Great Britain...a crumbling democracy

Originally posted by jaden101
i cant help the structure of the UK electoral system...i've explained it as simply as possible...if people cant understand it in simple form doesn't that tell you something about the system

You cannot help the system, but you CAN help the godawful way you were trying to explain it. Even your presentation was appalling- an endless barrage of short sentences separated by blank lines; exceptionally unappealing to read or even just to glance at. As I say, you must learn to present better if you want to put a point across. bardock's comment I find surprising, but of no consequence. It doesn't change the fact that you laid it out appallingly and explained it just as badly. The fact remains that almost no-one reading your first post really understands what you are saying unless they already knew the issues.

As to your question if the number of seats won was democratic- answer is yes, it is. That's local representation for you. Proportional representation is a joke.

How is proportional representation a joke?

Originally posted by jaden101
they beat the next party by 600,000...not including all the votes that went to other parties...in total they got 36% of the vote...which was slightly over 9,000,000...the next party got 8,500,000 ish...the other parties got the rest shared amongst them...thus the other seats shared among them...reducing the total seats labour got

if all the votes had been equally split among tories and labour...labour would win due to boundary changes in 120 more constituencies

I guess you mean there were changes made to increase the number of labour seats given the voting habits of the last election weren't changed. Is that what you are saying? Or do I totally miss something here?

Originally posted by Bardock42
Wouldn't that depend on who is voting who? Couldn't just as well the tories have the 120 more?

I guess you mean there were changes made to increase the number of labour seats given the voting habits of the last election weren't changed. Is that what you are saying? Or do I totally miss something here?

yes...the governing party can change the constituency boundaries in order to maximise the number of seats it can win

normally it was use census information and past voting patterns to do this

in the case of the last election...we you can see the result...relatively few votes more than the opposition...yet vastly more seats and thus more power to govern

you can see what i mean by the map...blue is the tory opposition...red is the labour government

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/2005UKElectionMap.svg

Originally posted by Ushgarak
You cannot help the system, but you CAN help the godawful way you were trying to explain it. Even your presentation was appalling- an endless barrage of short sentences separated by blank lines; exceptionally unappealing to read or even just to glance at. As I say, you must learn to present better if you want to put a point across. bardock's comment I find surprising, but of no consequence. It doesn't change the fact that you laid it out appallingly and explained it just as badly. The fact remains that almost no-one reading your first post really understands what you are saying unless they already knew the issues.

As to your question if the number of seats won was democratic- answer is yes, it is. That's local representation for you. Proportional representation is a joke.

1st part is irrelevant anyway...but if you wish to explain it better in the context of the last election be my guest...i had no wish to ressurect a thread that is over 2 years old...someone else did

the 2nd point about proportional representation being a joke...while in the case that in a certain area...an MSP can have the most votes yet not be allowed to represent that area...yes...a total joke

but then again...as i stated in my original post...the tories got 20% of the vote in the last general election in scotland but under the UK parliment system of representation...they would have no seats in the Scottish parliment as they never won the most votes in any single constituency...yet under proportional representation...at least the 20% of people who voted tory have some voice in the Scottish government

so which way is the right way?

clearly both cant work side by side as shown in the way MP's representing Scottish constituencies can vote on devolved matters even though their votes wont affect their own constituents but will affect English voters

Originally posted by Deano
We have accepted en masse that democracy is another word for freedom. Like hell it is. Democracy
is not freedom, it is a dictatorship camouflaged as freedom. The same
force controls, directly or indirectly, every major political party and
movement. It created most of them. When you vote at an election, you
are choosing between different aspects of the same force. The money
and the media decide who becomes president of the United States and
the money and the media are owned and controlled by the same people.
Let us write the following in letters 20 feet high: Democracy Is Not
Freedom. 30 people telling 49 what to do is not freedom. In fact, most
governments are elected by a minority of the population and they still
call it a “democratic” election. Freedom is the right of all people to
express who they are, what they think, and how they wish to live their
lives: free from imposition or hassle from anyone. It is to be able to
celebrate our individual uniqueness without rules, regulations, ridicule
and condemnation from those who seek to impose their view of life
upon the rest of us.😄😄😄😄

Taken too far, freedom becomes anarchy. You talk of living "...without rules, regulations... free from imposition from anyone". This sounds good at first, but what happens when what I choose to do interferes with what YOU want to do? This is anarchy. Most people prefer at least a modicum of rules to pure anarchy (but hey, you're perfectly free to want to live that way).
You are correct about Democracy. In today's political climate, democracy is often used to mean freedom- it is a panacea, an end-all and be-all. What we have in America is a democratic REPUBLIC, a combination of the two. It's highly imperfect, but I think Churchill said it best:

"Democracy is the Worst form of government known to man... except for all the others." (paraphrased)

To the original post... I concur with others in saying it was erratically put together, and a little hard to follow. I do think England is essentially a one party (labor) system and has been for some time now- never a good thing.

ive heard the complaint about the system creating an elected dictator.about the government of tony blair(labour) and margaret thather(conservative) and harold wilson(labour)
things do change over time.

