“How to detoxify the immigration debate” is the title of an LSE (London School of Economics) blog post by Hana Kapetanovic.
The debate is being dominated by the loudest voices with the most strongly held views; the voices of the majority aren’t being heard. It would sound very different if they were. In British Future’s segmentation of public attitudes to immigration, the biggest group by far is the “Balancer Middle”, with around half (49 per cent) of the public falling into this group. This group is not fundamentally opposed to immigration, but wants it to be “controlled and fair”.
and
As much as public perceptions are shaped by the media, political and information landscape, we mustn’t forget that public perceptions in turn shape media and political debates. The media publishes articles they think people will read. Politicians move to where they think the votes are, and yet are still faced with low trust. We need to break this democratic doom loop.
Breaking the democratic doom loop and detoxifying the debate sounds nice, but her proposal to do this is to take a group of a few dozen voters – a group that is a representative sample of the electorate but is self-selected in that the group is made up of the sort of people who want to participate and have time to do it – show them lots of briefings by government approved experts, have them converse for a few days guided by a government facilitator, and declare that whatever curated consensus the group comes to after this exercise has greater democratic validity than either the discourse of MPs who have actually been elected or the myriad private debates of the un-detoxified mass of the electorate.
This process is called a “Citizens’ Assembly” or a “Citizens’ Jury”. If all these grand titles boil down to is a bigger than average focus group, fine. Endearingly worthy, in fact. But the minute this “Citizens’ Assembly” starts to displace the powers of the old sort of assembly voted in by all the citizens, or the “Citizens’ Jury” starts to think that it can make decisions that affect other people’s lives as if it were a jury jury, then…
No.
The link required me to sign up for something I’m not inclined to sign up for. But from Natalie’s summary, I’m afraid the atavistic thought popped up that maybe Hana needs to be declaring an interest.
My somewhat cynical prediction is that if a Citizen’ Assembly came up with an inconvenient conclusion the results would only be published in a monthly hobby magazine and filed away in a deep dark basement somewhere in the provinces.
“…the voices of the majority aren’t being heard…”
Methinks Hana might be a bit taken aback if she were confronted with the views of the actual majority.
A cousin of mine served on one of these bodies in Wales – it was on the environment, and he informed me that the whole process was systematically biased. As Natalie says – establishment approved “experts” dominating everything.
All the “expert witnesses” and “advisers” were from one side of the debate (the Carbon Dioxide is evil side of the debate) – so the results of the process were predetermined.
The far left love these Citizen Assemblies or Citizen Juries – precisely because the results are predetermined, with all “witnesses” and “expert advice” being from the left.
It is much the same in elected politics – all the documents that councilors and elected MPs and ministers are shown are from the Collectivist side of any debate, the results are predetermined.
So, in theory, “Policy” is made by elected people – but, in reality, “Policy” is predetermined – it is handed to elected councilor, Members of Parliament and Ministers.
“Policy” comes from OUTSIDE the democratic process – at least it does in the United Kingdom.
“But that means that Britain is NOT a democracy” – correct, as can be seen when an elected Member of Parliament, such as former Prime Minister Liz Truss, tries to go AGAINST the predetermined policy of the establishment (international establishment).
Not “conspiracy theory” – just the observable fact.
then what you have is another parliament, just like the old one, ignored by the blob… despised by everyone else.
Didn’t the Revolting French have “Citizens’ Aseemblies”?
NickM – de facto yes, and with the same predetermined results.
At the core this is indeed Rousseau – the “Law Giver” or “Tutor” declaring what the “General Will” is, and if ordinary people dare disagree – that is just the despised “will of all” which leads to the heads of the dissenters (mostly quite ordinary people) being cut off, or the dissenters being killed in some other way.
The various factions of the French Revolution disputed who was “truly” following the ideas of Rousseau (who had died some years before) – but, as Edmund Burke pointed out, on the important things (their vicious contempt for the private property, indeed the very lives, of individual human beings) ALL the factions were following Rousseau.
As for immigration…..
As has been pointed out before, time has marched on (as John Enoch Powell predicted it would – way back in the 1960s), now the main “issue” is the natural increase, births, of hostile populations – rather than immigration.
Yes it would be a good thing if mass immigration were stopped today – but even it it was, it would not prevent a 1970s Lebanon type situation arising in the United Kingdom (especially in England) and other Western European nations – in a few years time.
There is no way to “detoxify” this unfortunate fact.
And it is almost unbearably tragic to see nations that are NOT in this situation (who do not have the natural increase of hostile populations) being pushed into this position by the schemes of the accursed “International Community” – the “Rules Based International Order”.
For example, Hungary is NOT yet in this terrible position – but in April a government is likely to be elected (elected due to the endless propaganda campaigns, and financial blackmail, of the accursed International Community) that will open the borders (in response to the orders of the European Union and the rest of the International Corporate State) to bring the eventual “blessings” if a Lebanon type “enrichment” to Hungary – along with the Netherlands, Austria (see what is happening in Vienna – which Mark Steyn warned against many years ago), Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and so on – all within a few years.
It appears that the International Corporate State will not let ANY Western nations survive – its aim appearing to be genocide against all Western nations, Western peoples.
