Ask a stupid question and you'll get a stupid answer. That's what happened in the Italian referendum on nuclear power on Monday, where voters overwhelmingly backed anti-nuclear campaigners' demands to block any new atomic power in Italy. Referendums are not a good way to set energy policy, nor many other aspects of national policy either – if a referendum were held on capital punishment in Britain, a hefty majority would support bringing back hanging.
Bloody peasants!*
Yes, banning nuclear plants is rather inconvenient. But plenty of global warmers hate nuclear power more than they hate the prospect of the global warming they believe we are causing. The near enemy takes priority over the far enemy, so don't go blaming the dumb people without the benefits of higher education for the anti-nuclear opinion. Blame those elites for scaring people about nuclear energy for the past decades.
So Italy will endure the consequences of this vote. Perhaps when the rolling blackouts take place, they'll vote again and demand nuke plants and anything else that keeps the power flowing.
And God forbid that the worst criminals be punished by hanging if the majority wants that! The distrust of democracy is amazing. Yes, there should be limits so that the majority doesn't learn that it can vote to enrich itself at the expense of the minority, but questions of nuclear power and punishment for crime are hardly matters of plundering the economy. Rule of law safeguards are appropriate. Denying democracy is far worse than the problems of democracy.
That's what I'm on about! Did you see him repressing me? You saw him, Didn't you?
What I object to is you automatically treat me like an inferior.
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*With thanks to the Dennis the Peasant scene for many of the lines lifted from the script.
