Swiss vote no to total smoking ban in public places

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23 Sep 2012, 8:18 pm

Quote:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19690450

Voters in Switzerland have rejected a total ban on smoking in enclosed public places at a referendum.

Although Geneva voted slightly in favour, results from the country's other 25 cantons showed a majority of voters rejected a full ban.

Hotels, restaurants and bars are allowed rooms for smokers but critics say workers' health is at risk.

Restrictions introduced two years ago were watered down after lobbying from the catering trade and tobacco firms.

What do you think? There were three referendums yesterday - one of the features of Swiss representative direct democracy. The other two were about care for the elderly and the promotion of music for the young. There have been eight other federal referendums held this year in the country (five in March, three in June), making a total of eleven federal votes.

Jacoby
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23 Sep 2012, 8:53 pm

Switzerland is a country that US should strive to be more like

Tequila
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23 Sep 2012, 9:22 pm

Jacoby wrote:

Switzerland is a country that US should strive to be more like

I agree. Quite a bit of UKIP's policy is based on elements of the Swiss model.

ruveyn
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23 Sep 2012, 9:27 pm

Jacoby wrote:

Switzerland is a country that US should strive to be more like

That would be difficult. The U.S. is racially, religiously and culturally much more diverse than Switzerland. The U.S. was constructed by and made up of immigrants. Switzerland has been what it is for nearly a thousand years.

As Harry Lyme says in -The Third Man-.

In Italy that had murder, terror and violence, but they created Renaissance. In Switzerland they had 500 years of brotherhood and peace and what did they create? The coo coo clock.

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23 Sep 2012, 10:58 pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Swiss_people

The Mathematics section makes it evident a lot of our science wouldn't have quite worked without Swiss math contributions.

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xenon13
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23 Sep 2012, 11:35 pm

I maintain that Harry Lyme is the most despicable character in the history of cinema.

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24 Sep 2012, 12:13 am

i never understood why direct democracy isnt the defacto governmental type in the west of the 21st century.

our technology mitigates the biggest challenge in making it work, colllecting the votes and informing the public of said vote.
would it work everywhere, probably not, le sigh.

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enrico_dandolo
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24 Sep 2012, 3:18 am

Oodain wrote:

Switzerland doesn't have direct democracy. It has elements of direct democracy.

I am member of an association that works by direct democracy. In fact, I am even an elected representative of this association. Unlike our "representative democracy" counterparts, we representatives have no authority and must actually do what our members want. We are just the faces of our association, because it is difficult to have a full general assembly everywhere. When we take part in assemblies or meetings of other organisations, our representatives have to vote in accordance with our associations position: if there is a propostion condemning police brutality, they would have to vote in favour because the general assembly has voted a position on this; if there is a proposition supporting social democracy, they would have to abstain, because the associations has no position on this (AFAIK). Their own wishes don't enter into it.

Also, the decisions the executive council takes are either temporary until confirmation by the general assembly or can be overridden by it.

Oodain
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24 Sep 2012, 4:50 am

true in that it is only partly a direct democracy,
a full one would quickly bog down most people, so one would need a golden middle road.

perhaps something akin to the rep system you describe.

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enrico_dandolo
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24 Sep 2012, 6:00 am

Oodain wrote:

true in that it is only partly a direct democracy,
a full one would quickly bog down most people, so one would need a golden middle road.

perhaps something akin to the rep system you describe.

Actually, the one I describe is full direct democracy. However, the association has 340 members, and rarely more than 50 show up is general assemblies.

Any system needs officials or magistrates. The difference between direct and indirect democracy is not the number or existence of representatives, but their relation with the people whom they represent. In indirect democracy, there is almost no way to dismiss an elected representative, and none of those involve the people. The decisions of these representatives (or of their assemblies) are valid even if the people do not agree with them. The only real control is through punctual elections, which only choose one person, not individual policies.

However, under direct democracy, the people decide in all cases. The representatives only exist to do what the people want, since they are responsible before them. If the representative wants A but the people want B, the representative will have to do B. If he doesn't, his actions will not stand before the assembly, and he may be replaced by another at any time if the general assembly so wishes.

Tequila
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24 Sep 2012, 7:05 am

enrico_dandolo wrote:

Actually, the one I describe is full direct democracy.

Switzerland is a representative direct democracy. In the referendum of June, the Campaign for an Independent and Neutral Switzerland put a referendum to the people asking them if they'd like all international treaties to be put before the people. The voters rejected this, feeling that they had more than enough referendums to cope with in the first place.

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24 Sep 2012, 7:32 am

xenon13 wrote:

I maintain that Harry Lyme is the most despicable character in the history of cinema.

He is, but sometimes he is right. Especially about the Swiss with the exception of the Bernouli Family. They were not boring.

ruveyn

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