#e.u referendum

[firstdegreeliberty]

But… this… this wasn’t supposed to happen! The UK was supposed to go into an indefinite recession - no, a depression! Children were supposed to be eating their mothers in the streets to survive! The Black Death was supposed to make a comeback!

Don’t you feel stupid now, globalists?

[cjkat]

The Brexit and The Mytilenian Debate.

Britain has been rocked by the  results of the referendum on the 23rd of June this year where the majority vote decided that the UK would leave the European Union. Since the decision to leave was announced there has been an uprising  of regret in the UK, with hashtags like '#bregret' and '#brexshit' trending  and an online petition that calls for another referendum that has (at the time of writing this) over three million signatures.

I have also seen people on social media stating that calling for another referendum on this decision is 'fundamentally undemocratic'', that the majority has voted and the 'Brexit' was the definitive choice of the nation and it cannot be changed.

This may well be so but the fundamentals of democracy have long being deliberated and as a student of Classics and Ancient  History for over four years I feel that a literally ancient debate could be considered again. I am referring to  'The Mytilenian Debate'.

Mytilene was a city on the island of Lesbos which had attempted unsuccessfully to shake off Athenian hegemony, during the Peloponnesian War.  Afterwards the Athenian Assembly had to vote on what they were going to do in reprise. Book Three of Thucydides,  'The Peloponnesian War' describes how one side of the debate called for the total destruction of Mytilene and its people, while the other called for only the ring leaders to be killed.  On one day the vote FOR decimating Mytilene won and a ship was immediately sent to destroy the city. The NEXT day they voted again, this time the majority voted AGAINST the destruction and a second ship was sent out post haste to stop the first!

This decision rocked the Athenian populace. What did it mean for their society that they could make such a brutal and rash decision because they had concerns for their borders and the effect it would have on their economy in difficult times? That question arose in much of their literature and shadows of it can be seen in Euripides ' The Trojan Women' a play that is often re-preformed in modern times when things are politically unstable.

I realise that Western democracy is now unrecognisable from its origins in Ancient Athens and that for many people it means many different things but we can all agree that the citizens of a nation has the right to vote on matters on the state. However, that also means that the people also have the right to vote AGAIN with a different perspective if they call for it. Last year Scotland voted to remain part of the UK and Nicola Sturgeon is considering calling a second` referendum believing  that as a majority of Scotland voted to remain in the EU it is in their best interests to hold one. Is that fundamentally undemocratic? In 1975 there was a referendum to vote whether the UK should be 'In' or 'Out' of the EU. At that time the voters chose to vote 'In'.  So does this mean this second  referendum is 'fundamentally undemocratic'? Or if as many people who voted 'Out'  seem to be expressing regret as the consequences of the Brexit becomes apparent and as some of the promises of the leave campaigners are renounced, would it be undemocratic to have a second referendum? If the result is the same then it will truly be the choice of the people but if it changes then it would be 'fundamentally undemocratic' for us to ignore that.

As a nation we have sent out the first ship. If we are lucky we might be able to send the second.  

[lobotomybaby]

So I didn't know much about ‪#‎Brexit‬ until the past week or so. So after reading a bit about it, here's a few thoughts. I can't blame countries for wanting their own independence. We did it, and we turned out okay. More or less.. But since the U.K has voted to leave the E.U, there's all these sudden interests from other countries to do the same. And of course, Texas wants to secede from the Union again. Globalization is happening at an exponential rate and this is understandably irritating to some. It's why white Americans love the thought of "taking their country back" from Obummer. But, it's only going to speed up even faster.

I wish we could round up all of Congress, and just all the world leaders and put them in a rocket and send them to space - so they can witness what the astronaut Frank White called the 'Overview Effect'. Where astronauts talk of having incredible insight and changed emotions about the Earth afterwards. The Earth has a certain fragility to it once you've seen it from the outside, I hear. And we're in an unprecedented time in human history. We've never had this nearly this many people on the Earth before. We've never slaughtered 160 billion animals each year for mass consumption. We've never had the technology to make the world uninhabitable with a push of a few buttons. We've never pushed 2.8 million pounds of carbon dioxide into the air from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil each SECOND. We've never dumped 14 billion pounds of trash into the ocean each year..

We, as humans, have just started having the capabilities to really harm ourselves with acts we've been doing for many years. But that's because we can't think in terms of just ourselves anymore.. or just our neighborhoods, or our cities, or countries.. To fix what's needed, we'll have to come together on a global scale. Right now I'm remembering a quote by Aaron Sorkin that went something like "The internet has given everyone a microphone, a voice. While this may seem great, not everyone is deserving of the microphone." And I don't know if I agree with that or not, but I do know that what's been changing over the past few years is that there's so much information out there, the verified data, the peer-reviewed study, the data that's been tested and retested, the complex viewpoint that can't be compressed into a simple headline, it all gets lost in the shuffle and drowned out by the chorus of these other microphones.

But all the microphones in the world ..I believe we can still find the voice that needs to be heard. And all the successions in the world won't stop the world from eventually coming together and acting as a single system. The population has doubled since 1960. And it'll double again much more quickly. We're at 7.4 billion and rising. All these different languages, monetary systems, governments, cultures, religions.. all these took many, many years to build. And just like a new technology that washes away the current one and makes obsolete, these countries are fighting an outdated model to the world. Embrace your neighbors, and not just people down the road, but "immigrants" too. Embrace it all, because global citizens, we are.

[thethoughtjar-blog]

Unfortunately over here in England it seems that the majority ruling is to sacrifice the unity of the major parts of what was once our home in the world, in order to establish some advantage over those willing to work together. as if we as individuals can do better than the collective summation of those who give love into this world without regard for origin, merely present location is all that mattered.

[wangjoonie]

I'm kind of a bit stuck right now because one of my career goals was to work at the European Union but um looks like as a Brit I can no longer be part of that..

[turdle]

Okay so I don't normally post stuff like this BUT ITS IMPORTANT SO: BRITISH PEOPLE SEEING THIS, if you have not registered to vote in the EU referendum yet please before 12 tonight!!!!It's such an important decision!!! And it's so easy to do, just online!!! Tonight is the last chance, tomorrow is too late and you won't be able to vote later this month!!!