[sceptic]

as an not very well read person (or more to the point) someone that does not give a dam, who wins control of the barren desert no one wants when the oil dries up

what is the difference between the so called mad mullahs that want to bring in Islam all aver the world and the mad Mullah that wants to bring Democacy all over the world (as from where I am sitting any price and any cost (dead bodies do not seem to matter)

It does not look from here that either side are very nice people, but thats just an impression,

Why is Democracy so dam important, is it really the best way for all to live, is it something that conflicts with Islamic views and if so what right do we have of shoving it all down their throats.

Is the current trend to spread democracy and free market, not just a ploy to get a global market where the likes of Wallmart, BP and some other massive global players have more financial clout that most countries, they start to dictate what we eat who we sleep with, what we wear, etc etc, looks to me like if the Arab situation ever does get resolve, Heaven help the rest of the world

[barmar]

I'm not sure it's possible to get really good answers to your questions, because opinions are biased. Most successful people probably think that the society they live in is the best -- it's generally only the underclasses that wish for radical change, and they're not likely to be represented here.

With that said, I think freedom, democracy and capitalism are considered the "fairest" ways of life. The history of humanity has been a fairly steady progression in the direction of increasing value of human rights. Oppression by a privileged few is archaic and barbaric. It might have worked well in lawless, feudal societies, when the serfs depended on the protection and good will of their lords, but it's not justifiable in the modern, high-tech world.

[DrTodd13]

I would agree that freedom is the "fairest" way to live but I would vehemently disagree that true freedom can exist in the presence of democracy. Everyone complains about a tyrant who imposes there will on everyone else but democracy is just tyranny of the majority. The democracy in this country could decide tomorrow to become a theocracy. It would take a while to make all the necessary changes to the constitution, etc., but they could do it. Whether the religion is Christianity or Islam or atheism or secular humanism, forcing someone to live someway they dont want to live is wrong. I don't care if the country is 99% Muslim, it is wrong for the 99% to force their will on the remaining 1%. You own yourself. You don't own your fellow man and therefore have no right to tell him what to do.

[joshs]

Has anyone here read Francis Fukuyama's Book "The end of History and the Last Man."? Written in the late 80's he argued that the liberal democratic state was the ultimate end (think Hegel) of the evolution of society. This was due to scientific advancement and other hystorical forces. Further, he noted some of the negative effects of this fact in the loss of indivuduals having the creative freedom to truely reshape the world (if I remember the argument correctly). E.G. No more Nietzschean supermen.

A facenating book. While I personally think he discounts the importance of economics in how a society is organized (and most importantly how power is distriubuted in society) it is still a very important book, by the leading neo-conservative thinker of his age. I need to re-read this, I have not touched it since it came out 15 years ago.

[luke warm]

DrTodd13, on Aug 14 2006, 11:17 AM, said:

I would agree that freedom is the "fairest" way to live but I would vehemently disagree that true freedom can exist in the presence of democracy. Everyone complains about a tyrant who imposes there will on everyone else but democracy is just tyranny of the majority. The democracy in this country could decide tomorrow to become a theocracy. It would take a while to make all the necessary changes to the constitution, etc., but they could do it. Whether the religion is Christianity or Islam or atheism or secular humanism, forcing someone to live someway they dont want to live is wrong. I don't care if the country is 99% Muslim, it is wrong for the 99% to force their will on the remaining 1%. You own yourself. You don't own your fellow man and therefore have no right to tell him what to do.

freedom's just another word
for nothin' left to lose

i agree that true freedom can't occur in a democracy, or any other form of gov't... i don't think that's the point, is it? ... i'm willing to take a history lesson here, so give me on... in which country has the most freedom existed for the most people, up to now?

i also disagree that the usa could 'decide' to become a theocracy... this is a nation of laws, with the constitution being the supreme law of the land... the whole point is for the majority to rule but never to have rights unavailable to the minority... it would take a military takeover to change our form of gov't... not impossible, true, but i think anything less will fail... i think our way of life is more threatened by rulings from the bench, personally... so far, the checks and balances put in effect by the founders has worked remarkably well

[twiggstar]

Freedom? As far as I am concerned, there is no such thing as it, we are all bound by restraints in one form or another, be they laws, finances or whatever.

