98% of us think that politicians have lost contact with the people (wow, that is what I call a vote). The underlying idea is that politicians listen less and less to what people think and what they want. Is that so? And if it were so, would that be good or bad?
Let us take a look at what happens if the people govern. There are two instruments which appear more direct and consequently nearer to the people than our representatives in parliament.
Folk light in the form of opinion surveys. Folk unfiltered in the form of a plebiscite.
Both will render the same result.
What you get is conservative decisions. As was seen after the last plebiscite on the educational reform in Hamburg. You can see it even better if you look at the plebiscite world champions in Switzerland over a long period of time.
In Switzerland, plebiscites have resulted in the preservation and conservation of what was before at a rate of almost 100 %: All remained as it was and has always been.
The alternative NEW almost always lost.
This conservative attitude of the people is too much even for conservative politicians: “I am a conservative and have a plan that takes up the modern changes in society without relinquishing the basic principles … a militant conservative must be careful not to concentrate on everything always remaining as it is.”
These are the words of Roland Koch, former prime minister in Hesse by his own confession a conservative in the CDU.
If a society wishes to avoid getting grounded or just living in the past, it has to accept experiments.
To be sure, the Stuttgart railroad track is just a minor one.
To be sure, all those inclines and insecure tunnels make it technologically complicated and therefore expensive.
The entire S21 is costly as hell.
Not just the much-loved buildings will be lost (I would never have imagined the ugly station had so many fans), but also lots of trees.
There is no doubt that S21 is an economical experiment.
Today, nobody can say what will be the end of S21. Or what the “Transrapid” would have looked like if there had been a political majority in its favour.
That is why we need politicians who, if need be, dare to go against the conservative people with an experiment.
Just as a people is absolutely necessary as an antithesis against politicians. As was seen with the propulsive force the book by Sarrazin on failed integration set free.
In order not to turn into a foul synthesis, thesis and anti-thesis need black-and-white thinking (that is where the weepy outcry of professional politicians who complained about Sarrazin’s style and the success caused by it – after they had, after all, spent years saying it all in a much more refined language – just ridiculous. Nobody had listened to them).
So what is now happening in Stuttgart is unavoidable – there is not enough confrontation without. The fact that, in the end, it will not be the better arguments (what is that?) that win, but the stronger will, also called power, leaves the game totally open. At the moment, there is absolutely no way to predict who will win. Personally, I wish the affair would end in favour of the political decision-makers and therefore in favour of the experiment S21.
May there again be politicians permitted to do their job.
SIX
(Translated by EG)