I'm thinking back to ancient Athens, what was the vote... ah yes, Mytilene.
The Athenians had captured Mytilene - a city-state that had tried to escape from their hegemony. They wondered what to do about it, and there was a vote on the matter, and they voted to exterminate all the men and sell the rest into slavery. A ship was sent out with the orders to carry this out.
The next day some Athenians had a change of heart, and narrowly voted not to do that. A second ship was sent out, with a double crew for extra speed and through-the-night rowing, and reached Mytilene in the nick of time.
With Parliament, or Athenian-style direct democracy, or other setups where decisions can be swiftly made and remade, there's always a chance of changing your mind, when the consequences of a policy become clearer. The trouble with referenda is they take a lot of time and money to redo... and the winning side is often very reluctant to allow a re-run. It's like they want a broken decision-making system.
I'll give the ardent Brexiteers one thing - if you wanted to play Chicken with the EU, then having a referendum and then being ardent about not having another one is a way of trying to implement the "throw the steering wheel out of the car" gambit. Whether or not this is a good thing to be doing is left as an exercise for the reader.
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The Athenians had captured Mytilene - a city-state that had tried to escape from their hegemony. They wondered what to do about it, and there was a vote on the matter, and they voted to exterminate all the men and sell the rest into slavery. A ship was sent out with the orders to carry this out.
The next day some Athenians had a change of heart, and narrowly voted not to do that. A second ship was sent out, with a double crew for extra speed and through-the-night rowing, and reached Mytilene in the nick of time.
With Parliament, or Athenian-style direct democracy, or other setups where decisions can be swiftly made and remade, there's always a chance of changing your mind, when the consequences of a policy become clearer. The trouble with referenda is they take a lot of time and money to redo... and the winning side is often very reluctant to allow a re-run. It's like they want a broken decision-making system.
I'll give the ardent Brexiteers one thing - if you wanted to play Chicken with the EU, then having a referendum and then being ardent about not having another one is a way of trying to implement the "throw the steering wheel out of the car" gambit. Whether or not this is a good thing to be doing is left as an exercise for the reader.