Being driven round the S bend

[mandru]

The forum's not allowing me to post a Quote but nex said:

"...so if I sounded like a racist in my previous post, I'm not, and believe me, many white South Africans are not, the Apartheid thing started a long, long time ago before most of us were born."


No worries nex.  No matter where we live, the world we all live in today is all but unrecognizable from the world we were born into.  :-X

The things that were done right are quickly forgotten and lost to history.  But things done wrong stay around to hound to us forever.

[fragger]

Thanks for the informative post, nex :-X I don't think anybody here would brand you a racist for telling it like it is.

We never had anything like Apartheid here, but I can relate to how things in South Africa have deteriorated in regard to race relations. There's a similar thing happening here regarding Aborigines.

Before I go any further, there's something I should clarify. I and many others often refer to an Aboriginal person as an "Abo", not out of any racist or derogatory tendencies but simply because it's less of a mouthful than Aborigine and it's used in a familiar and egalitarian manner. Heck, I've known and heard Aboriginal people refer to themselves and other Aboriginal people as Abos. But according to the PC brigade, you can't call them that in public - it's racist. Try to tell these dolts that it's not a racist term but merely an abbreviation and you'll be self-righteously shouted down. They don't have a problem with those from Britain being referred to as Brits or "Poms", or Americans being referred to as Yanks, but Abos must be treated with the utmost deference by voicing their racial designation in full, every time. These fools are apparently oblivious to the irony of the inherent racism implicit in their say-so.

Abos suffered atrocious treatment during the penal and colonial days in Australia. Things hadn't improved much by the end of the 19th century, but then there was a horrible episode which has come to be known as "The Stolen Generation" which took place during roughly the first half of the twentieth century, where Aboriginal children were forcibly taken from their parents and removed to special schools and church missions for the purpose of education and indoctrination into white society. The intention was good but the result was devastating to Aboriginal families, as one could imagine when people's children are taken from them, quite probably never to be seen again. The idea was to rescue children from a hopeless cycle of poverty, alcoholism, despondency and domestic abuse which had blighted the Aboriginal population ever since whites first began to invade their country starting in 1788 (and let's make no mistake, an invasion was indeed what it was). It was believed that these children would have a much better shot at a decent future if they were removed from an environment of hatred, resentment and despair that had plagued Aboriginal society since the white invasion which even then, from a historical standpoint, was still very recent.

This misguided, ill-informed, and arrogantly stupid act probably did more to embitter Aboriginal people towards whites than any other action in the history of racial relations here. As often is the case, it was the do-gooders that did the most harm. The pain and resentment ran raw for many years until it was partially alleviated when in 2008 the then Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, delivered a formal apology on behalf of the Australian government to the Aboriginal people in an emotive and beautifully worded speech that went a long way towards reconciliation. The apology was delivered in public outside Parliament House in Canberra to a huge audience of Aboriginal people on the House's lawn, and many were moved to tears, saying that this was what they'd always wanted to hear and that now the healing could begin.

BUT - there remains a core contingent of Aboriginal people who stubbornly refuse the apology and any attempt at assimilation, and who seem to revel in their roles as official victims. Any failing, hardship, lack or character flaw they may have or experience is conveniently attributed to "white fella society" even when it's blatantly apparent that the cause of their grievance has been brought about by their own actions. They use their historical dispossession as an excuse for bad or antisocial behaviour, for sponging off the government, or for any kind of want or desire that remains unfulfilled.

I once got to know a lady back in Sydney who worked for an Aboriginal Reconciliation organisation. She told me that the biggest obstacle they faced was changing the attitude of many Aboriginals themselves and that there are many who do in fact use their resentment of whites as a blanket excuse for ALL their misfortunes, no matter how self-inflicted those problems may be. There are those who are simply inherently lazy, who believe the country owes them a living and won't get off their bums to look for w@&k, instead relying on government handouts for dough. They have this attitude that all whites are to blame for everything and that white society is obligated to pay for their lodgings, food and booze and to allow them to live on their bums in perpetuity. Some even claim that all non-Aboriginals should leave the country and give it back to them (but as my friend pointed out, these are Aborigines who have been born and raised in the inner city and who would no more be able to survive in a stone-age outback environment any longer than a white 3rd-generation Surrey Hills barista would. Give them two weeks, my friend said, and they'd be begging the whites to return and start civilisation back up again). They play the victim card whenever it suits them and they rort the system with their "look what you've done to us, whitey, pay us for it" attitude. My friend claimed that it was these Abos with their "poor us" attitude, not whites, that constituted the biggest impediment to moving forward with any kind of reconciliation. Incidentally, this lady was herself a full-blooded Aborigine.

