pleased that fucking politicians have decided on our behalf that it is our struggle and that we are prepared to pay the (very high) price of their meddling.
Representative democracy, by itself, does nothing necessarily to guarantee liberty. What’s really important is a constitution which guarantees substantive freedoms for the individual citizen, combined with some easily accessible mechanism by which citizens can protect those freedoms should those elected decide to meddle with them.
The Swiss seem to have got it right. Any change to the constitution must go to a binding referendum of the citizenry before it can pass, and *any* law can be subject to the same process if, within 100 days of being passed, a citizen can gather 50,000 signatures in support of reviewing it. Citizens can also propose their own amendments to the constitution by a similar process.
Short of a coup d’etat, their system seems pretty bulletproof. Of course, it doesn’t leave professional politicians much wiggle room, which might be why it’s never caught on elsewhere.
~R~
Yes, I like the Swiss system. we’ll never get anything like that here, our politicians have too much to lose.
Absolutely spot on! However, our politicos’ rampant-but-totally-unjustified egotistical hubris would never even consider that the electorate have the capability and/or capacity to decide anything for themselves.
Mind you, a five minute conversation with the average voter might make you think that maybe they have a point…
Although that IS the result of 60-odd years of “benevolent bread & circuses” from parties of all political hues…
What a surprise. Blair issuing weasel words of apologia for a military coup that overthrew a democratically elected government.
I would strongly suggest a read of the latest piece on one of my favourite blogs, entitled A Bad Dream? which examines the authoritarian seeming one-party state we are headed into & possibly why …..
In the meantime, war criminal & lying catholic bastard Blair can fuck right off ….
Nice article. It expands on the truism “No matter who you vote for, the government always gets in.
Yes, I agree. It is a perfect illustration of why democracy is a flawed concept.