Back to Basics: Babel-18

Successful Communication: How?

In the previous blog Decrypting: What is Babel-17?, the lack of successful communication was pointed out with historic reference to the EURO debate and comparing it to today's EU debate and indeed seeing the "low drone" on BBC Question Time concerning The Norway Option, again and again and again, that substitutes thinking and communicating successfully, so successfully it's believed by so many to be "the real thing".

Daniel Dennett: Language allows us to "share knowledge and expertise" (rapidly)

In the above Daniel Dennett makes the telling observation that our language provides a high quality exchange of communication of ideas which can lead to a more rapid progress in solving problems and hence increasing knowledge.

There has been enormous "EXCLUSION" of people and experts from EU Debate. This has increased "OMISSION" of large areas of ideas from the debate. What we see & hear is "Babel-17".

Likewise the opposite holds, the omission of ideas will reduce the flow of ideas and increase in knowledge that is required to solve current problems collectively. An example of this is Exclusion from debate eg:-

Monbiot Grandstands At Environmental Committee, But Expert Witness Is Banned

This exclusion often goes in tandem with omission, though of course not always because knowledge and information depend on the total current state of knowledge (assuming it is all equally accessible!) which itself sits upon more unknowns than knowns and equally reflected in the number of people who have expert knowledge to those that do not.

An example of how this exclusion works and how it applies to our failing democracy:-

EU Referendum: democracy is broken

David Cameron "shares false ideas" to the Nation without challenge: There's no exchange of ideas only dictatorship of delivery of "dictated ideas".

It might considered that in choosing examples such as Dr. North that I too am excluding ideas that I don't like? Well I'm not I can look for the clearest ideas about the EU from it's most intelligent and honest proponents such as Andrew Duff:-

• ‘Facilitating Coexistence’: the endgame for Brexit 
• If not ‘ever closer union’, what next for Europe?

Andrew Duff is an expert on the EU and the EU Treaties and it's very easy to spot his consistency because he refers directly to the written words in the EU Treaties themselves to support his advocacy of the purpose of the European Union Political Project. In coming to my decision about my ideas about the European Union I am attempting to understand the other position that exists within the minds of these people. I'm sharing their ideas to come up with more ideas and in my case alternative ideas I find to be stronger.

Let's take an example of this. Stephen Pinker calls the problem of language communication the transition between:-

A Web of Ideas:-

 A String of Words:-

So we might hold a conversation about EU Membership and start it off with: "I'm Pro-EU because by being an EU Member it helps "achieving a cleaner and greener Britain."

I have a lot of sympathy for this sub-argument by itself and you'd assume that "Green Groups" must therefore be in full support of the EU? For example:-

Beavers in Scotland: A report to Scottish Government

"Assessing the need for beaver reintroduction has a legal basis, in particular the ‘Habitats Directive’. This requires EU Member States to study the desirability of reintroducing certain species, such as Eurasian beaver. The potential for beaver reintroduction to contribute to the aims of the ‘2020 Challenge for Scotland’s Biodiversity’ (related to Natura 2000) is a further consideration"

 Looking at,

p.194 "Appendix 2: Summary  of Applicable Legislation" ((not exhaustive but most reflective):-

• Habitats Directive
• Fisheries and Salmond Act
• Pests and Disease and Control Directive
• Animal Welfare Act
• Countryside Act
• Nature Conservation Act
• European Zoo Directive
• Water Framework Directive
• Floods Directive
• Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive

 Etc!
So even taking a highly specific case we easily get bogged down in the vast string of words required to describe the argument just for Beavers!

But this comes back to the above about "Exclusion and Omission". It seems like Monbiot's idea of planting trees in upland areas is a good idea. It certainly appeals to me and contributes to biodiversity and "Re-Wilding Brtain". But what if his evidence and ideas are not good enough given another set of ideas and research by another expert who was excluded and hence who's ideas were omitted? Well, it could have been a chance to refine those ideas. Maybe planting trees may help in some situations. Maybe in combination reintroduction of dam-building Beavers "could" also help much more effectively in slowing down the water flow?

Who knows. The exchange of ideas has been deprived of exploring and refining ideas which are inadequate by themselves. On the purely conservation side of reintroducing Beavers, I went to a talk at The Royal Zoological Society and the evidence was overwhelmingly that they are a net positive for biodiversity and habitat enrichment albeit not without some minor knock-on negative implications in specific areas.