I've tried to talk to some of them over the years, but sometimes you simply can't. At best you'll be ignored, at worst they'll have a go at you for trying. My mother was walking on the sidewalk in town once when a couple of Abos came the other way, and one of them went out of his way to shoulder-bump her aside. Thankfully she didn't fall, but she almost did. And thankfully I wasn't there to see it, because if I'd thumped the ba$t@rd for doing it, guess which one of us would have been charged with assault?

Racial reconciliation is a two-way street, and it's often the former victims of any kind of persecution who stand in the way of it. It's understandable to a degree, but things will never get any better until the grudge is dropped, the former victims stop seeing themselves as victims even when the victimisation has passed, governments and do-gooders stop mollycoddling them, and the aggrieved stop using their once-were-victims status as a free-ride ticket. The racial tension certainly won't ease when the former victims become the new practitioners.

[Art Blade]

interesting.

Over here in the Old World we haven't got the problem you guys who are living elsewhere are facing. Over here, we are the natives. We "import" our problems by allowing foreigners in who start to blame us. Hell, I remember a case when some Muslims went to court to have the Christian symbol, the cross, removed from a school's classroom because it offended them. Many immigrants don't even speak our language even after having lived here for decades but they damn well know how to get our tax money from the state.

[PZ]

Fascinating that the only thing different in our societies is the precise detail of what has occurred.  Evidently people worldwide are the same - the only difference is the circumstance.  As I read what you chaps wrote the same prejudices and injustices occur everywhere.

[Art Blade]

there are lazy bums all around the world getting dragged behind society and people who are pillars of society (who w@&k and so forth) -- we don't only have those lazy complaining parasites but also have "citizens with migration background" (PC for immigrants) who are most valuable or at least as valuable as any other people. Indeed, same as you guys with your natives.

[fragger]

True mate.

I would actually love to be a lazy bum, but there's no money in it :-() If I could do it without being a financial burden on the rest of society or sponging off my fellow taxpayers, I would. In fact I wouldn't concern myself with money at all if I didn't have to.

I have no desire to be filthy rich, or even just rich, but it would be nice to have just enough money to live on and not have to bother with it ever again.

There's a clip or two on YouTube about people who have won fortunes on lotteries and have blown the lot through their own stupidity. Like the teenage girl who won three million dollars, then squandered it all in short order on gifts, parties, designer clothes, jewellery and breast implants. Or the guy who blew through about 15 million in a few short years on flashy cars, drugs and prostitutes. There was a woman who took her huge lotto win to Atlantic City and proceeded to gamble it all away. She now lives in a trailer park. Can you believe that? She wins a huge pile of money, then blows it all trying to win a huger pile of money. Damn fool, serves her right, I reckon.

What do they say about fools and their money? These people are beyond being mere fools - they're more like their own worst enemies.

If I won a fortune like that, the first place that money would go would be into a secure interest-bearing deposit, and I would live off that interest. Depending on how much there was, I might buy a nice house and a couple of other things, but the rest I wouldn't touch - and I sure as hell wouldn't go telling the world about it (a few of those people on YouTube ended up getting bumped off by greedy relatives and partners). If it was way more than enough for me to live on, like several hundred million (or something crazy like I believe someone in the US won recently), I would donate some of it to a worthy cause - but I would want to make very certain it actually went to whoever I donated it too and not into someone's pocket, or into the government's coffers (some still would anyway, and the gov would take a good dollop of my winnings in the first place, the lousy bloodsuckers. Like they don't get enough out of people like me already).