Freedom of speech is a basic human right. Yet the words to "baa baa black sheep" have been changed to "baa baa fluffy sheep" because the former was seen as racist, "blackboard" is now "chalkboard". It's stupid.

I read on the wonderful Wiki earlier today that the most stable society was one where approx only 100 people lived. Personally I think this might be because people are more likely to co-opperate and share things amonst themselves.

Democracy? Women didn't get the vote until the 20's, black people until the sixties. One look through the past 100 years shows restrictions, and rigged elections. People bullied into voting one way or another, or being so uneducated about what's going on around them, and in politics in general that either they don't vote, or vote unwisely.

In theory Democracy is a good thing, you go with what the majority want. That's fair enough. But what if the majority of people (hypothetically speaking, obviously) had no clue about what it was they were voting on.

Capitalism? I hate the idea of it. Ever picked up the phone, to ring a call center to get some help on something, only to find that someone is in India on the other end of the phone? While you're trying to explain to them the problem, in the simplest English you can manage, and not understanding a word they are saying because of the accent, you're getting charged peak rate. Why? 'Cause the fat cats want money to line their wallets. -And don't even get me started on Coca Cola, or Nike.

Back to the topic of oil though...

The funding can be found to build massive pipelines for oil all over Africa, yet where is the funding to build water pipes in Africa? Oil and Water do not mix, is it such a bad idea to use the same pipes for both oil and water? Surely millions dying of starvation is more important than making more money?

I've ranted too much so I shall shut up now. You can probably tell I'm young, naive and idealistic, not to mention being a girl, so none of my views about anything counts anyway.

[mike777]

Well you do make a persuasive argument that young women should not have the vote. I just think it will be a difficult battle to take it away but that does not mean you are wrong or that is not a worthwhile fight.

I could not agree more strongly with your argument against capitalism. We need to raise Social Security taxes on young people so we older folks can get better benefits.

I did not understand your points on Africa. People have been living in Africa for decades at least and they have not built water pipes. It is the oil companies fault? What do they do all day long?

[pbleighton]

"Has anyone here read Francis Fukuyama's Book "The end of History and the Last Man."? Written in the late 80's he argued that the liberal democratic state was the ultimate end (think Hegel) of the evolution of society. This was due to scientific advancement and other hystorical forces. Further, he noted some of the negative effects of this fact in the loss of indivuduals having the creative freedom to truely reshape the world (if I remember the argument correctly). E.G. No more Nietzschean supermen.

A facenating book. While I personally think he discounts the importance of economics in how a society is organized (and most importantly how power is distriubuted in society) it is still a very important book, by the leading neo-conservative thinker of his age. I need to re-read this, I have not touched it since it came out 15 years ago."


Just an aside... former neoconservative triumphalist Fukuyama has recently recognized that the invasion of Iraq was idiocy and is blaming his (former) fellow neoconservatives for being naive.

Who'da thunk it

Peter

[Winstonm]

In finding the reasons for the invasion of Iraq, including both the President and the Secretary of State making claims of weapon capabilities that were baseless while ignoring contradictory intelligence from their own resources, one can only deduce that there exited corruption of such immense proportions as to be vitually unimaginable or incompetence of an equal magnitude.

In either case, it is inconceivable that this power group is held virtually unaccountable for the atrocities imposed.

[twiggstar]

mike777, on Aug 14 2006, 07:43 PM, said:

Well you do make a persuasive argument that young women should not have the vote. I just think it will be a difficult battle to take it away but that does not mean you are wrong or that is not a worthwhile fight.

I could not agree more strongly with your argument against capitalism. We need to raise Social Security taxes on young people so we older folks can get better benefits.

I did not understand your points on Africa.  People have been living in Africa for decades at least and they have not built water pipes. It is the oil companies fault? What do they do all day long?

Hmm, you appear to have misunderstood me entirely.

"You can probably tell I'm young, naive and idealistic, not to mention being a girl, so none of my views about anything counts anyway." was sarcasm, dear.

Tax the young rather than the old is a silly notion. However I do agree that taxes on people earning ridiculous amounts of money should be increased, and more benefits to those that deserve them/better public services.

My point on Africa is that there is enough money to build pipes there. But instead of using these pipes for the benefit of the millions that are starving, they are used for oil so that we in the western world can use luxuries like cars. It's pure selfishness on our part.
And I am pretty certain, that if they had the money, or resourses to build the pipes themselves they would do.