The EU has taken on "totemic" significance in UK Politics: Beyond real democracy

I think if there's one argument that is most important against the EU membership it's this exclusion and omission and hence reduction of ideas. We have EFTA/EEA nations that have proven to be more prosperous than EZ/EEA nations suffering under the EUROZONE Crisis; yet our Prime Minister lies about "The Norway Option" repeatedly and deigns not to mention the EURO and our previous suggestion of membership of this at all.

Coming back to improving our communication again from Stephen Pinker:-

We have to find the means of establishing a shared focus of joint attention before productive communication of ideas is promoted; or else the quality of our communication is improved - in simple language!! It seems to me this is very important where we are talking and using strings of words to convey our ideas.

If it's possible to build up that "intellectual architecture" of a "web of ideas" to organize our thoughts and allow us to relate our arguments to an overall structure I think this will help reduce the detrimental tendencies of our politicians on both sides of the EU debate to exclude and omit ideas that expand the argument and increase knowledge and understanding subsequently.

 Web Of Ideas rejecting major arguments that are "Pro-EU". LHS: The arguments are generic and not exclusive to the EU. Middle: Political Union IS exclusive to EU Membership which I reject. The other major headline reasons I also reject and can use "headline" arguments to deal with economically and hence communicate effectively.

In the above digression on Beavers I was supportive of x1 Pro-EU idea except I believe it's not necessarily dependent on "Political Union" and may even be improved if we remove "political union". Yet I was bogged down in vast detail on a side of a side of a sub-specialist argument of a string of words!

Looking at my summary of ideas above to visualize ideas, the one "tick" is for Single Market access. Knowing The full EFTA/EEA aka "The Norway Option" argument for this I am very happy with this. Yet too many Pro-Brexit / Anti-EU supporters fail to appreciate this argument as per:-

The time has come to ignore the Leave campaigns

"For most European observers and officials this just won’t happen. No country has full access to the single market without making a contribution to the EU budget and accepting the four freedoms – and no such exception would be made for Britain. Campaigners assume that on Britain leaving, the EU’s remaining 27 members would be intent on helping. This is paradoxical given that the same people campaign to leave on the basis of these states’ unwillingness to accede to British demands for reform."

I read this before then seeing it on Pete North's blog site. Irrespective that the author Jacek Rostowski is correct here, what he's done is single out x1 argument from a set of flawed ideas supported by the major Leave Campaigns.

In doing so he's able to limit and reduce (ie omit and exclude ideas) the Pro-Brexit argument and then speak via "authority" on the sanctioned ideas aka more Babel-17:-

"I have seen for myself, at more than 60 meetings of finance ministers, the influence Britain has when in the room. Decisions to deepen the single market, cut the EU budget (unfortunately), reduce the legislative burden and increase competitiveness have all been taken in response to British voices. Over 40 years of membership, the UK has negotiated advantages for itself on a vast range of issues, especially financial services. This influence would be immediately relinquished at the point of a leave vote, as remaining members would position themselves to “divvy up” the British cake."

It's a great shame this grand speaker does not clear up both sides of the argument for everybody.

I have, On the one side The Fundamental Law of the EU and 40 years of trends of our membership to compare and contrast with the other side you have The Market Solution.

Each is a web of ideas. What we need is more open and more effective communication on each for lots of different people to share these ideas. But there is a qualitative choice:-

• Pro-EU: Listen to Leaders: You will get minor change in service of the present conditions.
• Pro-Brexit: Listen to Experts: You will eventually get major changes in service of the future conditions; but you will not likely be able to recognize it: It is for many/most "unknown unknowns". But these are just the kind of changes that equate to the sharing and increase of real knowledge.

The Leaders are good at excluding it seems to me. Whereas the experts are good at identifying what ideas are omitted: And hence changing the entire nature of the argument - if they are allowed to be included - in our communication of ideas or "democracy".

Legitimacy & Listening

1984: 2 + 2 = 4 == Political Freedom

In George Orwell's 1984, the character Winston Smith comes to the conclusion that in his totalitarian society, the freedom to say the above mathematical truth without negative political repercussion is the genesis for all subsequent political change. It's a statement that is independent of personal subjectivity; an objective truth of the world around us and indeed the exercise of realizing this allows us to realize that we exist in a world separate than ourselves and this is also true for other people. The other type of relationships which also form another equally important environment as well as this physical "reality" is our Social environment or relationships with each other.