On the subject of the government, and seeing as how we are in the Rant topic, our illustrious new Prime Minister (the latest one to sucker-punch the actual elected PM out of the way before shouldering his way though the revolving door and taking the title for himself) is talking about raising our General Sales Tax from 10% to 15%. We first got slugged with a GST back in 2000 by the then PM, John Howard, whose prior declaration of "There will never be a GST under any government of mine" was the one big election promise that encouraged the gullible masses to vote the sniveling little runt into the hot seat, and was the first promise he broke once he got there. He then went on to break just about every other promise he'd ever made before signing us up with George W's "Coalition of the Willing" despite 94% of Aussies being opposed to any involvement (and didn't he revel in that role! Grinning like a Cheshire cat in the media, he was like, "Hey, look at me! I'm up here rubbing shoulders with George and Tony! I'm playing with the big boys, I'm a mover and a shaker! Oh, what was that, George? How high do you want me to jump?" Cor... pathetic, fawning little sack of chimpanzee s#!t. To this day I would love to give him the mother of all Chinese burns for sending good people into war to be killed, maimed and mentally wrecked just so he could hit the big time for a while and parade around on the world stage with his heroes, like a nerdy little sycophantic brat trying to brown-nose his way into the cool kids clique. I'm sure George and Tony had a ton of laughs zinging him behind his back. Or maybe to his face - it wasn't like Little Johnny had any kind of wit to zing back with, nor the backbone to stand up for himself).

You've probably sensed that I don't hold John Howard in very high regard, but let's face it, it's not easy to respect a proven liar suffering from small man syndrome with the personality of a soggy dishcloth and the wit of Dopey the Dwarf. I guess I could rate him half a point up from shower stall mildew if I was feeling generous, and he only gets that because I guess he couldn't help being born an objectionable, whiny-voiced little chimp-faced dick. Anyway, the GST that we would never have was fixed at 10% with the promise that it would never rise (yeah, sure, Johnny, we believe you. You lied about everything else, but we'll totally trust you on this).

I'm actually surprised that the pollies have left it alone for this long.

So now the new PM, Malcolm Turncoat Turnbull, is saying that the government is considering raising the GST to meet the massive budget deficit that they, the politicians, along with their big business cronies, have created. The budget could easily be moved back into the black if they forced the biggest companies in the country to pay their proper taxes instead of allowing them to shunt their profits off to tax-dodge havens like the Cayman Islands and Switzerland (where Turnbull has most of his considerable amount of money squirreled away already), but no - it's "let's hit the taxpayers up for it". Again. He's drawn all kinds of flak over it, not just from the public but even from people in his own party, but he insists it's "merely an option that's being discussed, nothing is confirmed". Which, in pollie-speak, means, "it's going to happen, expect it soon".

Honestly, you wouldn't feed these creatures. People are struggling to get by now, let alone trying to cope with a 5% rise in the GST. Politicians seem to think people are just bottomless sources of income.

Well, that post turned into a bit of a diatribe, but I'm being a lazy bum today and I've had a couple :-()

[PZ]

People like that live in trailers for a reason - they belong there, and no amount of money is going to change their point of view.

PS: I'm going to be a jobless bum a year from now, just not a drain on society nor anyone else  :-()

[Art Blade]

RetiredGord springs to mind.. he's been absent a tad too long for my taste, anyone heard of him?

[PZ]

No, I've not seen anything of him, but he was a Facebook fan a while ago, and didn't appear on the forums much

[Binnatics]

Interesting read guys, about the gun laws, the self-declared victims all over the world, native or import, PZ getting retired :-X :)

I would love to hold a real gun once. A friend of my mom's once told her that her son wanted to become a cop. She didn't understand why. How on earth could that kid see anything good in being a cop?? I knew. "That's because then he's allowed to carry a gun, mom!"  :-D
In Holland gun laws are just the way Nex describes. Probably even stricter. I know about these gun safes. You evne have to store your ammo in a different safe as the gun, and the gun always must be stored dismounted.
The difference is; overhere ppl aren't waving around with AK's on the streets when they disagree with something... yet.
With the recent Yugoslavian war many arms have disappeared into illegal cirquits and from time to time they popup, usually being held by a criminal doing naughty things.
And with what's happening in Libia, Ukrain, Siria and Turkey it's probably getting worse by the minute.

