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Lets use a little circle logic then, shall we, Slizor? You say you do not trust government, we say why do you support socialism then, you say it takes a lot of trust. Hmmmmmm... something seem not right about that?

I didn't say I don't trust government. I said I don't trust THE government. As in the current government. And I didn't say it take a lot of trust.

Do you think that people should implicitly trust their government

I think people should trust their government until it is obvious they are untrustworthy.

As for the question of the topic. No, I do not trust the government.

Its funny that you are willing to entrust them with so much power then, because thats exactly what social engineering and socialist programs do. They give the government more and more power at the expense of the people.

Clearly my answer does not warrent this pre-prepared response. Your question was more transparent than what's in Dubya's skull.

As Socialism and Communism require a good form of democracy by definition. And the point of a democracy is to influence and hold accountable the rulers.

There's no reason for them to be "poor black areas".

Are you trying to say "There's no reason for there to be "poor black areas"?

If we had equal treatment and that happened, it would be through no fault of the government or society, it would be through fault of those living there, making "pumping money in" a lot like affirmative action.

You say "If we had equal treatment", do you mean "Since we have"? Because the whole point of affirmative action is to combat unequal treatment.

At 1/19/03 05:37 AM, TheEvilOne wrote: Ahh... the ever-present "abolish the electoral college" argument. Some people fail to realize that without the electoral college, a candidate would only have to win in the country's major population centers (New York and California) to win the election

Shock horror, they would have to win the majority of the population?! Holy mother of Jesus!

(and I probably don't have to get into how different California's political views are from those of the rest of the nation). Thus, the voice of the smaller states is silenced.

They still have the senate(or is it the House, no I think it's the Senate) and they have their own State lawmaking bodies.

With the electoral college, in order to win, a candidate has to win both large and small states, and thus has to have broader appeal. That way, the smaller states don't fall under the iron boot of the larger ones.

That's bullshit, if anything it's the will of the majority being imposed on the minority, if you are going to talk about it in that sense. But I think people would prefer that to the will of the minority being imposed on the majority. The bigger states would have no control over the smaller states, but a representative control of the Federal Government.

acording to the hitch hikders guide to the galaxy, the meaning of life is 42

That's not the meaning of life. The answer is 42, but the question can not exist in the same universe as the answer. So we don't know the question to what the answer is.

I read the entire trilogy of five. :D

i'm all for world peace, but with the condition that the word is in, it's NOT going to get that way without a war. when you have any people trying to kill someone just because they're whatever, the world will not be at peace. peace does not just mean no war. it means the absense of militant ill will.

Yeah, so basically you just don't have to piss off the militants! So a war on Iraq would be a bad idea!

No I didn't go to the protests yesterday. However, the net big one is on Feb 16th which I'm headed down to London for.

I'm not for Affirmative Action in so much as the methods used currently. However, a better idea is to pump money into the ghettos, poor black areas to clean them up and create jobs.

Do you think that people should implicitly trust their government

I think people should trust their government until it is obvious they are untrustworthy.

As for the question of the topic. No, I do not trust the government.

A few motnhs before the s11 there were intense negotiations between the taliban and the usa. the usa wanted to build a pipeline through afghanistan for oil.

“- - In 1999 the United States contributed over $70 million in assistance to the Afghan people. This year's total of over $100 million covers food, housing, health and education programs, de-mining and refugee assistance. Of every two dollars of global assistance to Afghans, half is food aid; and of every ten dollars, nine dollars is a United States contribution.”

Aid was seen as the way to do it and bush met with the taliban in texas with his dad to talk about doing this.

And didn't they reject having the Oilline built?

how ironic that we funded the people who bombed america to the ground.

Al Quiada bombed three buildings in the US. Not the Taliban and not to the ground, unlike what the US did to Afghanistan.

We can figure it out later, maybe our basic principles should be:
1. Reason is the only source of knowledge
2. People have free will
3. There is an ideal ethical/political/etc and we are comitted to figuring out what it is.