Objective Reality: Pythagoras' Theorem: The Square of the Hypoteneuse

Various "Group Cohesion" rituals (submission to the dominance of the group) are based on suppressing the tendency in individuals to promote the ego's agenda, our survival instinct as per our "will to survive" and our desire to benefit ourselves and also our kin. A major feature of this system is Social Status in dictating the TYPE of interaction between individuals which is conducive to avoiding the clash of individuals' egos leading to physical violence with one another. Such interactions invariably can be boiled down to Dominance-Submission in Social Status Interactions and attempts at interchanges between these social roles.

 Ricky Gervais: The Office - A comedy of social status & real world role-playing of dominance interchanges

Perhaps Ricky Gervais' The Office is an instrumental example of the comedy involved in this pervasive form of human interaction? I often found the office environment especially dull in the type of predictable communication that takes place between different people role-playing and attempting to continually out-rank each other. Looking at this from a research point of view Uniforms: A Certificate of Legitimacy, we can see that people "comply" very strongly to the symbols of authority:-

University of Warwick Study: Compliance to Roles of Authority

Reading recently King Arthur: The True Story, it reminded me of J.R.R Tolkien's theory about some stories that act like an allegorical "Soup" from Leaf And Tree. There is a basic stock to the story from which different people at different times throughout history add their ingredients or "lumps" into the soup that becomes the story we know of today. Such narratives for example ancestor worship which beget some of the "stock foundations of modern religions" which invariably across the world all add this to other parts of the "stock" such as Creation Myth Stories. For example the stories of Abraham are full of geneological tracings back to "direct relationships" with God ("Good").

In the story of King Arthur, one of the later lumps thrown into the story adding to the base stock was it seems an attempt by the Norman nobility to propaganda the story with their direct links to this historic and mythic King of Britain so as to encourage greater links to legitimacy of their right to rule the Ango-Saxons via bypassing them to a Celtic/Roman prior claim to such a title! Of course much of this also carries on the back of persuading the people of a common shared system of values often assumed in the doctrine of Divine Right of Kings, but no less a major component of Legitimacy:-

"Legitimacy is a ‘…a psychological property of an authority, institution, or social arrangement that leads those connected to it to believe that it is appropriate, proper, and just’. Thus viewed, legitimacy is the belief that the law and agents of the law are rightful holders of authority; that they have the right to dictate appropriate behaviour and are entitled to be obeyed; and that laws should be obeyed simply because that is the right thing to do."

(Although the legend/myth/history of King Arthur points to an deeper level of legitimacy than merely the literal imposition of "divine right"). A more historic though equally dramatized story by William Shakespeare is Richard III.

Fact or fiction: the Machiavellian rise to power & short reign of Richard III

Interestingly Richard III is particularly depicted with villainous attributes by William Shakeaspeare, and as last of the Plantagenets before the Tudor succession of "Royal legitimacy" began, perhaps William Shakespeare was currying favour with the powers of the day in order to successfully hold his plays and be well received publicly and politically via such propaganda easing the thorny issues of legitimacy? Such seems likely when a fuller more historic picture is produced such as from The Richard III Society - A Brief Biography and Introduction to Richard's Reputation it seems a significant misattrubution of Richard III's character has been achieved by Shakeaspeare directly related to the issue of legitimacy and the new authority of the new King.

This theme of the interchange between Authority and Legitimacy appears to arise in another form in Dr. RAE North's The Many And The Few book. What appears to have been necessary propaganda during World War II's The Blitz and Battle Of Britain by the RAF to encourage people (bombing reporting changed, emphasis on the bravery of the RAF) what subsequently has been discounted is the efforts of so MANY people.

Necessary propaganda for it's time, but now national narrative that undermines The Many?