No mass deportations are needed in Hungary – just the defense of the borders against migrants. But the propaganda campaigns and financial blackmail of the International Community (the European Union and the rest of the International Corporate State) will not allow Hungary, or ANY Western nation to survive.
I hadn’t realised that a Citizen’s Jury was so rigged.
Mind you I would take issue with the idea that an assembly voted on by all citizens is such a good thing.
When did such a thing appear in Great Britain? I would say 1918 although others will have a different opinion. Since then Britain has been in constant decline. One mark against universal sufferage. But what about freedom? Since then we have had ever-increasing taxes, ever-more regulations and lost the right to bear arms. Homosexual acts were legalised, mind.
Blasphemy laws were abolished before coming back. Much the same is the case when it comes to censorship. It is quite remarkable how much censorship there was in the 1920s but that is by the by.
NickM:
“Revolting French”?
I see what you did there.
Patrick – the state has been growing, even as a proportion of the economy, since the 1870s – and almost every advance of statism was thought up by the “intellectual” elite – normally wealthy people – not requested by ordinary people.
That being said – the election of 1945 was a disaster, I do not defend the class envy and sheer Cultism that led to it. It could have been worse – if Professor Laski (Chairman of the Labour Party) rather than Prime Minister Clement Atlee, had been followed – then 1945 would have been the last election in which “Reactionaries” were allowed to stand for election – other parties would still have allowed in theory, but as in the Eastern Bloc these other parties would have had to commit themselves to “Progressive” (i.e. Collectivist Totalitarian) policies – i.e. be puppets of the regime.
Prime Minister Atlee rejected totalitarianism – but the damage done by the new government, was still very severe, has never really been recovered from.
One could indeed make the case that the election of 1945 did more harm that the war itself – many nations recovered from the war (nations who had been hit harder than Britain had), but the massive expansion of the British state, in both size and scope, was permanent.
For the first time in history the British state was larger (as a proportion of the economy) and more controlling, than other Western nations.
It shows just how corrupted the British intellectual establishment is – that it teaches about the “achievements” of the Atlee government.
Nigel Farage – “the number or Muslims in Britain is growing by, roughly, 75% every ten years – if we alienate Islam, we will lose”.
A depressing example of a person who knows certain basic facts – and yet draws exactly the wrong conclusion.
Islam is automatically “alienated” from infidels – Mohammed made this very clear.
But that would be a “toxic fact” and reality must be “detoxified” by being covered up.
Hopefully Mr Farage will now, finally, understand the situation of conflict. We all make mistakes (I certainly do – terrible mistakes) the point is to learn by them.
Nor is the basic principle really different in the United States than it is from Western European nations or Canada, or Australia, or anywhere else.
Only a few years ago Dearborn Michigan had a Republican Mayor – and had done so for more than 20 years.
Now Dearborn has a Mayor who makes it clear that any resident who questions (who has the mildest doubts about) support for Hezbollah, Hamas and other terrorist groups – is “not welcome” in the city.
And the Mayor was being merciful (yes merciful) – he was giving such residents a chance to leave alive.
What changed in the city? Demography was what changed.
Forces who are “so nice” when there are only a few of them – show their true face when their numbers grow.
Regarding “The debate is being dominated by the loudest voices with the most strongly held views”, I’m guessing that’s always been the case. Even if not “dominated by”, those voices are certainly over-represented.
Something I don’t think we’ve figured out yet is how to pigeon hole all the “voices” online, on social media. By which I mean, at a small community meeting, school board, city council, if you show up regularly, you quickly figure out who the nutters are, both the guests and the “august” council members!
I wonder if it’s possible to train an AI (LLM) with constraints along the lines of the US Constitution, with majority rule having limits; mainly limited to protect minority rights. And maybe it’s not all in the AI model training, maybe it’s in the constraining of the model, as in, “don’t give as much weight to the nutters”. Of course one man’s guru is another man’s nutter, so there’s that to deal with!
What I’m after is a way for an average joe, me!, to search and read what’s online but with some filtering and sorting that I trust, or better, filtering and sorting that I control and understand. Sorting and filtering with a view to finding the good stuff that supports Liberty. AI agents promise to enable this sort of user-specific focus, control, and thus transparency.
I’m not trying to get the AI to think–they don’t do that (yet?!) but they can collect, sort, filter information really well.
One reason I come here…the sorting and filtering is already way ahead!
I overheard a conversation today that shows how misguided (literally mis-guided – guided by people out to deceive them) the public can be.
Two people discussing the agenda of international tyranny – they got just about everything correct, the drive for 15 minute cities, the drive for electronic currency (controlled by the Corporate State), the evil of the United Nations and other world “governance” bodies – and-so-on.
But the answer of these two people “I am doing what I can to oppose what is happening – I have joined the Green Party”.
As people around here know – the Green Party supports (fanatically supports) the agenda of tyranny using the Carbon Dioxide is evil doctrine as an excuse for it – but not only do many Green Party voters not know that, many Green Party MEMBERS do not know that.
Many Green Party members (members – as well as voters) get the entire orientation of the party 180 degrees wrong.
It is not anti United Nations and so on – it supports, fanatically supports, the agenda of world “governance” = 15 minute cities and all.
This is the terrible flaw in such things as the idea of “Citizen Juries” – they would be manipulated by forces who would control what they see and hear, the truth would not get to them.