4. Facts do not always have to be sourced, but on request a source would need to be found, if the issue is hotly debated
5. No yelling
6. Slizor is always right

That's the thing--Iraq has taken violent actions in the past. If you recall, in 1990, they invaded the small neighboring nation of Kuwait.

Do you know why they invaded Kuwait? Well firstly they needed some money after the exhausting Iran-Iraq war(totally encouraged by the Western nations, especially America.) And America said they would not act if Saddam attacked Kuwait. Strange that.

The US and UN sent troops to repel this invasion, and won a swift victory. After this, we could have--indeed, we probably SHOULD have--invaded Iraq and finished off Saddam for good. But we didn't. Instead, a cease-fire agreement was made on the condition that Iraq would end its weapons programs.

This seems to me to be a contradiction, they won a swift victory, therefore he was easy to beat. Why wouldn't he be so easy again?

Inspectors would be allowed into the country to see to it that this was done. Time and again, Iraq has violated this agreement, forcing the inspectors out of the country.

Actually the inspectors left. You just believe the current rhetoric of America's (conservative) mainstream media.

Sure, they let the inspectors back in (only after we threatened war), but it is possible that they are still playing a game of deception.

Possibly and actually are two different things.

Today's discovery would seem to support that theory.

Despite the fact that they have not be proved to not be in the list supplied, and were empty.

To me, if a nation violates an agreement that was made to end a war, then that's as if the war never ended.

But that's not how it is.

also grown more powerful than them in everything from politics to culture to economy. When we did that, we forever gained their respect.

Actually America stole most of Britain's markets during World War 1 and 2. They also totally screwed us on the whole A bomb thing. Britain, after the second world war had a crumbling empire and were massively in debt(to Canada and America). They wanted to mantain their position of power, so decided to latch on to a superpower and they weren't going to latch onto Russia, so America was chosen. I'm not quite sure what you mean by overtaking in culture and politics....unless you consider fast food and trash TV culture, and two right-wing parties dominating government politics.

Hitler's economic policies were actually very similar to those of FDR. The main diffrences were that while FDR employed citizens by having them work on public works Hitler had the German people construct a war machine.

Actually Hitler did employ people on public works, such as the building of the autobahns. FDR's and Hitler's economic policy was not socialism, it was Keynesianism based on the work of Keynes, who said that economic intervention by the government would stimulate economic growth(there was also the ripple effect etc.) If Hitler or FDR had followed a more Socialist route than they would have nationalised many industries and would offer a lot of social security. Also, there wouldn't be a systematic wiping out of most other races. It kinda doesn't go with the idea of equality.

you are an idiot. of course we need a great military force. do you know why te swiss can stay nuetral all the time? it's because of their great military.

Actually they can stay neutral all the time because they stay neutral all the time. They are trusted.

we have one of the most contravercial societies in the world, capitalism.

Urm, I'm sorry to break it to you, but your entire society is not "capitalism." And Capitalism is not only limited to your country.

we have to protect it from extremists, not just when it's a group of hundreds, but also when there's a nation bent on our destruction.

So you need to spend trillions of dollars on it?! The "it" of course refering to the Orwellian term "defence".

Y'know, if you spent $28 million every day since the birth of Christ you still would have spent less than the US has over the past 50 years.

Only males?

Well, generally, and the past 50 odd years(before 9/11) the US acted pretty unilaterally, it didn't give a shit. After 9/11 it tried to build a coalition, fucked around with a country, left, then decided to act unilaterally again.

A big null vote would be mostly a message sender. Among other things, it would let the government know that the people aren't satisfied, and assumedly the people would know that the government knows this, and the government would know that the people know that they know. You know?

