Thanks to everybody who took part in last week's Fun Online Poll, excellent turnout of 169 in only four days. I deliberately didn't have a 'none of the above' option because I was depressed enough. Results as follows:
Which of the following "lost causes" do you support?
Above the line (more than 85 votes):
Allow smoking in pubs and cafes 122 votes
Leave the EU, the UN etc. 121 votes
Legalise cannabis 111 votes
Legalise brothels 108 votes
Allow fox hunting 105
Replace entire welfare system with a Citizen's Income 93 votes
Below the line (fewer than 85 votes):
Replace old age pensions with a Citizen's Pension 78 votes
Replace as many taxes as possible with Land Value Tax 75 votes
Use Proportional Representation 69 votes
Turn off the traffic lights 59 votes
The Citizen's Pension was the joker in the pack as Iain Duncan Smith is going to do it anyway; I'm obviously disappointed about lack of support for LVT; proportional representation is a secondary issue; and I'm particularly surprised about the lack of enthusiasm for turning off traffic lights.
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And lo, to this week's Fun Online Poll.
We've established on several occasions that the readers of this 'blog would vote to leave the EU in an In-Out referendum, and it's just about conceivable that if there were a snap In-Out referendum next week that a slim majority would vote for "Out" but that's not really the issue.
As we have learned from the No2AV campaign, you can get any result you want if you pump out enough propaganda; and I imagine that if They announced that there'd be In-Out Referendum in six months' time, then we would be subjected to a 24/7 barrage of a few simple - but somehow plausible - lies for those six months and the result would be "Stay in".
So this week's Fun Online Poll is whether you think that They would be able to pump out enough propaganda to swing the vote their way.
Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.
Monday 9 May 2011
Fun Online Polls: Lost Causes and EU propaganda
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16 comments:
Ahem - "persuade", Mark.
JH, oops.
I am rather undecided on the issue as it goes, despite being a UKIP voter and all that. My model of what is happening is different to the model of most people, you see.
In general, my guess is that withdrawal now would be bad for British citizens and good for the rest of the EU's citizens. As an extreme case, withdrawal of the Anglosphere countries from the international bodies (EU, UN) would be the best deal for the rest of the world, as it would effectively lock Brits, Americans, etc in with our own madness. This is because we are the wellspring of Progressivism, the most dangerous current authoritarian philosophy.
Locking the British in with our own masters would be hell for us; at least for anyone with a hint of individualism in their soul. If you take social tyrannies from your last poll, such as drugs laws, or laws against brothels/prostitution, they are the creation of Anglosphere puritans and basically spread via internationalist institutions. The world's leading nation for leftist theory, both in terms of social and economic matters, is the USA. Britain is the main henchman. "Political Correctness", radical feminism, Greenism; smoking bans, temperance, the paedo-panic; all these are our babies, not foreign invasions.
So, at a global level, the best thing would be to lock our insane ghastly miserablist nations behind a firewall. But it would be even worse for us than now, locked in with the Puritans and no restraint from European countries which are in many respects more liberal.
Still, until a cure is found, sometimes quarantine is the only option.
Might be wise to nuke Sweden as well, come to think of it.
Ironic captcha phrase for this posting:
"purriti"
IB, your first comment makes sense to me, but what have you got against Sweden? Haven't e.g. the Aussies now surpassed them in the bansturbation stakes?
Well, the Swedes have got it pretty bad too, particularly the feminism.
IB, nothing wrong with feminism, same applies to Aus. Let's be objective here, e.g. do a list as to who is less bad:
Lower alcohol taxes - Aus.
Vouchers for education - Sweden.
Legalised brothels - Aus.
Tougher immigration laws - Aus.
Smoking insanity - possibly Sweden is not quite as bad, I dunno.
Legalised cannabis - equally bad.
Speed limit on motorways - slightly higher in Sweden.
etc. etc.
Sorry Mark, I think there's everything wrong with feminism. Equality? Great. Feminism? Very bad.
BTW legalised brothels on the AUS model are very bad too, since they create a licensing system that allows the mutaween to go around gleefully raiding premises willy-nilly to catch people breaking the new law of "having sex without a licence".
That's one thing people often overlook. Proggies and socdems of a more liberal (and thus increasingly rare) character say things like "legalise it and license it". Whenever you licence something, you create a new type of criminal- she or he who does whatever without a license. Further, it allows the State to strangle the "legal" thing by refusing to award licenses.
I read that prosecutions of brothels actually rose after "legalisation" as the paucity of awarded licenses/unwillingness to register as a whore with the State drove many into a new "unlicensed market".
Worth remembering that cannabis prohibition was originally a licensing scheme. The US fedgov required that cannabis traders must get a license, then just refused to hand any licenses out.
Sorry, off topic I know. My apologies.
IanB, yes, licensing is an either-way offence, it can be a step towards less bad or a step towards worse.
As to your general theme, I never said that the EU was all bad, it's just that the bad seems to outweigh the good. Which is not to say that the Anglospheric way of going things is better than what individual European countries do, it's just bad in a different way. You object to Puritanism (which you decry as Socialism) and I object to Home-Owner-Ism (which I decry as Blue Socialism - in economic terms it's quite similar to proper full on Socialism).
"As we have learned from the No2AV campaign, you can get any result you want if you pump out enough propaganda..."
I didn't learn that from the No2AV campaign. I speak as someone in favour of electoral reform, but in my area both sides "pumped" one poorly argued leaflet through the door; TV/blogs/print media seemed to me to offer both sides of the argument, albeit often incoherently and unconvincingly. But the Yes campaign had the case to make, and failed to do so.
The best thing about this referendum was that we had a referendum. I wouldn't advocate their use for every political hot topic, but I'd love to see one on membership of the EU, and another on Trident.
TQO, how would you vote on Trident, out of interest?
Snap answer right now: against. But if we had a referendum I would consider it carefully and listen to both sides of the debate.
It's only anecdotal, but the feeling I got from the people I spoke to about the AV referendum was that those who were intending to vote were taking the choice seriously. I suspect that referenda on the most important questions the country faces would bring about some measure of re-engagement with politics, over and above tribal party affiliation. That would be healthy, to my mind.
TQO, like in Switzerland!
On Trident, I would vote against, full stop, but if people voted to keep it then I wouldn't be too upset. I can't rule out that there will be some marginal situation at some stage in the future where the benefit of having the credible threat of using it is worth the enormous cost.
"I'm obviously disappointed about lack of support for LVT"
Despite all your killer arguments too! I presume it is because people don't understand or can't be bothered to read...yet one simple comment of yours in the post re nimby's explains it more than any other: "Add to that the Homey tax system, whereby jobs are taxed and houses are subsidised…”
Wonderfully clear :-)
Ian B: OK then, how many of these panics can be stopped? UKIP's representatives themselves aren't immune from them, you know.
SO, it might be clear to thee and me, but the Homeys then say "I pay Council Tax to cover the cost of local services, and I pay far too much income tax on my wages. Do you want to tax my house as well?"
Explaining that Council Tax is a red herring and we'd tax his house instead of his wages is far too complicated for them.
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