If there's one thing I disgust in people is victimship. All over the world, as is being proven by former posts, people claim to be victims for whatever thing happened centuries ago, or even longer. Where I w@&k, in prison, we have the biggest collection of innocents mounted together, and they all claim to be victim of something. They don't even realise they are held there partially to protect their own, hadn made victims against them. Good lord how I hate it when people start whyning about the bad conditions of our health care in prison and how bad all these psychologists do their jobs not being able to get them out earlier for clinical treatment >:((

If one wants psychological treatment, the first thing they should be aware of is that they have to change something about themselves. Thus accept that there's something not entirely right about themselves. When they can see that, they might enjoy the benefits of good psychological treatment. Because they will do it themselves. Home-made healthcare so to speak. That's what these ppl need. And a big fat kick to their ignorant asses >:(

[mandru]

Interesting thoughts Binn.  :-X

The whole societal tolerance (if not encouragement) of victimhood to be worn like a badge on their sleeve annoys me as well.

Here in the U.S. one of our founding principals is the concept "United We Stand" which includes the immediate follow up "Divided We Fall".  But there is a strong corrosive influence that is being promoted by the highest levels of our Govt. Leadership that promotes the dividing up of our population into numerous  smaller groups of special little flowers for anyone who feels that they have been wronged allowing them to wallow in their victimhood to get free stuff or privileged consideration for opportunities that everyone else has to w@&k for.

Yes.  There have been horrible historical injustices that have occurred but there comes a point when in society a climate of opportunity arises where it is up to each individual to recognize that there are some debts and wrongs that can never be repaid making it their personal responsibility to determine that it is simply time to pick up the pieces and make something of themselves by refusing to fit into the mold that they have been told their entire lives they were cast from and triumphing over and owning the barriers that they have been told by peers that there is no way to overcome.

At first glance there is very little difference between the words Victim and Victor but that small influence of the "im" versus the "or" in the last two letters of those words makes all the difference in the world.  It is only through strength and perseverance that someone can rise from the first and become the other which a far more impressive badge to wear on one's sleeve.

[PZ]

In addition to so many people being "victims", they are immediately looking to sue someeone to gain financial reward for the victimization, imagined or otherwise. 

Simply disgusting.

[Art Blade]

reminds me of stories we heard had happened in the U.S. and when we tell them while shaking our heads, we'd go, "that's only possible in America." One of those stories is that someone sued Mickey D. because the coffee was too hot and the court's decision was McD had to pay an insanely high amount like a million bucks of compensation for personal suffering. Here we'd probably think, "heh, burned your mouth? Stupid bitch, serves you right if you try to swallow a mug full of freshly brewed hot coffee." And not even the stupid would come up with the idea of suing McD for fresh hot coffee being too hot.

[Art Blade]

I just remembered something that you might tell while shaking your heads and go, "that's only possible in Germany." Come over here, fire up a PC, open your browser and go to YouTube. Then click on just about any music video that springs to mind and find a message like, "Unfortunately, this video is not available in your country because it could contain music from <add random music company here>, for which we could not agree on conditions of use with GEMA."

:-D

I also remembered another story from the U.S. when Bush considered tomato ketchup worthy to be declared staple food. It led to some weird situations when students would go to the refectory at a college or university and order their meal, they'd get a plate full of tomato ketchup. It's cheap and since it's staple food, it can't be wrong. For some reason, however, it didn't become a general rule for how diets were to be composed at university canteens all over the country.

[Binnatics]

That is indeed a huge difference Mandru, victim or victor. It reminds me; people who truly become victim of something or someone, they don't want to be victim. They were forced into that position and will probably do the necessary to become victor again.
People who choose victimhood (victimship, lol) somehow have something to gain with it. It's fake. Parasitism. Usually trying to abuse caring people.

I realise that people can have a hard time because of the position or situation they were born into. And I will be the first to recognize the inequality from which they suffer. But they still have decisions of their own to make, which gives them a chance to achieve the desired. Helping them is a good deed, but will also keep them weak. Help can be a dangerous thing. Even a helping hand has a responsibility, hence the wise Australians stealing the children from the Abos. 

[nexor]

In Holland gun laws are just the way Nex describes. Probably even stricter. I know about these gun safes. You evne have to store your ammo in a different safe as the gun, and the gun always must be stored dismounted.
The difference is; overhere ppl aren't waving around with AK's on the streets when they disagree with something... yet.

