People power.

The elections that have just been held in the Eastern Ukraine have revealed a 90% resolution for self determination. The West is scrambling to answer the result with the claim that the ballot was hastily arranged and therefore open to corruption. The usual call for democracy seems to be hedged in with a problem when the result was known. It indicated that on the ground the people in the East of Ukraine wanted to disengage from what they see as a corrupt none - representative government in Kiev and given the opportunity to vote said, yes.
One of the issues in the use of the ballot box is, "can you trust the people to vote in the way we want them to". Can we leave in the hands of the people such issues as whether we stay or leave the EU. Can we trust in their common sense to vote the way we want them to regarding Scottish Independence ?
The power of the people at the ballot box is a leap of faith in their having the common sense to act rationally and cast their vote after considering all the possible outcomes or do we trust them not to behave like a herd and follow the piper of Fleet Street, taking the first headline they read as gospel and slavishly tearing up the existing status quo for something they know not of.
Its a dilemma which comes around every 4 years when we vote for the party to form a government. What ever way the result goes there there will be roughly half the population who are happy and 50% who are wondering how the other 50% could be so stupid. Given the result, we muddle through, the world doesn't come to an end and we accommodate change. Its as if the result of the ballot was an exercise in some sort of slight of hand with the same magicians still holding centre stage.