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I wish I would live in a country where essential political decisions like that are made by the people and not by some professional political elite in a far away capital.
Not happy with the headline. They voted no for an "unconditional" basic income. I think that is a huge difference, especially when a majority of the voters also want immigration reform.
I wish I would live in a country where essential political decisions like that are made by the people and not by some professional political elite in a far away capital.
The downside are populistic decisions like the Swiss minaret referendum. Now we have the sentence «The construction of minarets is prohibited.» in the constitution. ( https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-compilation/19995395/... ) I think such regulations should be decreed as a law and not as a constitution norm if at all. But if everybody has a say you get bikeshedding in the constitution.
I wish I would live in a country where essential political decisions like that are made by the people and not by some professional political elite in a far away capital.
The downside are populistic decisions like the Swiss minaret referendum. Now we have the sentence «The construction of minarets is prohibited.» in the constitution. ( https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-compilation/19995395/... ) I think such regulations should be decreed as a law and not as a constitution norm if at all. But if everybody has a say you get bikeshedding in the constitution.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The downside are populistic decisions like the Swiss minaret referendum. Now we have the sentence «The construction of minarets is prohibited.» in the constitution. ( https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-compilation/19995395/... ) I think such regulations should be decreed as a law and not as a constitution norm if at all. But if everybody has a say you get bikeshedding in the constitution.
[deleted, vote brigading]
Not happy with the headline. They voted no for an "unconditional" basic income. I think that is a huge difference, especially when a majority of the voters also want immigration reform.
My understanding is that basic income can only be "unconditional." If there are conditions attached to it, what might be they?
It's too early to say that. The urban cantons did not finish counting, especially Zurich, Basel, Bern and Geneva. I'd expect that there will be 30% yes votes, but of course there are always surprises.
EDIT: Moreover, provisional results for ZH shows 75% no (French) (http://www.20min.ch/ro/news/suisse/story/Revenu-de-base--les...)
I wish I would live in a country where essential political decisions like that are made by the people and not by some professional political elite in a far away capital.
The downside are populistic decisions like the Swiss minaret referendum. Now we have the sentence «The construction of minarets is prohibited.» in the constitution. ( https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-compilation/19995395/... ) I think such regulations should be decreed as a law and not as a constitution norm if at all. But if everybody has a say you get bikeshedding in the constitution.
Hardly surprising. Nobody wants to be awoken at ungodly hours by that howling.
I wish I would live in a country where essential political decisions like that are made by the people and not by some professional political elite in a far away capital.
The downside are populistic decisions like the Swiss minaret referendum. Now we have the sentence «The construction of minarets is prohibited.» in the constitution. ( https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-compilation/19995395/... ) I think such regulations should be decreed as a law and not as a constitution norm if at all. But if everybody has a say you get bikeshedding in the constitution.
The US population for instance prohibited alcohol and then undid the prohibition, and I think the least that can be said in favor of this process is that since then there's seemingly a consensus in the US wrt prohibition. I'm not sure such consensus is achievable when elected officials enact laws, not to mention when a Supreme Court reinterprets the constitution to de-facto enact a law.
Overall, to me it seems that decisions will be made and reversed no matter what's your process, and it seems that referendums are a great way for the population to "own" the decision - not just affect it but feel responsibility for it.
Also I'd guess that more direct democracy would reduce both stability and corruption (people are more likely to change the status quo, harder to bribe, and not as likely to form 2 or some other small number of groups voting together on every issue as professional politicians.) It seems that we have a lot of both stability (presumably a good thing) and corruption (presumably a bad thing) and it doesn't look like a terrible gamble to attempt to reduce both.
I wish I would live in a country where essential political decisions like that are made by the people and not by some professional political elite in a far away capital.
The downside are populistic decisions like the Swiss minaret referendum. Now we have the sentence «The construction of minarets is prohibited.» in the constitution. ( https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-compilation/19995395/... ) I think such regulations should be decreed as a law and not as a constitution norm if at all. But if everybody has a say you get bikeshedding in the constitution.