The problem we facing is firearms in the hands of the wrong people

http://www.corruptionwatch.org.za/weapons-disappearing-from-police-custody/

It has also been revealed that the South African Police Service (SAPS) has been fuelling the illegal arms trade.  In a reply to a parliamentary question the Minister of Police admitted that in 2010/11 a total of 1 335 SAPS firearms were 'lost or stolen'.  101 of these were rifles, 46 were shotguns and the rest were handguns.  Only 167 of the firearms have been recovered.

[fragger]

Even a helping hand has a responsibility, hence the wise Australians stealing the children from the Abos. 

I think that was a classic case of do-gooders doing more harm than good - or more accurately, no damn good at all. Good intentions, but directed by short-sighted ignorance and self-righteousness driven by religious fervour. A similar thing took place in the U.S. during the late 1800s involving a society of white people who officiously called themselves "Friends of the Indian". Actually, it wasn't similar, it was pretty much an identical thing: they took Native American kids away from their parents in the West and sent them off to schools in the East to "educate" them and teach them how to fit into white society. They even forbade the kids to use their traditional names, so that a name like "Running Elk" would become something like "Rebecca Evans". The effect on Native American families was the same as it would later be on the indigenous population in this country - psychological, emotional and societal devastation to the indigents, and it didn't help the Indian kids one whit.

This is why it irks me a bit when some Americans criticize us over "The Stolen Generation" - it's a case of the pot calling the kettle black. But even so, I feel that our sin was all the more greater because it had already been tried in the U.S., and yet the dreadful consequences were ignored by those in Australia who apparently believed themselves to be more enlightened and so they went ahead and repeated the mistake, with the same result. What was that definition of insanity again?

In any case, how thick-headed and up yourself would you have to be to believe that wrenching children away from their parents would be a beneficial thing to do, and that everybody would end up happier and better adjusted for it? Damned fools.

As an interesting aside, here is another example of the know-it-all attitude driving political correctness - the fact that white hand-wringers tell everybody that the correct term for the indigenous population in the U.S. is "Native American". From what I've heard, "Indians" themselves actually don't have a problem with being called Indians and many actually prefer it. An individual Indian would probably appreciate being referred to as a Navajo, a Cheyenne, a Shoshone, etc, but these labels can't serve as collective names for the whole. I'm just waiting for the day when some dickhead in Canberra tells us that we should henceforth refer to Aborigines as "Native Australians". I've known some Abos and in fact I'm working with one right now, and I know that they are proud to be known as Aborigines. To call them something else would constitute yet another arrogant kick in the guts from self-righteous "White Fella" society and as usual with such politically-correct sanctimony, it would do much harm and no good.

[mandru]

When in historical terms a society falls into it's deepest darkest evil it's always under the influence of two conditions.  I've mentioned these two terms elsewhere but they bear repeating.

The first Fatal Conceit is manifest in leaders taking the position that they because of the esteemed status they have achieved have been enlightened with higher ethics and goals for steering the citizenry.  But the end results of choices and deviation from actions that actually benefit the people invariably falls in favor of strengthening the power hold of leadership.  This is seen as "We know what's best for you, shut up and get in line."


The second Tyranny of Experts always takes the form of manipulation of facts and people by setting forward an elitist opinion where highly learned experts (always with a slanted agenda) decry that doom is unavoidable unless a false and often destructive course of action is immediately enacted.  It is sold to the population in a way that pits the very citizenry against itself.

A citizen can either embrace the false narrative along with any actions leadership impose on them and take pride in their now shared elitism (becoming one of the cool people) or anyone opposing or attempting to debunk the deception will be shunned and belittled as being narrow minded, selfish, and stupid.  Equally qualified experts who introduce unadulterated facts that expose the lie will be discredited, mocked, and usually have their research funding, jobs and possibly even their lives taken away from them.

Leaders can construct their own narratives but  facts are facts  and no one should be allowed to attempt to create their own or prevent truth from coming forward.  Anyone with a lick of sense knows that a fabricated fact is a lie and any non-fact or theory must  always  be open to debate from all sides.


Lately I've started looking at the world through the lens of these two terms and at least for me the observable poor choices of leadership historically and in current events and almost invariably one if not both of these conditions are present.