And this is directly relevant to today: We are governed by a few over the many. Fitting this into a general schema:-

• Governance Type 1: One-Many: Divine / Metaphysical Legitimacy and hence Authority (Islamic Civilization)
• Governance Type 2: Few-Many: The "Capable" Few Legitimacy and hence Authority (Western Civilization)
• Governance Type 3: Many-Many: Real Democracy Many Legitimacy and hence Authority (Globalization)

I think one of the dangers to progression of the above, is mixing the problems of one civilization to another in the role of governance and hence legitimacy and authority as per Roger Scruton in The Road To The European Union. For many people the recent tragedy and terrorism in Paris will be to ask questions about Islamists/extremists. I think if you look at the above schema you see that Governance Type 1 as per Richard III for another example leads to a more violent world however that manifests, the rise in violence is the result. The statistics as per Samuel Huntington in The Clash Of Civilizations tends to back this up if you re-classify via the above schema where the One may be a legal or national government and the many may be multiple tribal communities/factions all under one nominal rule for example divine rule but practically fractious: Authority cannot be derived from tenuous legitimacy alone, and hence violence and los of political freedom invariably arises from Dominance via power and conflict.

 Legitimacy Theory: Cognitive, Moral and EXTERNAL Pragmatic underpinnings

In the Western Civilization, by contrast, the notion of divine rule has passed, it is too subjective a relationship: The basis of nations has shifted emphasis of power from family or tribal units towards individuals (citizens) and the state/nation. The overhead of group cohesion of tribal units is less and hence the secularization of politics from religion and perhaps the trend of less violence in the world that Stephen Pinker describes in The Better Angels of Our Nature correlates positively with as per Democratic Peace Theory or as per Amartya Sen:-

''No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy,''  [This, he explained, is because democratic governments] ''have to win elections and face public criticism, and have strong incentive to undertake measures to avert famines and other catastrophes.''

National symbols and democratic electoral voting systems now provide legitimacy of rule of law and authority of government in the exectutive and legislative functions of governance of the people. I remember reading a report from one of the Global Bodies such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP):-

 Development Index Map from 2010

You can see above a general pattern: Type 2 Governance appears to lead to higher measures on the multiple indexes of development of societies across multiple data sets. If we look at the tragedy of Paris this week, we can at least take solace and comfort in perceiving these two very broad and very general patterns between the two types and KNOW we are progressive and such actors of terror are regressive and they are merely pawns of greater trends of violence due to out-moded and pragmatically poor results of governance.

However, there's a cautionary tale: We don't appear to as yet hold a vision of current trend that is possible towards Type 3 Governance (Many-Many) which it seems is "container" tag or description of use connecting the process of Globalization and interconnectivity between nations and the effect of this on our Type 2 Governance such as the UK's "Representative Democracy".

Pete North: What is David Campbell Bannerman smoking?

An example of the politician projecting dominance and hence not listening

"UPDATE: I challenged Bannerman on these points. His response was repeated obfuscation with totally irrelevant points, followed by blocking me. I suspect he just doesn't understand the point at all. These people are not up to the job of running the leave campaign." 

 This may not be the best example, as twitter is notoriously shallow for communication, but I tend to see the dominance behaviour in many such as DCB, Daniel Hannan, Ruth Lea, Dominic Cummings and of course in David Cameron. Apparently Arron Banks also does this: Most people do: But do they also allow themselves to listen?  Our government has had 43 years to use their capacity to understand and educate this understanding to people in the UK: They have not listened and have concerned themselves with the apearance of legitimacy only as per previous blogs: Argumentum Ad Infinitum or Pattern Recognition or Our Government: No ifs, buts or maybes.

What our government has done is effectively take 43 years worth of membership and cram all of that, all the undemocratic major Treaties (x7) into the voting public making a single day's choice x1 on the upcoming EU Referendum day.

That is the most damning illegitimacy of our government: The Few-Many Relationship In Action.

One of the problems of the Type 2 Governance that does not seem to appeal to Type 1 is the loss of "Moral Authority" as per the concept diagram above. Equally what WE must concentrate on is the quality of the "Cognitive Legitimacy" of our Government in this system and it's relationship to Pragmatic Legitimacy of execution of policy. Our politicians appear to hold very very low Moral Legitimacy, they are characters similar to the schemers we enjoy watching on our televisions such as Game Of Thrones: Chaos is a Ladder. In previous blog posts the lies over the EU by David Cameron remove all or any moral authority he ever purported to hold. Eating a hot-dog or drinking a beer with another world leader are all "mummer's farce" designed to make him appear to be "one of the people by the people for the people": He excuses his privileged position of Eton and Oxford and mentoring for Number 10 Downing Street but is yet another Prime Minister from such an "aristocratic" background.

