Thai Politicians Have Failed The People Yet Again

[animatic]

What is about to happen in coming days?

There seems to be a big propaganda push, as usually happens before Thaksin tries a big move. We are presently seeing an inflow of all same topic 'new posters and handles' directly linked to supporting the current government for classic PTP/ Thaksin /Redshirt reasoning. This seems unlikely to be a coincidence.

So expect January to not be 'uneventful'. I expect to be shouted down regularly by those same in the near future. Along with old stalwarts of course. I'd say round 3, round 7, 12, 25..., but we're way way past this pattern being; freestyle, chaos driven, or random chance.

Edited December 29, 2011 by animatic

[animatic]

Carry on... I'm out of here.

Bye bye.

Have a nice retirement, with the gold watch.

Edited December 29, 2011 by animatic

[rixalex]

Alright - call off the yellow dogs, ...

I am not the one who has a problem with the number of votes the PTP received.

Every time a poster states anything close to "the majority of Thais, ..." there is a contingent here who jumps on their post and says "no, no, no, ... only 48%", or whatever else they want to say.

The fact of the matter is the context of most of these statements is clear. The meaning is clear. Majority in the sense of "most votes received" is a perfectly accurate and accepted use of the English language and if there is a group here who cannot accept that, then excuse me, but it is not my fault and I personally don't give a rip if you understand English or not.

Carry on... I'm out of here.

If you were remotely interested in the meaning being clear, you would simply state, PTP won the most votes. I appreciate though, that when making statements like, "well if you don't like what PTP is doing.." it sounds a much better put down to complete that thought with "...it doesn't matter because the majority of voters voted for them". Simply saying that they won the most votes doesn't quite have the same emphatic ring to it.

[TAWP]

I am not the one who has a problem with the number of votes the PTP received.

Neither does any of the posters above. It is clearly an attempt to alleviate the clouds of obfuscation that some posters like to put forward.

I would think being clear and factual would be in everyone's interest.

Every time a poster states anything close to "the majority of Thais, ..." there is a contingent here who jumps on their post and says "no, no, no, ... only 48%", or whatever else they want to say.

The fact of the matter is the context of most of these statements is clear. The meaning is clear. Majority in the sense of "most votes received" is a perfectly accurate and accepted use of the English language and if there is a group here who cannot accept that, then excuse me, but it is not my fault and I personally don't give a rip if you understand English or not.

The meaning isn't clear. Did you see the post above, that the proper term is 'plurality' when one want to make a distinction?

But that isn't what you want.

And next week we will have another Red Shirt-fan that posts that PTP got an overwhelming majority or that 'most people in Thailand' voted for them or that 'everyone but Bangkok' voted for them and every other nonsense that we have seen repeated multiple times over the last months.

I'm not having a problem with the election results. PTP-fans seemingly have, since they have to change it all the time.

Carry on... I'm out of here.

B-bye.

[Moruya]

Alright - call off the yellow dogs, ...

I am not the one who has a problem with the number of votes the PTP received.

Every time a poster states anything close to "the majority of Thais, ..." there is a contingent here who jumps on their post and says "no, no, no, ... only 48%", or whatever else they want to say.

The fact of the matter is the context of most of these statements is clear. The meaning is clear. Majority in the sense of "most votes received" is a perfectly accurate and accepted use of the English language and if there is a group here who cannot accept that, then excuse me, but it is not my fault and I personally don't give a rip if you understand English or not.

Carry on... I'm out of here.

Let me paint a simple picture.

There are 100 bananas.

48% are red.

30% are yellow

22% are green.

60% are greater than 8 inches long

40% are 8 inches or less

There are more red bananas than any other colour.

There are fewer green bananas than any other colour.

Green bananas and yellow bananas outnumber red bananas.

The majority of bananas are greater than 8 inches long.

Shorter bananas are in the minority.

If you select a banana at random, the probability is that it will not be red

If you put all the bananas top to tail and measured them in milimeters it would roughly equal the amount of times people who understand what a majority is have attempted to explain to to those who don't.

[TAWP]

Alright - call off the yellow dogs, ...