[Binnatics]

In any case, how thick-headed and up yourself would you have to be to believe that wrenching children away from their parents would be a beneficial thing to do, and that everybody would end up happier and better adjusted for it? Damned fools.

Well there are cases in fact where parents are withdrawn form their parenthood by the government to protect their children against their destructive habits, such as drug addiction, extreme violence, mental illness or a combination of those. I think that is sometimes inevitable, although it is the hardest of available measures and shouldn't be taken easily.

@ Mandru, I think you got a point there. It would be interesting to approach devastating leaders decisions through that lens. Still I wonder, what would be the definition of a good leader ????

[fragger]

It's a different thing when families are closely investigated for dysfunction on a one-by-one basis. It's the application of such an approach to an entire race, regardless of the status of individual family units, which is ignorant and immoral.

When it is demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that children are being harmed in a dangerously dysfunctional family environment with no hope of improvement to the situation, the well-being of the children must be paramount. On a family-by-family basis, regardless of racial considerations, then of course it's permissible and ethically imperative that the children be removed from any destructive household for their own welfare. Naturally there will be pain and misery involved, but it's better than a potentially fatal alternative for the little ones.

But to apply this practice to a whole population of people purely on the basis of race and with no consideration given to the status of any individual household - that's when it becomes abhorrent and callous. It's conceivable, and probably very likely, that more harmonious family environments than dysfunctional ones will be adversely affected by such an arrogant blanket approach to the situation.

It would be interesting to go back in time and find out the ratio of good/bad environments of white families compared to indigenous ones in either country, if such a thing were possible - which of course it isn't at this remove. I'm willing to bet there were more dysfunctional white family units than there were native ones - when the natives were still being allowed to live in their traditional ways and settings, not already force-fed into white society, as the latter is when the cultural-shock driven dysfunction really sets in. How would white parents react to having their children taken away from them simply because they're white? The same way the natives did.

@mandru, I couldn't agree more. I don't buy anything any "expert" tries to sell me unless I can verify its validity independently, or if it goes against my own common-sense, or even just my gut, or if I can even be bothered about it to start with. I don't accept any government-promoted concepts of what's right or wrong, what's moral or immoral, or what's environmentally sound or unsound. I let my own moral compass guide me through the first two and my own knowledge, study or common sense to reckon out the third.

It alarms me how so many people will enroll into a thought school (e.g. global warming) solely on the strength of being told that it has been "scientifically verified". I've met people who will blindly jump on a bandwagon with a belief that scientists, like celebrities, are never wrong nor have any ulterior motives. After a while the bandwagon gains enough momentum that those of us who refuse to jump on board risk being run over and even if the bandwagon eventually breaks down, these people will happily jump onto the next passing one simply because they're told that they should, that it's the trendy thing to do or because their clueless media idols are already on board.

As to the definition of a good leader: One who genuinely puts the welfare of the populace ahead of all other considerations and acts accordingly in all areas, even if it means having to put aside personal agendas. One who listens to their constituents and does his or her best to give the majority what they want. Western government is supposed to be about representation (of the people and their wants/needs) - not to be powers unto themselves. It's impossible to please everybody and no matter how good a leader may be, there will be those who resent their leadership. But one of the core pillars of democracy is the concept of "majority rule" - government of the people, by the people, for the people - i.e., representational. It's a noble and enlightened model of government and (in its ideal form, at least) is the only sensible way for any thinking, feeling, intelligent human being to go about peaceful civilization.

I've always believed that the best candidates for positions of power are those who don't actually want it.

[Binnatics]

That is a clear disquisition Fragger, I am tempted to believe you are right. But there are some things that made me realise that democracy isn't the holy word when it comes to leading a society.
One of them is the fact that the majority isn't too cleaver. Look at how easily populists are winning terrain in governments all over the western society. They operate smart enough to, with the help of the abilities internet provides to the dumb, get large amounts of blockheads to vote for their parties with simple and ruthless manipulation of people's feelings of discontent. They just scream "Less, less, less immigrants!!!" and get another 100k likes on twitter or whatever :-\\
Another is the fact that many nowadays societies (middle east for example) are simply not ready for democracy. These countries need strong leadership and too many meople in these countries seem not to have learned to argue instead of fight when you disagree to something.
Maybe democracy only survives if there's a certain minimum of prosperity, which buys the people time to listen to eachother and think about what others might feel and want.