We have detailed The Great Deception of our Government and David Cameron over the EU as well as the failures of our Government to promote prosperity, namely they lack Pragmatic Legitimacy too which must be down to a lack of Cognitive Legitimacy. Peter Hitchens makes the point that democratic legitimacy, the system itself is a set-up for such people:

Peter Hitchens: Does our government have any right to rule us?

Coming back to David Cameron's democratic legitimacy: The Harrogate Agenda: An Opportunity For THA:-

Dominance-Submissive Interaction In-Built into our politics = No Communication because there is no listening pressure; only dominance projection

"Direct election would correct a manifest unfairness in our current arrangements, exemplified by Prime Minister David Cameron who gained office by virtue of 33,973 votes in the 2010 general election. All those votes were cast in the constituency of Witney, which boasted 78,220 electors. The rest of the nation was not allowed to vote for the man. He may have been elected as an MP, but he was not elected as prime minister through a general franchise. 

Furthermore, when Mr Cameron holds office on the back of 10,703,654 Conservative votes, from an electorate of 45,844,691, his franchise represents only 36 percent of the votes cast and less than a quarter (23 percent) of the overall electorate. In any election, the PM hardly ever reflects the choice of leader for the nation."

In George Orwell's 1984 quote:-

• Type 1: "True": 2 + 2 = 4 ;  2 + 2 = 5
• Type 2: True: 2 + 0 = 2 (Spin) => True: 2 - 2 = 0
• Type 3: True: 2 + 2 = 4 (Apparently only if governments are made up of the governed themselves... and hence listen to themselves)

In Type 1 Governance, there's a deep issue with even the political freedoms of the first assertion. In Type 2 Governance we assume that our Government at least may have some legitimacy but their lying and their ineffective Governance is merely "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.' ~ Churchill. However what's actually true, is that  the Cognitive Legitimacy is related to the Pragmatic Legitimacy (eg ERM via Lawson/Howe, eg 2008 Financial Crisis via Brown as per Lakshmi: Goddess of Prosperity (2) ).

Looking at that above index, nations that score highly appear to be well ordered, organized and in general employ greater democracy such as Norway (strong grass-roots movements) and Switzerland (direct democracy). If we start with 2 + 2 = 4 a basic truth in our communication, and we avoid the dominance of politics by "The Few" aka The Establishment, then we may find that comunication is opened up and stronger Cognitive application to our national decision making is effected... this cannot be done in the EU by the way:
Our dispute with the EU cannot be resolved

Strategy week: the politics of expectation

 The British Model = Cameron = Our National Politics low quality = Not Listening

But first we have to understand Legitimacy and it's relationship to Dominance before our "leaders" start listening to "We The People". We have a plan FLEXCIT, and there are many other Brexit plans all inferior cognitively, but if your leaders are not listening then we have the illegitimate liar David Cameron and his warmongering, recession-inducing "leaders" leading us into a series of future unfortunate events: Strategy week: the politics of expectation 

We have a choice who to listen to as per White Wednesday:-

Strategy week: triangulation

 Listening & Legitimacy: I don't think either Leave.EU/Vote_Leave or BSE listen given they're made of the same people as Cameron and Osborne.

In my opinion the stronger triangulation for any voter to think about is this: Which "triangle" holds Greater Cognitive Legitimacy and consequently can also exhibit Morally Greater Legitimacy (attempting to work honestly and present results as they are)? Can we suppose that those two combined will yield Greater Pragmatic Legitimacy, too?

 Power To The People

Freedom is the freedom to BE ABLE to say... and be heard.

OMG !!!! Parakeet invasion

BBC2 - The Great British Parakeet Invasion

The above mini-documentary on Rose-Ringed Parakeets is a very 'watchable' mixture of entertainment and investigation by the BBC: It's done with a balanced, playful tone at the same time as being informative and avoiding either sentimentality or hostility. It's not seeking to increase the dosage for servicing peoples' "emotional hits".

This is an example of a positive and balanced "investigative and discursive journalism" that aims to be informative and entertaining. It could do with a few more numbers on the actual population, a few more contributions from scientists studying their "impact" for both ecologically positive and negative outcomes as an "invasive" and now naturalised species. But overall it is inviting and inclusive of opinions and simultaneously fun. The best quality is that it is produced with confidence in letting the subject matter "do the talking" and leaving overall judgement and interpretation to the viewer.