I am not the one who has a problem with the number of votes the PTP received.

Every time a poster states anything close to "the majority of Thais, ..." there is a contingent here who jumps on their post and says "no, no, no, ... only 48%", or whatever else they want to say.

The fact of the matter is the context of most of these statements is clear. The meaning is clear. Majority in the sense of "most votes received" is a perfectly accurate and accepted use of the English language and if there is a group here who cannot accept that, then excuse me, but it is not my fault and I personally don't give a rip if you understand English or not.

Carry on... I'm out of here.

If you were remotely interested in the meaning being clear, you would simply state, PTP won the most votes. I appreciate though, that when making statements like, "well if you don't like what PTP is doing.." it sounds a much better put down to complete that thought with "...it doesn't matter because the majority of voters voted for them". Simply saying that they won the most votes doesn't quite have the same emphatic ring to it.

Guess that is the point. They want to make it sound like more than half of the nation stands behind any decision made, instead of it being the plurality of a reduced count (countries population vs those allowed to vote voters vs those that did vote).

The dictatorship of a majority is infact the dictatorship of the minority. But I digress...

[Gweiloman]

Alright - call off the yellow dogs, ...

I am not the one who has a problem with the number of votes the PTP received.

Every time a poster states anything close to "the majority of Thais, ..." there is a contingent here who jumps on their post and says "no, no, no, ... only 48%", or whatever else they want to say.

The fact of the matter is the context of most of these statements is clear. The meaning is clear. Majority in the sense of "most votes received" is a perfectly accurate and accepted use of the English language and if there is a group here who cannot accept that, then excuse me, but it is not my fault and I personally don't give a rip if you understand English or not.

Carry on... I'm out of here.

If you were remotely interested in the meaning being clear, you would simply state, PTP won the most votes. I appreciate though, that when making statements like, "well if you don't like what PTP is doing.." it sounds a much better put down to complete that thought with "...it doesn't matter because the majority of voters voted for them". Simply saying that they won the most votes doesn't quite have the same emphatic ring to it.

Guess that is the point. They want to make it sound like more than half of the nation stands behind any decision made, instead of it being the plurality of a reduced count (countries population vs those allowed to vote voters vs those that did vote).

The dictatorship of a majority is infact the dictatorship of the minority. But I digress...

Fact of the matter is that only a (small) minority voted for the Dems. Sad that even after all this time, some here can't seem to accept that.

In a democracy, the democratically elected government has the mandate of the people to govern - it does not matter whether the majority voted for them or not.

[Moruya]

Alright - call off the yellow dogs, ...

I am not the one who has a problem with the number of votes the PTP received.

Every time a poster states anything close to "the majority of Thais, ..." there is a contingent here who jumps on their post and says "no, no, no, ... only 48%", or whatever else they want to say.

The fact of the matter is the context of most of these statements is clear. The meaning is clear. Majority in the sense of "most votes received" is a perfectly accurate and accepted use of the English language and if there is a group here who cannot accept that, then excuse me, but it is not my fault and I personally don't give a rip if you understand English or not.

Carry on... I'm out of here.

If you were remotely interested in the meaning being clear, you would simply state, PTP won the most votes. I appreciate though, that when making statements like, "well if you don't like what PTP is doing.." it sounds a much better put down to complete that thought with "...it doesn't matter because the majority of voters voted for them". Simply saying that they won the most votes doesn't quite have the same emphatic ring to it.

Guess that is the point. They want to make it sound like more than half of the nation stands behind any decision made, instead of it being the plurality of a reduced count (countries population vs those allowed to vote voters vs those that did vote).

The dictatorship of a majority is infact the dictatorship of the minority. But I digress...

Fact of the matter is that only a (small) minority voted for the Dems. Sad that even after all this time, some here can't seem to accept that.

In a democracy, the democratically elected government has the mandate of the people to govern - it does not matter whether the majority voted for them or not.

If Genghis Khan and Adolf Hitler campaigned to double the salaries, make everyone rich by Christmas, triple the price paid to farmers for their produce and give every man, woman and soi dog a laptop and a credit card that you never have to pay back then they, too, could govern Thailand. No problem there.