I don't know what good leadership is. I think about some things that I find most important. One is freedom. My base rule is that the freedom of one stops there where the freedom of another gets threatened. And freedom being the most important value next to the basic needs like safety, shelter and nutricion should be managed by a leader. A sort of freedom manager. Sounds like a judge, no that's not it :-\\
The parliamental democracy seems to be the best solution to how election of leadership should be done, but what puzzles me is responsibility. Somehow political leaders can easily walk away from that. They just focus on the next election, short minded freeks, and after a while they can make more money in a multinational and they're gone. It shouldn't be so easy to walk away from the political podium. Although how to arrange that... no idea.
That makes me think of something else that is an important issue regarding leardership. Goals. A leader got to have a goal that is clear and possible and supported by, here we go again, the majority of the people.
And he who leads should always be aware of any minority having their equal rights as well and can't be threatened by the ideals and desires of that majority.

Damn complicated.  :-D

[fragger]

I was speaking more from a standpoint of hypothetical ideals as opposed to dirty reality, but you're right Binn, it is complicated. Western democratic governments only really pretend to be democratic, but they're not - they are more like monarchies but without the bloodlines (except for the Kennedys and the Bushes, of course :-()). No democracy in the world today is truly democratic, and I don't think there have ever really been any. It's a ideal concept that never really got put into practice, just like socialism. That has never existed either, except among relatively small groups of people like Aborigines, the Bushmen of the Kalahari or American Indian tribes. In all these cases, there are no leaders (although they are sensible enough to take counsel from their elders) - instead, everything is decided by general consensus, and everything belongs to and is shared among the tribe. That, by definition, is socialism. The concept of an "Indian Chief", adorned with a big bonnet of eagle feathers, sagely striding around and laying down the law, is a complete myth.

But as soon as you have a leader who decides off their own bat what is best for everybody, you no longer have a democracy - you have a dictatorship.

A majority rule approach (in theory) is the only really fair way for a government to govern, but in order for it to be beneficial, the majority do have to know what's good for them, I agree with that point. Unfortunately, an awful lot of people don't - or rather, they know what's good (or what they want) for themselves, but not what's good for society as a whole. What one person thinks is a good idea, another thinks is bad. Such a system will only w@&k if people are willing to put the common good above their own personal wants, which in turn means it requires a level of altruism that large populations of human beings generally lack. In a truly, hypothetically ideal society, there shouldn't even be any need for money. Everybody does what they're good at, and either trades their goods or services with someone else or puts them into the common store, from which those who need them, get them. Everything is done solely for the benefit of society as a whole. The incentive would be the knowledge that what they're doing is helping their fellow humans and contributing to the maintenance and well-being of civilization. A system like this worked well enough for people like medieval rural Britons, but would it w@&k with large, technologically-advanced civilizations? Who knows. Maybe once a population exceeds a certain rough size, a system like that would break down, or society would just never advance beyond a certain stage. Or would it?

Who really is wise enough to say what's good for society anyway? One example could be the development of space technology. Some think it's important, some think it's a gross waste of time and money. The fact is, if no space technology had ever been developed, we wouldn't be having this online discussion right now. There would be no near-instantaneous global communications, no GPS, and no weather satellites (and if you think weather prediction is hit and miss now, imagine it with no orbital aids). Computer technology would be decades behind where it is now, there would be no internet, and nothing like the games we enjoy today. We wouldn't have Blu-tak, WD-40, scratch-resistant glass, modern insulation, memory foam, water purification, aircraft anti-icing systems, space blankets, and solar power cells, to name just a few spin-off products (in fact we wouldn't even have the term "spin-off" - the space program was where that term originated). LED/LCD technology might even still be decades away. People would be surprised at just how much our current level of technology is due to the impetus originally given it by the space race. Is any of that high technology really important? Some would say it isn't - the same people who say they can't live without Facebook and their iPhones, who live in Canada but like to watch Wimbledon live on TV, or whose lives may be saved by the advanced computer-driven medical equipment now in existence such as CAT scanners, metabolic sensors and hand-held diagnostic devices - technologies all courtesy of the space program. I have actually heard someone bitch about the space program being a waste of time, then a few days later I heard the same person say they loved their car's navigation system. I guess he thinks it works by magic.