There's something oddly familiar-sounding...

To compare to The Daily Mail which decides more of peoples' "emotional-buttons" need pressing to increase it's "attractive/detractive-value" or what people otherwise term "Deliberate (Professional) Trolling" of readers. Indeed, the RSPB "Giving Nature A Home" advise:-

'It is important that the spread of the ring-necked parakeet is monitored, and its potential for negative impacts on our native bird species assessed.'

If the parakeet population were to continue to grow, the implications for our native species must be closely monitored. The Government is obliged to ensure that non-native species do not adversely affect native wildlife, and is currently developing a policy framework for addressing the possible risks associated with such species becoming established.

And here we have "The 2 Overruling Themes" on our own National Conversations concerning Migration Policy often reported as "Immigration Stories" of one kind or another in the Legacy News-Media.

1. Communication: Hot-Buttons

Stephen Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature :-

"Aside from supplying a direct justification for violent conflict, the ideology of intergroup struggle ignites a nasty feature of human social psychology: the tendency to divide people into in-groups and out-groups and to treat the out-groups as less than human. It doesn't matter whether the groups are thought to be defined by their biology or by their history. Psychologists have found that they can create instant intergroup hostility by sorting people on just about any pretext, including the flip of a coin."

 According to Westphalian sovereignty :-

"Westphalian sovereignty is the principle of international law that each nation state has sovereignty over its territory and domestic affairs, to the exclusion of all external powers, on the principle of non-interference in another country's domestic affairs, and that each state (no matter how large or small) is equal in international law. The doctrine is named after the Peace of Westphalia, signed in 1648... As European influence spread across the globe, the Westphalian principles, especially the concept of sovereign states, became central to international law and to the prevailing world order.

International relations theorists have identified several key principles of the Peace of Westphalia, which explain the Peace's significance and its impact on the world today":

1. The principle of the sovereignty of states and the fundamental right of political self determination
2. The principle of legal equality between states
3. The principle of non-intervention of one state in the internal affairs of another state

In The Road To The European Union we looked at a comparison between different forms of governance via Roger Scruton's series of articles which concluded the significance of National Borders and hence Sovereignty to Nation States and the preconditions for Democracy such as The Rule Of Law etc, eloquently summarized by Jesus Christ Matthew 22:20-22 King James Version (KJV), whom Roger Scruton quotes:-

"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's"

To add the context above, effectively National Democracies form "in-groups" and "out-groups" as such it will inevitably be a "hot button topic" in the nature of arguments that follow. From this statement of fact, it follows that due care and management of both: Communication and Policy are needed for the handling of Migration Policy at the National Level of good governance.

2. Migration Policy: A Government Dereliction of Duty

In Literature and Science we came to a hugely significant conclusion concerning the Visibility Of Arguments vs Quality of Arguments, to recap:-

• Media, UKIP, Establishment: Immigration > EU > Democracy 
• FLEXCIT: Democracy > EU > Immigration

 United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP)

 This inference is backed up in two ways: First, the argument we make here (above) and secondly looking at a history of The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) (cheekily referred to as the UK-immigration-P); it demonstrates the growth curve away from being dismissed as a:-

"UKIP was founded in 1991 by the historian Alan Sked as the Anti-Federalist League, a single-issue Eurosceptic party. Renamed UKIP in 1993, the party adopted a wider right-wing platform and gradually increased its support vote over the coming two decades. Under Farage's leadership, from 2009 the party tailored its policies toward a politically disenfranchised white working-class support base, before making significant breakthroughs in the 2013 local elections and the 2014 European elections, where UKIP received the most votes. At the 2015 general election, the party gained the third largest vote share but won only one seat in the House of Commons.

"In 2006, Farage was elected leader of UKIP. He sought to broaden UKIP's image away from that of a single-issue party by introducing an array of socially conservative policies, including reducing immigration"

 UKIP EU Parliament Elections Results 2014

The numbers provided at wikipedia completely back up the growth of UKIP and it's politically impressive and significant to the state of our arguments. Looking also at:-

• A summary history of immigration to Britain
• Immigration Under Labour
• European Union | Key Topics

The full picture of the visibility of Migration Policy such that polling represents (in so much as polling represents anything of use - wet thumb for wind direction): Opinion Poll Results on Immigration shows this effect asserting itself in tandem with UKIP's political numbers and support growth.