However I think it says a lot about Snow White and her plethora of promises that even emptying the countries coffers and filling the proletariat's pockets with the goodies still only got them 48%.

When the reality sets in, then we shall see how popular this bunch of grave robbers really is

[binjalin]

slice it how you want, 65% did not vote for the democrats.

Exactly

And a majority did NOT vote for PTP. Point being?

What is YOUR point ???

The fact remains they got a majority of the vote and a substantial majority of seats.

PTP is the elected Government by popular choice, end of story.

Why do constantly try ( ineffectually ) to cast doubt on their legitimacy ??

The point is this - the armchair posters on here defended the Dems when they were in power and did not have a majority and now they do the opposite. Clearly the election was WON by PTP period against all the predictions of the yellow posters on these forums but they dont have the decency to say 'fair enough'

[binjalin]

Carry on... I'm out of here.

Bye bye.

Have a nice retirement, with the gold watch.

Typical insulting drives other points of view away. We know most posters on TV are yellow but they just cannot accept that they got it wrong and they LOST the election - grow up please Thailand doesn't care about TV pundits views on what THEY should do

[binjalin]

Those are the numbers. IMO arguments about / against "majority" are hanging by the 1.86% of the popular vote that the PTP did not get. That is a hair-splitting argument.

Stick to the facts, and there is no argument, hair-splitting or otherwise. Fact: A majority of people did not vote PTP. Close to a majority did. State it as such, and there is no discussion. It's really not that difficult.

See post above for the first definition of "majority".

Yes the majority DID vote for the PTP. Their % of the total vote was 48+%

PTP got a majority of the MP seats, the majority of the voters did NOT vote or them.

Why is this so hard?

Yellow posters were arguing the opposite before - accusing others of not understanding 'parlimentary democracy' now youmargue the other way

[TAWP]

Yellow posters were arguing the opposite before - accusing others of not understanding 'parlimentary democracy' now youmargue the other way

Since I am a nice guy I will allow you to substantiate this claim.

1) What Yellow posters?

2) What was the claims?

3) How do they run counter to the claims now that PTP got 48% of the votes?

Edited December 29, 2011 by TAWP

[animatic]

Yellow posters were arguing the opposite before - accusing others of not understanding 'parlimentary democracy' now youmargue the other way

Since I am a nice guy I will allow you to substantiate this claim.

1) What Yellow posters?

2) What was the claims?

3) How do they run counter to the claims now that PTP got 48% of the votes?

He can't and no matter how nice a guy you want to be,

he can NOT successfully change the facts to fit his biases.

[EvilDrSomkid]

Jumping jesus on pogostick.

I come back to this thread to see pages of <deleted> arguing about majority votes and other semantic drivel.

Nary a post discussing the OP, except to criticize (once again) The Nation, is biased and such.

All I see are excuses for the Yingluck government being crap.

They got off to a bad start with the floods, but that did not stop them from pushing ahead with their #1 policy and replacing as many top posts in rapid order.

Has the YS gov been effective in marking their territory and putting their own family and people in place? Yes.

Has the YS gov been effective in actually implementing policies beneficial to the country and people? IMO, NO.

Next

[whybother]

Because people do not understand the correct and common use of the word majority in English and because the PTP almost, but not quite, won an absolute majority in both seats and popular vote. Majority can and does correctly refer to a relative and an absolute majority. The "corrections" should be questions on precision.

A true statement : The majority of Thais voted for the PTP

A true statement = The PTP won a majority of seats

The first is relative majority, the second is absolute majority.

You're right, it is not that hard. And since most posters are well aware of the election results and can reference them with a single click in google, we can all understand when a poster meant absolute or relative with the use of the word majority...

"People do not understand the correct and common use of the use of the word majority" ... yes, you have certainly shown that.

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

A majority is a subset of a group consisting of more than half of its members. This can be compared to a plurality, which is a subset larger than any other subset; i.e. a plurality is not necessarily a majority as the largest subset may consist of less than half the group's population. In British English, majority and plurality are often used as synonyms, and is often used to refer to the number of votes separating the first-place finisher from the second-place finisher.