[Al_U_Card]

twiggstar, on Aug 14 2006, 07:22 PM, said:

I've ranted too much so I shall shut up now. You can probably tell I'm young, naive and idealistic, not to mention being a girl, so none of my views about anything counts anyway.

Youth will be served, as it must (thank goodness for mortality!). The only problem is that exuberance and new ideas get worn down with age and constant rejection by the "powers that be". Do not be dismayed, for only prisoners can serve time while those with time can afford to wait.

[luke warm]

twiggstar, on Aug 15 2006, 05:40 AM, said:

"You can probably tell I'm young, naive and idealistic, not to mention being a girl, so none of my views about anything counts anyway." was sarcasm, dear.

so was his entire post, more or less

Quote

However I do agree that taxes on people earning ridiculous amounts of money should be increased, and more benefits to those that deserve them/better public services.

one problem with this is obvious - how much is ridiculous, and who determines that? also, who deserves better and/or more benefits and services, and who determines that?

Quote

My point on Africa is that there is enough money to build pipes there. But instead of using these pipes for the benefit of the millions that are starving, they are used for oil so that we in the western world can use luxuries like cars. It's pure selfishness on our part.

i don't understand... who builds the pipes you're speaking of? maybe there should be a tax on the citizens of developed countries so the money can be used to build water pipes in africa... a '3 muscateers' tax

Quote

And I am pretty certain, that if they had the money, or resourses to build the pipes themselves they would do.

you are, eh?

winston said:

In finding the reasons for the invasion of Iraq, including both the President and the Secretary of State making claims of weapon capabilities that were baseless while ignoring contradictory intelligence from their own resources, one can only deduce that there exited corruption of such immense proportions as to be vitually unimaginable or incompetence of an equal magnitude.

In either case, it is inconceivable that this power group is held virtually unaccountable for the atrocities imposed.

no possibility at all for simply believing the intelligence reports they thought were true? after all, others believed the same reports... in any case, it has always been easier to look back and enumerate mistakes actually made than to look forward at possible mistakes...

[barmar]

DrTodd13, on Aug 14 2006, 12:17 PM, said:

I would agree that freedom is the "fairest" way to live but I would vehemently disagree that true freedom can exist in the presence of democracy. Everyone complains about a tyrant who imposes there will on everyone else but democracy is just tyranny of the majority. The democracy in this country could decide tomorrow to become a theocracy. It would take a while to make all the necessary changes to the constitution, etc., but they could do it. Whether the religion is Christianity or Islam or atheism or secular humanism, forcing someone to live someway they dont want to live is wrong. I don't care if the country is 99% Muslim, it is wrong for the 99% to force their will on the remaining 1%. You own yourself. You don't own your fellow man and therefore have no right to tell him what to do.

So what's the alternative? The only true "freedom" would be anarchy, which is clearly not desirable, either.

One of the assumptions behind democracy is that the majority will include enough moral people that the "tyrrany" they impose will not be overly oppressive; it should be a "benevolant" dictatorship. And history appears to bear this out: for instance, women and blacks were given the right to vote, despite the fact that they couldn't vote for this themselves.

There's no perfect system, no absolute freedom. I agree that a more libertarian society would be better -- the government seems to get into people's business much more than it should. But I think we're most likely to get this from a democracy. In other forms of government, there's less reason to expect the rule makers to share the values of the people forced to follow the rules. If the leaders are not beholden to the people, they can do whatever they want with few consequences.

[twiggstar]

Quote

Quote

However I do agree that taxes on people earning ridiculous amounts of money should be increased, and more benefits to those that deserve them/better public services.

one problem with this is obvious - how much is ridiculous, and who determines that? also, who deserves better and/or more benefits and services, and who determines that?

Ridiculous to me is the football players earning in a week more than the average person does in a year.

Quote

Quote

My point on Africa is that there is enough money to build pipes there. But instead of using these pipes for the benefit of the millions that are starving, they are used for oil so that we in the western world can use luxuries like cars. It's pure selfishness on our part.

i don't understand... who builds the pipes you're speaking of? maybe there should be a tax on the citizens of developed countries so the money can be used to build water pipes in africa... a '3 muscateers' tax

http://www.pipewire....fm?categoryid=2
http://allafrica.com...0607260859.html

...in fact, type in google "Africa Oil Pipeline" and dozens of things come up detailing the millions spent on it.