However, UKIP and Immigration Polling are all about Visibility of Arguments, they represent (an especial topic for national democracies to be sensitive concerning) which are symptoms and effects of policy failure or lack of policy from our Government - not - the actual causes.

Dr. RAE North documents Government policy failure with perspicacity and detail:-

Migration: dealing with the problems
Migration: a continued parade of ignorance
Migration: the UN intervenes
Migration: the pot speaks of the kettles
Migration: reducing the pull factors
Immigration: not an EU issue?
Immigration: joined-up policy needed
Immigration: a series of marginal gains
Immigration: not quite what it appears
Immigration: the "pull factors" prevail
Immigration: the rehearsal is over
Immigration: a perfect storm in the offing?
Immigration: amateur time is over
Immigration: a "resolute Conservative government"
Immigration: a free pass for "criminals"
Immigration: opportunities galore
Immigration: Eritrea – confusion and ambiguity
Immigration: in the year to come
Immigration: a tale of incompetence
Immigration: Pegida hits a new record
 
A lot of the main arguments are summarized in FLEXCIT. Dr. RAE North as you can see provides a vast analysis of Migration Policy, and both deeper and broader than Migration Watch, as well as far more contextual and impartial. But it shows the complex web of Policy Failure that is the true measure of the Quality of Argument and you compare it to UKIP's website, which is so barren of information to educate yourself with, by contrast: They don't need to regarding relying on the visibility of arguments only:-

Legacy Media: "Pushing your buttons"

Ultimately we can establish a hierarchy: 

• "Representative Democracy" fails to represent voters.
•  The Political Party in office is more concerned with holding power than working on "joined-up policy" across not just Migration, but the EU, Energy, Defence etc.
• This incoherence is amplified in the News-Media along with various Political Correctness orthodoxy or "Groupthink".
• In turn the underlying tenets of National Democracy start to strain and the rise of alternative parties such as UKIP are a direct result of the Top-Down Crystallization of Westminster Politics under the further and continuous Centralization of the EU.
• Improving the quality of our arguments even if this appears less expedient than pushing the visibility value of arguments (which is where prestige is able to sustain no productive changes) will help people see beyond their normal moral filters and start to find greater consensus: Which means greater democratic representation and removing barriers towards that.

Coming back to the Parakeet examples of people's numerous varied reactions:-

Parakeets: "Flying secateurs" or "colourful characters"?

The above perfectly summarizes the hyper-emotional level of debate: Highly visible but extremely shallow and hence poor quality arguments: Mostly sentiment: Sentimentality and hostility. Towards Sir James Goldsmith's speech in The Referendum Party's Election video in Our Government: "Ifs, Buts, Maybes" he mentions that the great property of democracies is the ability of opposing groups with different views to accept the other side's arguments in a fair vote, fairly represented and hence "democracy heals itself". This property is not possible within the EU and is also very lacking in our own government at Westminster.

Previusly, the trend is from accusing UKIP, Dr. RAE North: EU Referendum: migrant misinformation. Then more people realize there's also something wrong with our media "in on it too" as per Lost Leonardo: A User’s Guide To The New Media and sooner or later it will work it's way back to the Government, The Brexit Door: Mrs May, Twittter & The politics of independence

When we gain more consensus closer to the ultimate source, then we will see that the argument beyond the government was all along within ours, the people's power to change things and force the govenment to actually work according to democracy. But in order to do that, all of:-

• UKIP
• Legacy News-Media
• Our Government
• Ourselves, The People

Must start using higher quality arguments according the fair rules of Real Democracy.  I personally believe UK/Britain has been one of the most tolerance and welcoming nations in the entire world and that we have one of the best and most cosmopolitan cities in the world in London where a lot of migration is focused.But without real democracy, those values and collective virtues of our culture are undermined; "our national treasures" as a people are tarnished by the politicians in power.

Rose-Ringed Parakeet tail-feather

Here's the tail-feather of a newly fledged Rose-Ringed Parakeet, I inadvertently saved from a Sparrowhawk, over the Summer. By everyone managing to improve the quality of their arguments across the board and not merely their visibility we'll all be able to "put a feather in our caps" for real democracy (pardon the pun!).