Maybe this is a language thing, but a "professional" generally refers to someone who is doing a white-collar job. You can also describe someone as "professional" if they do their chosen work particularly well. Neither term can really be used to refer to the majority of people. The same goes for your point about people being informed. I acknowledged in an earlier reply to RegisterMe that it would be hyperbole to say that nobody really understood the situation, but I don't think it's exaggerating to suggest that the majority of the population didn't really have a clear understanding of the issues, and that many of those who thought they did were either mistaken or actively deceived.Mightysword wrote: ↑Tue, 9. Apr 19, 23:52I should clarify what I meant by professionals here. I didn't meant it to be taken as "expert on the subject matter". The UK is a developed country, I had heard it has a good education system (at least better than the US), and you have free access to free media platforms. To put it bluntly: it's not a country full of illiterates with a tightly controlled state run only media. I would like to think the UK people for the most part have the capacity and the mean to make a fully informed decision ... if they decide to do so. After all, who among us here is an "expert" on the subject matter? Anyone here a career economist or lawyer or have at least have formal education on the subject? So what is the differences between those of you who claimed to see through the lie, and those who you claim fell for such lie? I don't think it's patently false either, or are you saying in that 52% (almost 17.5 million votes) there are not at least some segments that are more informed on the issues than all of us here? That would be thinking ... unnecessarily high about ourselves don't you think?
I'm not going to disagree with your point, because it is true that responsible adults in a free country have a duty to educate themselves on topics they are asked to vote for. However, the reality is that many people vote on the basis of their preconceived ideas, or on the basis of the campaigns that lead up to the vote. Given the fact that many of those preconceived ideas were formed from 40+ years of distortions and lies in the press, and that the campaigns were equally dishonest, it is hard not to lay the blame elsewhere. Where exactly were people supposed to get any real facts from, even if they wanted to? Do you really think that the average shop worker or bricklayer could be expected to go and research the economic impact of leaving the EU themselves? It's not a question of being "tricked", it's a question of there being no practical way to obtain genuine information, no way for them to determine the truth of the information that they were being presented, and no attempt made emphasise the importance of the decision being made on the basis of facts rather than a vague feeling that EU membership was a "good" or "bad" thing.Mightysword wrote: ↑Tue, 9. Apr 19, 23:52Note that the focus here is I'm rejecting this specific notion:That excuse may pass for the people who live in a country like North Korea, but not a place like the UK.
To put it in another context, if a school gets bad results, the pupils have to accept some responsibility, but the teachers have to shoulder the majority of the blame.