What the heck were the british thinking

[brettdale]

This is what happens when you believe the Donald Trumps of your country.

[DanTex]

1. Yup. It's their version of electing Trump. It's crazy.

[Barack_America]

16. As dumb as re-electing GWB.

[niyad]

66. don't forget, WE did not "elect" him the first time-- 5 REPUBLICAN-appointed supreme court

justices abrogated the constitution and anointed him president.

the second election, ken blackwell handed to him.

[edhopper]

2. like we haven't been that stupid too.

[geek tragedy]

3. It's the English. The Scots voted to remain nt

[FLPanhandle]

4. This is what happens when the government doesn't listen to the citizens

The EU has taken a "we know better than you unwashed masses" attitude.

This is what happens.

[840high]

7. ...!100++++

[cherokeeprogressive]

13. This is what happens.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

14. Could you please elaborate. Some of us were focused elsewhere and I'm lost on this topic. nt

[Ex Lurker]

19. Very good point

When you tell people what you're going to do, instead of asking them, they resent it, even if the course of action is objectively the correct one.

[TeddyR]

5. Democracy

In action.

[Hissyspit]

9. Tyranny of the majority in action.

[TeddyR]

10. Perhaps

Which is why the US doesn't entrust civil rights to majority vote.

[lancer78]

12. they tried to

On Monday.

[Reter]

22. Tyranny lost

Sovereignty prevailed.

[Hissyspit]

24. LOL

You and Nigel Firage, hunh?

[Reter]

27. My enemy is the New World Order

I champion sovereignty, and I never heard of Nigel before yesterday.

[Hissyspit]

30. The "New World Order"

Translation: Excuse to vote with the xenophobes.

[Press Virginia]

34. perhaps they watch the news and know better

about what's actually going on and don't want the EU to dictate how many people have to come into their country?
If they can't control their own borders and set their own immigration policies, they really cease to be a sovereign nation.

[Hissyspit]

64. Wow.

Defending the xenophobia.

[Press Virginia]

26. Uh noooo. It's a democratic vote

The majority always wins

[Hissyspit]

32. You don't understand the concept, then.

[Press Virginia]

33. I understand how voting works

and there's always a disgruntled losing side

[Hissyspit]

63. You don't understand the concept then.

Or the reason we are a representational democracy instead of a direct democracy.

100 votes and ONE uninformed racist idiot potentially is the one who pushes it over 50 gets to determine the course of people's civil rights.

Figures the supporters of Brexit would be this naive.

The Brexit referendum originated with a right-wing PM giving in to demands from the far-right racist wing of his party. Is there any particular reason you are defending this shit?

[Hissyspit]

6. This is what happens with direct referendums.

[Hekate]

11. Yep. Yet every time emotions run high, a lot of Americans call for exactly that.

The founding fathers tried to frame the Constitution to put some brakes on that...

[former9thward]

20. So you don't want democracy.

Ok, we know where you are coming from.

[Hissyspit]

23. Oh, shut up.

See post #11.
See California Prop 8.
See Nigel Farage.

[former9thward]

29. No, I won't shut up.

This is a Discussion board, much to your dismay.

[Hissyspit]

31. I didn't mean to literally shut up.

I meant "Here is the response your comment deserves."

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

15. Let that be a warning

[craigmatic]

17. They weren't it was their version of the tea party debt ceiling fiasco.

[flamingdem]

18. The vote splits along education levels

very clearly.

[Press Virginia]

35. Yeah, the people most hurt by the import of

unskilled cheap labor are the ones who voted in their self interests

[Spider Jerusalem]

48. Nope!

People in areas with lower levels of immigration were more likely to vote "leave" and say they were doing so because of immigration. And the highest percentage of "Leave" votes came from over-65's, who are retired and not in the workforce or challenged by "cheap labour".

[Press Virginia]

55. Looking at the age Demo, the majority of voters were around 40

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2016/jun/23/eu-referendum-live-results-and-analysis

[Spider Jerusalem]

56. ...

[Press Virginia]

57. UUuuuh, that's 60% of people over 60. The majority of the leave voters

are around 40.

[Spider Jerusalem]

59. No, they aren't

a majority of people under 50 voted "Remain".

[Press Virginia]

60. Oh good lord...the median voter age in the UK was 40

the MAJORITY of the leave vote was from people aged 40-45.

I gave you a link, it breaks it down by the voting total population in a nice cluster

Your chart doesn't tell you how many of which grouping voted.

[Spider Jerusalem]

61. That's median age by local authority and majority remain/leave, not overall

you don't even know what the chart you linked to illustrates.

[Press Virginia]

62. Ahh geeez...you go on believing it was all retirees

instead of working people from working class towns in Labour country

[sibelian]

21. Maybe we were thinking:

"What the FUCK are we spending all that money on? How come we're spending stupid amounts of cash on the right to get piddling amounts of it back in funding?"