All this is to make the point that what some people consider important, others don't, and nobody can really tell where something will lead. In the case of space, who was right: the advocates or the naysayers? I'm sure that when the space race first began to hot up in the early sixties, nobody could foresee where the technology would lead. Even the idea of a pocket calculator was unthinkable as late as 1969 and the first moon landing. Neil Armstrong once said that at the time of Apollo 11, if you'd suggested to him that within a few years people would be wearing digital watches, he would have said you were crazy.

So nobody really knows whether some things might be good or not in the long run, and thus we don't really know what might be good for us. Quite probably, most people were against the time and money being spent on the space race at the time, and there are still many who believe that today's technology does more harm than good (for the record, all things being considered, I think we're better off for it). How many people would really want to be living with, say, 1970s-era technology today? Then again, we wouldn't know any better if we were :-()

[Binnatics]

In fact, human society is one big anarchy. He who is strong or cleaver enough, rules his surroundings. All current agreements, laws, moral beliefs, common values and community structures are the result of individuals trying to obtain what they think is important.

Is it the ongoing train of cause and effect, or is there any meaning in all this? What the F* are we after all? Here we go again

[fragger]

In fact, human society is one big anarchy. He who is strong or cleaver enough, rules his surroundings. All current agreements, laws, moral beliefs, common values and community structures are the result of individuals trying to obtain what they think is important.

I think that mostly applies to those in power, not the common flock of humanity. I think most people have an intrinsic sense of what is right or wrong (these people just don't get on the news) and all they really want out of life is to enjoy themselves and be happy.

This country is prone to "natural disasters", and the remarkable thing is how communities will all pitch in to help one another when they've been hit by a flood or a bushfire. This is when one tends to see humanity at its best - everyone working together to restore the community as a whole, while immediate personal concerns and desires get put on hold. I don't know how many of you live in cities, or whether any of you have lived in the country (or what country life may be like in your part of the world). I know where some of you live, but not all of you. I can only go by what I have experienced living in a rural area in my own country.

The sense of community is very strong here. When I go for my morning walk on the beach, everyone I pass, almost without fail, will exchange a smile and a greeting, and they will happily stop and chat even if I've never clapped eyes on them before. With rare exceptions, you can walk up to anybody and just start talking to them. There's this sense of "I live here and you live here, therefore we're all in this together". Same if I'm out walking the dog, or just walking to the shops. It doesn't matter if I've never seen them before in my life, practically everyone will smile and say hello. I know all the local shopkeepers by name and unless there are other customers waiting to be served or the shopkeeper has something pressing to do, a simple purchase will often invoke a friendly chat - it's like part of the transaction. Having been born and raised in a city, and having lived in cities all my life, I was taken aback at first - people generally just don't act like this in a city. But I very soon realized it's just the way they are - "this is our community, we love being a part of it, and if you love being a part of it, you're with us". The level of common courtesy and consideration is also quite striking by contrast to the city. After living here for over seven years, I have never seen one instance of road rage in our town, have never seen a fight, or even heard a heated argument. People hold doors open for each other (regardless of gender) and won't hesitate to step up and help if they see someone who needs it. If I'm waiting to pay for a single item at the supermarket and the person ahead of me has a lot, they will say, "Oh, here, if that's all you're buying, you go first". I have no doubt whatsoever that if some kind of natural disaster were to strike this town, everybody would help everybody else like one big family, just as they have elsewhere across the country.

So in the country at least, I don't think people are anarchic by nature and they seem to have a better sense of what really matters and what doesn't. If they were self-centred to the core, concerned only with flashy lifestyles and showy trinkets of affluence, they'd be living in the city and scrambling all over each other to shove their noses deep into the trough along with all the other materialist hogs. Having lived now in both city and country, I will say without hesitation that I will take country people over city people any day of the week.

I think the larger a population becomes, the more impersonal it becomes, and that's the whole problem with cities. For that reason alone I will never live in a city ever again.

As to what we are, I think we're a species that has begun to evolve beyond a mere animal existence but we don't know what it is that we're supposed to do next. And some humans still have too much of the animal thrashing around inside them.

[Art Blade]

ah, so that's why we shave. So they won't notice too quickly. GROARNF! :-D