A majority may be called a simple majority to contrast with other types of majority: an overall majority, in parliamentary systems, is the difference of legislators between the government and its opposition;[1] an absolute majority is a majority of all electors, not just those who voted;[2][3][4] and a supermajority is a stronger majority than a simple majority.

PTP won a "Relative Majority" or "Plurality".

Bottom line, the PTP didn't get 50% of the vote, which is what is needed to pass laws and pass referendums.

[udonguy]

Yellow posters were arguing the opposite before - accusing others of not understanding 'parlimentary democracy' now youmargue the other way

Since I am a nice guy I will allow you to substantiate this claim.

1) What Yellow posters?

2) What was the claims?

3) How do they run counter to the claims now that PTP got 48% of the votes?

He can't and no matter how nice a guy you want to be,

he can NOT successfully change the facts to fit his biases.

and you're not biased?

[udonguy]

Yellow posters were arguing the opposite before - accusing others of not understanding 'parlimentary democracy' now youmargue the other way

Since I am a nice guy I will allow you to substantiate this claim.

1) What Yellow posters?

2) What was the claims?

3) How do they run counter to the claims now that PTP got 48% of the votes?

4) they won, so shut up now trying to insinuate they did not win a landslide against all the TV 'expert' predictions

[udonguy]

Because people do not understand the correct and common use of the word majority in English and because the PTP almost, but not quite, won an absolute majority in both seats and popular vote. Majority can and does correctly refer to a relative and an absolute majority. The "corrections" should be questions on precision.

A true statement : The majority of Thais voted for the PTP

A true statement = The PTP won a majority of seats

The first is relative majority, the second is absolute majority.

You're right, it is not that hard. And since most posters are well aware of the election results and can reference them with a single click in google, we can all understand when a poster meant absolute or relative with the use of the word majority...

"People do not understand the correct and common use of the use of the word majority" ... yes, you have certainly shown that.

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

A majority is a subset of a group consisting of more than half of its members. This can be compared to a plurality, which is a subset larger than any other subset; i.e. a plurality is not necessarily a majority as the largest subset may consist of less than half the group's population. In British English, majority and plurality are often used as synonyms, and is often used to refer to the number of votes separating the first-place finisher from the second-place finisher.

A majority may be called a simple majority to contrast with other types of majority: an overall majority, in parliamentary systems, is the difference of legislators between the government and its opposition;[1] an absolute majority is a majority of all electors, not just those who voted;[2][3][4] and a supermajority is a stronger majority than a simple majority.

PTP won a "Relative Majority" or "Plurality".

Bottom line, the PTP didn't get 50% of the vote, which is what is needed to pass laws and pass referendums.

right and they did exactly what all parties do in that situation - gather support from other parties to form a government just as the Dems did. Don't forget you can be President of the US but not have 50% of the popular vote - same in UK many governments have not won 50% but they won the largest share of the vote and that's what counts.

[Scott]

Please check this post:

The first several lines express my sentiments exactly.

[Heimdallr]

Just because you won so many votes doesn't make it right to do whatever you want.

[IMA_FARANG]

"Fake gavel from Dubai",

Actually I quite like that joke.

[KKvampire]

Shows how weak and pathetic yingluck is when she is incapable of standing up in the country,s parliament to defend her government and it,s actions

[Moruya]

Jumping jesus on pogostick.

I come back to this thread to see pages of <deleted> arguing about majority votes and other semantic drivel.

Nary a post discussing the OP, except to criticize (once again) The Nation, is biased and such.

All I see are excuses for the Yingluck government being crap.

They got off to a bad start with the floods, but that did not stop them from pushing ahead with their #1 policy and replacing as many top posts in rapid order.

Has the YS gov been effective in marking their territory and putting their own family and people in place? Yes.

Has the YS gov been effective in actually implementing policies beneficial to the country and people? IMO, NO.

Next

Ha ha - is that the opinion of the majority? Probably!