No Truce With Kings

Daniel Hannan argued that voters should fire him from his job as MEP by voting for Brexit. He got his wish.

Can this cat talk or what? What an orator! His closing lines here are by Tennyson:

“Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are”

I don’t know whether Brexit was a good move or not. I hope it was because Mr. Hannan makes such good sense on other, related topics. ‘Twould be a pity if he were wrong about this one.

Update 2: The headline of Matt Taibbi’s Rolling Stone piece says it all:

The Reaction to Brexit Is the Reason Brexit Happened
If you believe there’s such a thing as “too much democracy,” you probably don’t believe in democracy at all

In 1934, at the dawn of the Stalinist Terror, the great Russian writer Isaac Babel offered a daring quip at the International Writers Conference in Moscow:

“Everything is given to us by the party and the government. Only one right is taken away: the right to write badly.”

As a rule, people resent being saved from themselves. And if you think depriving people of their right to make mistakes makes sense, you probably never had respect for their right to make decisions at all.

This is all relevant in the wake of the Brexit referendum, in which British citizens narrowly voted to exit the European Union. […]

Update: Here’s an interesting column about Brexit at Hit & Run.

‘Who Rules Over You?’ Is Democracy’s Most Important Question
If there shouldn’t have been a Brexit referendum, should there even be elections?

The Washington Post headline bluntly declares “Brexit is a reminder that some things just shouldn’t be decided by referendum.” [Sounds like Mr. Hannan quoting Jean-Claude Juncker, doesn’t it? Ed.]

Writer Emily Badger, whose focus is generally on urban policy, brings up American ballot initiatives—particularly those in California — as an example of how referendums can lead to bad outcomes, or rather outcomes that certain people don’t like.

After talking about a handful of Brits who publicly regret their vote (keep in mind that millions of people voted to leave), Badger points out correctly that public referendums can be used to undermine democratic institutions, both purposefully by special interest groups ranging from public sector unions to private corporations by directing taxes and government programs in their directions and by simple and not-so-simple unintended (or unpublicized) consequences.

Still, even when making this point, Badger commits some possibly unconscious biases to print when she writes about California, “Back in 1978, California voters generously decided in a ballot measure to cap their own property taxes in a way — amending the state constitution — that has hobbled ever since California’s ability to generate revenue and create reasonable housing policy.” The bold emphasis is mine to point out that her idea of a problematic referendum seems to inherently be anything that restrains the authority of the state. California’s ability to generate revenue has most assuredly not been hobbled even with this one restriction. It’s got some of the highest taxes and fees in the country. She uses “hobbled” to describe the idea that there are limits to what the state of California can afford to do, assuming that these are things that should be done.

But what should also be obvious during this entire “populist” vs. “elites” political battle happening both in the United States and Europe is that representative democracy under legislators has also led to taxes and government programs being directed to interest groups and all sorts of unintended or unpublicized consequences. And it’s an issue that some these same people do not want to seem to deal with. Instead, we get the “uneducated poor people voting against their own self-interest” arguments, like we see about Wales.

These responses are of the “These communities get more money from the European Union than they pay in” vein. We have seen similar arguments about American states who get more “money” from the federal government than they pay in taxes. Such an argument ignores the fact that these targeted communities don’t actually get more “money” than what they pay into the pool; what they get is more government administration and programs put together by various interest groups that tend to direct these subsidies to those with the right connections (in other words—”elites”). […]

The question of who rules over you is an elemental, central component of having a democratic republic. Treating Brexit like it’s just some complicated but very broad referendum is ignoring the nature of the question behind it. If British citizens shouldn’t get to vote whether to be in the European Union because they don’t “understand” all the issues involved, then why should they even get to vote on their legislators? Indeed, why have them vote at all?