Election and constitution
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The elction is laying bare the reality of the constitution. Labour and Tories are both looking to the Queen to sort out the post election mess, and the Palace is determined not to get involved. But, even as a seasoned politics watcher, I learn new things:
https://colinrtalbot.wordpress.com/2015/04/20/could-the-snp-block-a-labour-budget-no/#more-2664
Quote:The first set of problems is that in the Westminster parliament only the Government can propose taxation or spending measures. These can be defeated, or amended, but only by cutting spending or lowering or removing taxes – not by increasing either.So, whoever is Prime Minister (and I think we're looking at the case of a minority government here) has the whip hand over government spending. Now, this is a convention, and Parliament could change the rules, but I doubt either Labour or Tories would allow that.
The test of democracy is: who initiates? who amends? who decides? If the executive has exclusive capacity to initiate money Bills that gives the most power to the parts of the constitution further from the electors and the population at large.
Its a small thing, but it's part of a pattern of repeated filters and blocks that removes power from the population and into the hands of an elite.
Parliaments a sham. A multi-party system can help but its still a sham. There is no parliamentary road to socialism, only an elective electoral one.
Young Master Smeet wrote:The test of democracy is: who initiates? who amends? who decides? If the executive has exclusive capacity to initiate … that gives the most power to the parts of the constitution further from the electors and the population at large.Its a small thing, but it's part of a pattern of repeated filters and blocks that removes power from the population and into the hands of an elite.But, you'll quite happily have this ideological method applied to the production of 'truth', YMS, as does robbo, and everyone else who posts on this site, as far as I can tell.No-one seems to see the contradiction. Everyone happily separates out 'matter' from 'consciousness', object from subject, nature from humanity, science from politics, rocks from ideas, fact from opinion, theory from practice, truth from democracy.Marx argued for unity. The idea of disunity of these factors is bourgeois ideology, a ruling class idea, not a 'personal opinion', that you all just happen to hold, co-incidentally, of your own volition. Even posters who've never read a single thing, and have only started posting very recently, and so haven't even read the numerous threads here, are all quite confident in 'their own' opinion of these issues.Wake up, comrades, or ban me completely, and then you can all go back to your 19th century slumbers.The myth, that 'sciences produces The Truth', and the scientists have a method which tells them this, and that 'Truth' cannot be elected by humanity, as a whole.
LBird wrote:Young Master Smeet wrote:The test of democracy is: who initiates? who amends? who decides? If the executive has exclusive capacity to initiate … that gives the most power to the parts of the constitution further from the electors and the population at large.Its a small thing, but it's part of a pattern of repeated filters and blocks that removes power from the population and into the hands of an elite.But, you'll quite happily have this ideological method applied to the production of 'truth', YMS, as does robbo, and everyone else who posts on this site, as far as I can tell.No-one seems to see the contradiction. Everyone happily separates out 'matter' from 'consciousness', object from subject, nature from humanity, science from politics, rocks from ideas, fact from opinion, theory from practice, truth from democracy.Marx argued for unity. The idea of disunity of these factors is bourgeois ideology, a ruling class idea, not a 'personal opinion', that you all just happen to hold, co-incidentally, of your own volition. Even posters who've never read a single thing, and have only started posting very recently, and so haven't even read the numerous threads here, are all quite confident in 'their own' opinion of these issues.Wake up, comrades, or ban me completely, and then you can all go back to your 19th century slumbers.The myth, that 'sciences produces The Truth', and the scientists have a method which tells them this, and that 'Truth' cannot be elected by humanity, as a whole.
You're going to have to put together some sort of reference text on your case, because personally I can't wade through pages and pages of discussion although I would like to understand. Something comprehensive would be good but even a short article would do.
jondwhite wrote:You're going to have to put together some sort of reference text on your case, because personally I can't wade through pages and pages of discussion although I would like to understand. Something comprehensive would be good but even a short article would do.I've given references to texts, short, medium and long, to easy, short articles and long-winded tomes, from the 19th century Commies like Marx, Engels and Dietzgen, early 20th century Marxists like Korsch, Lukacs and Pannekoek, to philosophers of science like Popper, Kuhn, Feyerabend and Lakatos.I've done my best to help prevent comrades having to wade through enormous amounts of irrelevant tripe, by posting summaries, and explained using metaphor and analogy.I'm becoming more convinced that any comrades, wishing to understand, are going to have to either take account of what I argue and use that to build their own understanding, or they're going to have to do the same as me, and do the hard, long, difficult work.So, jondwhite, your choice: either build upon what I say, using questions to delve for deeper explanation, or ignore what I say, and go off and satisfy yourself about the issues taking the long and winding road.The simplest way I can put it, is that 'object' can't be separated from 'subject'. In plain English, that means that, if one wants to 'know' what a rock is, one has to look to the society producing that 'knowledge'.If someone wants to argue that they as an individual 'know' what 'a rock is', and that what they 'know' of 'a rock' would be exactly the same for them if they had been raised in a different society, that's fine by me.It just means that they separate 'object' (rock) from 'subject' (the social knower).The latter is the basis of positivist science, and is also the 'common sense' view of physics.You have to choose which philosophical assumption you wish to use as the basis of your explanation. The latter 'assumption' has been given to you already, by this society. A bit like 'money' , 'markets' and 'individuals'.If one starts from money, markets, individuals and separated object, one gets the society we have. I can't make comrades choose their starting point. Either they have become critical of all that the bourgeoisie have told them, or they have only partially done so.It's pointless me talking to the 'partials'; only the 'alls' will benefit, as I said at the start of the thread. I can't make people into Communists. They have to already have chosen that ideology, and ditched their former.
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