Brexit Bungle

[Dill]

(12-12-2018, 12:32 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: What you're essentially saying is that if you don't like the results of a vote simply drag your feet on implementing the results until you can claim enough time has passed that a second vote is now needed.  The second vote crowd are literally advocating for the complete subversion of the democratic process.
One of the more repugnant arguments among the second vote crowd is that a large percentage of leave voters will be dead in twenty or so years, so their votes shouldn't count because they won't be around to deal with the consequences.

Unfortunately, I cannot access your links at the moment. WaPo wants me to subscribe and my work computer does not have a working speaker.

Not speaking for my Whig friends, what I am essentially saying is that there can be circumstances that legitimize a re-vote, just as there can be circumstances that lead one to rethink a marriage or a car purchase or any other decision. To acknowledge this is not, in itself, to advocate for "complete subversion of the democratic process."  E.g., 18 U.S. states have recall provisions so that governors may be recalled if voters change their mind. That's how Schwartzenegger replaced Davis in CA, right? Without complete subversion of democracy. Surely the principle can be admitted.

The question is then is what that means in a democracy when others don't want to re-vote. If my wife and I buy a car, and I discover the car salesman lied to me about its conditions--e.g., it gets half the advertised gas mileage--I don't feel especially bound to stand by the decision, once I realize it will cost more than I expected. I may want to return the car. But my wife voted too and she likes the car because it reminds of the one her parents used to drive . And she does doesn't like men telling her what to do.  She want's to keep it.  Even so, she probably would not defend her position by claiming "a sale/vote is a sale/vote regardless" or we have to honor contracts, honestly contracted or not, or we subvert the institution of market exchange. She would set to telling me why the benefits, in her view, offset the extra costs. Or why the salesman was not really lying.

So for me the question is whether the Brexit vote is anything like the car analogy. You assume that people have only themselves to blame if they haven't informed themselves. I think that with voting, as with consumer purchases, we often don't have perfect information. It's not always our fault if we or our spouses are fooled--especially in the current political landscape in which people are bombarded by disinformation. And in the case of Brexit, it is possible the consequences may be grim enough to warrant a re-vote. 

Your final comment makes me wonder if your "repugnant argument" has a flip side. Would young remainers claim the oldsters don't care about the consequences of their vote because they won't be around? Ok to leave a mess for the next generation? I couldn't get to your source so I cannot see the full framing of "the older votes shouldn't count" argument. Did a remainer actually say that or did a journalist offer that as an implication of their position?