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by Nasrudith 2487 days ago
That reminds me of one thing I noticed about nations and needing a "designated driver". Occasionally one prosperous democratic nation does something which the rest of the world can tell would be a terrible idea, warn them as such and get ignored because so many feel so strongly about. Predictably disaster strikes. The int

It makes me wonder if some sort of international veto arrangement might be a good idea - unfortunately it seems that even if they did so they would be unlikely to listen "because this time is different".
2 comments
dariusj18 2487 days ago
The problem is sometimes someone has to choose the least bad option. Sometimes there aren't any solutions that more than half a constituency are happy with, but not choosing is an even worse option. You can see this happening right now with Brexit IMO.
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davvolun 2487 days ago
> Sometimes there aren't any solutions that more than half a constituency are happy with

Which is part of the reason why most democracies in history are representative democracies; they represent the interests of their constituents, not their constituents personal choices.

A representative should properly make the decision that, in their view, presents the best possible result for their constituency, not "what their constituents would choose if they were elected."

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dariusj18 2486 days ago
That doesn't change the issue that sometimes there are no "good" options to choose from. It takes a rare politician to doom their career by choosing something unpopular.
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davvolun 2479 days ago
"More than half the population is happy with" is not the same as "good."

I fully believe in (representative) democracy, and with an extremely complicated issue like Brexit it needs dedicated politicians researching the issue and, ultimately, selling a solution to the public. I'm not deeply in tune with the parties in the U.K., but my general feeling has been that Labour has no fucking clue what to do, so all of the U.K. is just jumping into a yawning bottomless pit for no good reason.

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frankbreetz 2487 days ago
I like this idea, it seems difficult to implement, my first thought is to have the UN involved in some way, maybe if 75% of countries have the power to veto something. UN has always had a problem with enforcement, especially with G-7 type countries. It would be hard to see UN voting down Brexit and the USA and allies enforcing this somehow. We would have to generate higher respect for the UN and the world seems to be going down a different path right now.
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