But I would bring up big problems about legitimacy. If the majority of the people vote null then a legitimate government can't really be formed.

labour is who we have now with tony blair all i can see that they have done is deevloved government in scotland and wales but even then for any scottish law to be passed it needs to go to westminster to be passed

Labour have done a lot that they haven't screamed about. Such as the "Tax Credits"(which gives working families lower taxes.) And the Private Finance Initiatives(where they borrow money from banks for public works) is either increadably myopic, or, more likely, Tony Blair is planning on an increase of taxes. Which is good.

the liberal democrats are the biggest party after labour and the conseritives and they don't have much chance of being elected to power in the next few years

Hmm, I think the Conservatives hang in the balance, if the Lib Dems beat them in the next election then the Conservatives will probably become a minority party.

there are lots of smaller partys my favorite is the monster raving looney party who used to be run by a man called lord haha before he died

He was actually called Screaming Lord Sutch. I'm not sure who it is run by now, it was run by a cat for a while, who sadly got run over.

See over here we've had two real conservative parties(they are actually the same party, but at different times.)

The first one was the One Nation Conservatives. They thought that the rich have a responsibility to the poor and should look after them.(This led to the political consensus of 1945-1979)

The second party is the Thatcherites. With the ascendany of American conservatism(basially neo-liberalism.) Mrs Thatcher came to the head of the Tories(Conservative Party), she followed the indivualistic, inalienable property rights, free market BS of American conservatism. And they have remained that way since.

BTW: Neo-liberalism is actually Classical Liberalism.

If the aim is to increase democracy then it is a good idea, but would have to be used in conjunction with other ideas, like starting to teach politics as a core subject and a independent nationalised media source.

Also, you owuld have to consider what would happen if there was such a big null vote.

Bizud, how do you define Conservatism?

Actually Britain is a shithole at the moment. And y'know why? No! Not Socialism, Capitalism! During the 80s and 90s Britain lost its Socialist ways with the Tories privatising industry and crushing the unions. Now we're up shit creek without a paddle.

Yeah but he was also the leader of the National Socialist German Workers' party (NSDAP)(the official name of the Nazi party), dumbass.

What you say, and what you do are two different things.

I hope I don't come across as a jerk for saying this. But don't right and left wing refer to the United states congressional seating arrangement? I think that would definitely make the liberals left wing.

No, I used to know where it was from. I think it originally referred to the French civil war, or students of Hegal. Anyhow, left and right are more fixed ideas then the ideas that are in power.

Clement Atlee, the setting up of the welfare state was just excellent! And he also pulled out of India and handed Palestine over to the UN(the UN then made the poor divisions.) He also pulled us out of debt. But then did later join in on the war on Korea.

1) We attacked Afghanistan because the Taliban regime was harboring thousands of al Qaeda terrorists, as well as Osama bin Laden and his top aides.

They offered to hand him over THREE times. Harbouring indeed. Although they did make the totally unreasonable stipulation that he must go to a neutral country!

If you don't like it, too bad. What the hell is the US supposed to do? Sit back and let the terrorists prepare another attack? Oh, I know! Let's handle it through "peaceful negotiations."

Or instead you could just randomly carpet bomb the entire country, because, hell, there could be terrorists! They didn't even prove that it was Osama, talk about justice!

Yes, let's negotiate with a government that is openly hostile towards the US! That's sure to work!

A government not even recognised by the US.

Please. Human's have always wanted what they don't have

That is because there has always been inequality.

and have always been willing to do wahtever it takes to get what they want. We've been slaughtering, betraying, robbing, etc. each other since long before capitalism was created.

Indeed, capitalism proliferates greed.

Didn't the other guy shoot and the kid drive? I don't think he should be tried as an adult. Mainly because he is not.

Cool, I've started re-reading Lord Of The Rings. I had my history test on monday...first thing. I then had to wait for three hours for my next lesson...which was cancelled. And I had yesterday off(2nd year general studies exam.) So I've just got back from my first lesson this week.
Anyhow, have to catch up on me posts, later.

Due to my pathetic computer I can't change my profile or bbs sig(don't ask). I'm not sure what my favorite quote would be, I like
"Propaganda is to a democracy what terror is to a dictatorship"
N. Chomsky
"Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains."
J-J Rousseau
And others I can't think of at the moment oh well.