Originally posted by jaden101
[Bironically if England were taken as a separate country...then the conservative party would have won...but when the mp's of Wales and Scotland are taken into consideration then Labour won...despite the fact that i previously mentioned that those same mp's have little say in their own countries and have more power over England than they do over Wales and Scotland.[/B]

Labour had 356 seats or something, Conservatives had 198. Now Scotland and Wales has about 150 or say between them. If all of Scotland and Wales voted Labour, which they didn't, that would be 206 seats for Labour. So that's still a majority, or rather, more than anyone else.

I also noticed that you then mentioned Constituencies. Constituencies are not perfect but better in terms of representation. It's 1 per X amount of people, and in terms of governing, that is a very good system. Better than the US system anyway.

Proportional representation you also mentioned, I am in support for that.

I am also in favour of devolution of parliament as well, however, more to a representational thing, than a state thing. But that's just my opinion, if other people want one parliament in Scotland and one in England, despite the fact that England has 10* more people, it's a democracy.

An alternative system is of course the head count, where every vote counts. That's good, but what if the winning government doesn't have enough mps? That problem can't be avoided.

Another thing. Hyporthetically speaking. Why is that if people in Manchester want something, and people everywhere else want something else, why would manchester have what everyone else wants? Like, if Manchester wants state education, and everyone else doesn't, why should MAnchester not get what they want?

Originally posted by lord xyz
Another thing. Hyporthetically speaking. Why is that if people in Manchester want something, and people everywhere else want something else, why would manchester have what everyone else wants? Like, if Manchester wants state education, and everyone else doesn't, why should MAnchester not get what they want?

because democracy is rule by the majority.... therefore any minority has to accept that (at least this time) they are going to have to do what everyone else wants... for example, if everyone in Manchester votes Tory, and everyone else in the country votes Lib Dem, why doesn't Manchester get to ignore the LibDem government and have their own Tory rulers?

Originally posted by big gay kirk
because democracy is rule by the majority.... therefore any minority has to accept that (at least this time) they are going to have to do what everyone else wants... for example, if everyone in Manchester votes Tory, and everyone else in the country votes Lib Dem, why doesn't Manchester get to ignore the LibDem government and have their own Tory rulers?

Originally posted by Bardock42
Cause the government is an authoritarian piece of shit that shoots you dead if you disagree.

i agree.. but then i've never been a fan of democracy.... i believe in a system of one man, one vote ... i should be that man, and it should be my vote....

Originally posted by big gay kirk
i agree.. but then i've never been a fan of democracy.... i believe in a system of one man, one vote ... i should be that man, and it should be my vote....

Originally posted by big gay kirk
because democracy is rule by the majority.... therefore any minority has to accept that (at least this time) they are going to have to do what everyone else wants... for example, if everyone in Manchester votes Tory, and everyone else in the country votes Lib Dem, why doesn't Manchester get to ignore the LibDem government and have their own Tory rulers?

Originally posted by lord xyz
why should the minority accept that? What ever happened to giving the people what they want?

What the people want is

1: Everything for free
2: Better stuff for free
3: someone else to do all the work
4: Someone else to take all the responsibility
5: To do what they want and stuff everybody else

Unfortunately, this doesn't work.. its called chaos... not anarchy.. anarchy is without leaders.. chaos is without order.. if everyone got what they wanted, there would be nobody to make or grow the stuff the wanters want... so no one would get anything.. as anyone with dependants will tell you... never give people what they want, give them what they need.... the two things are usually mutually exclusive...

if everyone got what they wanted, for example, the death penalty could not exist.. some would want it, some wouldn't, but the poor sap about to be executed could just say, " I want to live ... in a big house with servants, loads of money, and plenty of people to kill..."

Well obviously there'll be order. No taking the rights of others, for what you want, but that counts for both ways.

if everyone ends up getting what they want, there is bound to be a conflict of interests.. the only way to avoid this is either to give the majority what they want, or to give the minority what they want.. i know which one i prefer....

Originally posted by big gay kirk
if everyone ends up getting what they want, there is bound to be a conflict of interests.. the only way to avoid this is either to give the majority what they want, or to give the minority what they want.. i know which one i prefer....

Originally posted by lord xyz
Or just, give the people what they want, and those who don't want, don't get. It's not as if there's one thing for everyone, and whether the people get it should decide on who wants it. It's many things for those who want it.

So, if Person A wants Person B dead and Person B for some reason doesn't want that. Then we can't really give all people what they want already.

Originally posted by Bardock42
So, if Person A wants Person B dead and Person B for some reason doesn't want that. Then we can't really give all people what they want already.