[Spider Jerusalem]

25. £135 per capita per annum (mostly from VAT payments)

in exchange for...access to the single market and lower prices on imports from the continent, freedom of movement, etc? Arguing that the relatively minor cost isn't worth the benefit in this case seems kind of stupid, frankly. (But then the "Leave" campaign was made of stupid glued together with xenophobia.)

[pkdu]

28. Exactly!...."I want my cheap German Beer and discount French wine served to me by underpaid Polish

20-somethings , but get us the hell out of Europe."

[Press Virginia]

36. The U.K. Sends 13b to the EU and gets 5b back

The Swiss have done just fine without the EU, in fact they've outperformed most of the EU economically. There's no reason to believe the UK will fail

[Spider Jerusalem]

37. Which I accounted for in my figures.

Switzerland had to sign on to EU regulations and Schengen without having a voice at the table in the EU. Switzerland also payes money into the EU - about 600M Swiss francs a year, 75 francs per capita, and get much less for it than the UK got as a member of the EU.

[Press Virginia]

38. Switzerland only signed on to some regulations

They control their borders and their politicians are accountable to the voters.
The EU runs by committees of unelected bureaucrats and is accountable to no one.

[Spider Jerusalem]

41. No, they don't control their borders.

They're part of the Schengen Area. Which they had to sign on to to get EU trade deals.

[Aerows]

44. As far as I know

this has no bearing on Schengen, and I can't imagine it ever will due to tourist dollars.

That's why this is pure paranoia.

Let the damn dust settle without interjecting all of this "the sky is falling" business.

[Spider Jerusalem]

46. WTF are you even talking about?

[Aerows]

49. Schengen?

Since it was brought up? By you?

They're part of the Schengen Area. Which they had to sign on to to get EU trade deals.

?

[Spider Jerusalem]

50. What you said makes absolutely zero fucking sense.

"As far as I know this has no bearing on Schengen"? I have no clue what that's supposed to mean (and "tourist dollars"? if you're talking about the UK you probably mean "pounds&quot . And the UK will likely have to sign on to Schengen in order to have access to the single market as a non-EU member (which means less control over its border than it currently enjoys), but I was specifically talking about SWITZERLAND (Which you'd know if you'd bothered to read).

[Aerows]

51. I think I'm going to step away from the thread now.

May we both live to argue coherently another day.

[Press Virginia]

45. Their immigration policies are much stricter than the EU

which is why they're being bypassed by most of the refugees.

If they can reject and deport people who apply for asylum, they control their border. Furthermore, they charge refugees for the privilege of living there.
10% of their wages for 15(?) years plus they sieze assets over 1000 Swiss Francs upon entry.

[Spider Jerusalem]

47. They have no control over their borders with the EU.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area

Every country in the EU can reject and deport asylum seekers, and does. You don't even know what the hell you're talking about.

[Press Virginia]

52. Ummm the Swiss capped immigration in 2014, EU residents have no

ability to move to or work in Switzerland like they did prior to 2014...they were ready to shut down their border with Italy, using tanks.
They grant the lowest number of temporary residency permits to refugees and far fewer get permanent residency.

clearly they control their own borders

[Spider Jerusalem]

54. Nope. They had a referendum, they are in negotiations with the EU which have not concluded.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-24/swiss-pain-in-eu-immigration-talks-compounded-by-brexit-victory

[Aerows]

40. The union with the EU was made more difficult.

Did you oppose the UK staying with the Pound in 1999?

[Spider Jerusalem]

42. Made more difficult, how, exactly?

And no, I think the UK was better off keeping the pound (as the ability to set interest rates etc independently has shown), but that doesn't mean I think that UK membership of the EU was a mistake. Your question is a non sequitur.

[Aerows]

43. I don't think it is non sequitur at all

to wait until the dust settles.

Knee jerk reactions aren't going to change the future.

[Aerows]

39. They were thinking the same thing

they thought when there wasn't the predicted meltdown of the UK when they rejected monetary union in favor of the Pound in 1999. Meltdown predicted = Meltdown did not occur.

I'm pretty sure they also are thinking that they get all of the bad side of the EU because the UK puts much more in than they take out.

[Hissyspit]

65. Except that that's not true.

The EU has been a pretty good bargain for UK.

A currency is not a country. So comparing Euro and EU is false equivalence.

I hope I'm not seeing a vote set up on the demands of bigots and xenophobia and won by bigots and xenophobia being defended here.

[Aerows]

68. You aren't from me

I'm saying that the hyperbole and shrieking that the sky is falling is just a tad overblown.

If you will recall in 1999, this was the same type of fire and brimstone voiced about the UK staying with the pound. The world didn't end.

[Boudica the Lyoness]

53. What he heck were you lot thinking in 1776?

[white_wolf]

58. To be frankly honest?

I've often thought the U.S. might be a better place to live if it had remained part of the Commonwealth.

[niyad]

67. uhhh, they weren't--thinking, that is.