[mike777]

Again I could not agree with you more. Having African female football players earn more than ordinary citizens in a year is ridiculous. Here is a link to some of them. In any case these female football players are way overpaid.

http://www.cafonline.com/competitions.php?...hip/gallery.htm



I am still confused on what you are talking about with the oil/water pipelines. Are you saying Africa does not want to build water pipelines and want millions to starve?

As I mentioned in an earlier post people have lived on the Continent of Africa for decades. You seem to suggest they only want to build oil pipelines and billions of people over decades do not build water pipelines? Are you saying people of African heritage never have money or resources for water pipelines?
Are you saying people in China, Japan, Aust, India stand by and do nothing while millions die in Africa since they only build oil pipelines?

Is all the money in Africa going to female footballers, this is appalling!

[jtfanclub]

twiggstar, on Aug 14 2006, 07:22 PM, said:

Back to the topic of oil though...

The funding can be found to build massive pipelines for oil all over Africa, yet where is the funding to build water pipes in Africa? Oil and Water do not mix, is it such a bad idea to use the same pipes for both oil and water? Surely millions dying of starvation is more important than making more money?

http://www.worldatla...ntrys/aflnd.htm

Getting fresh water to the parched NW part of the continent wouldn't only be 2000 miles to the west, it would also be over 2 miles up.

There's two big issues causing the droughts. One is that there simply isn't enough water. The countries that have water want to use modern agricultural methods, which take a gigantic amount of water. That doesn't leave enough water for the other countries to have enough even to drink. The other issue is that water is a war commodity: various factions use control of the water to take control of countries, particularly Ethiopia, Somalia, and the Sudan. They're not above poisioning their own water supply if it means their enemies will surrender or die of thirst. Neither of these issues will be fixed by pipes.

http://www.medrc.org.om/

Desalinisation is probably the best solution. Algeria is quickly building up to a capacity of 4 million barrels per day (900,000 cubic meters). In contrast, the Trans-American pipeline, the huge oil pipeline that goes all the way down Alaska, only carries 2.1 million barrels per day at full capacity- and that's just shifting stuff around, not turning poison into pure water. Desalinisation plants are easier to guard and don't have to worry about about going across national borders like pipes do. They're building them as fast as they can make them, it's just expensive and timeconsuming.

I'm sure you'll understand it when you're old and male.

[whereagles]

sceptic, on Aug 14 2006, 05:24 AM, said:

Why is Democracy so dam important, is it really the best way for all to live, is it something that conflicts with Islamic views and if so what right do we have of shoving it all down their throats.

Democracy is the lesser evil because if you don't like what the government is doing, you can fire them after 4 years. In other government systems you have to put up with bad management for longer times, and that's bad

What islamic countries want is to be put in context because their political tradition is quite different from western countries. For instance, religion plays a major role, especially in xiite countries, and the ayatolahs are essentially a monarchy. Thus, in islamic countries, the best you can do is to have a half-democracy (e.g. Iran), where you can kick out the government if you don't like them, but have to put up with the clerics for as long as they live

[whereagles]

twiggstar, on Aug 15 2006, 06:45 PM, said:

Ridiculous to me is the football players earning in a week more than the average person does in a year.

Keep in mind that only 1% of the players reach teams that can pay that much. The other 99% live lives of average or below-average standards.

It is the same thing with any other job. Take managers, for instance: a top manager makes WAY more than the average one. To be the best is worth much, much more than being the average. It's supply/demand at work: if you want to hire the best, you have to pay him a lot because other companies want him as well. The reason you hear about football players is because they're more often on the news than other workers.

If you don't like this, you don't like capitalism In fact, you should be put to jail for being a bloody red communist

[sceptic]

Quote

Democracy is the lesser evil because if you don't like what the government is doing, you can fire them after 4 years. In other government systems you have to put up with bad management for longer times, and that's bad

I have to disagree here, in America, if you dont like the idiots in power, you only have a choice of another rich bunch of idiots to take their place

and it is pretty much the same in England

[whereagles]

Well, but the fact those rich idiots run the risk of being sent out of office encourages them to look for competent leadership.

Not that G.W. Bush is a competent leader (even many republicans think he sucks), but he's not really the one calling the shots.