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| Acmlm's Board - I3 Archive - - Posts by Arwon |
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Arwon Bazu                 Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Losing gracefully should probably involve a heartfelt apology on behalf of my country, and a pledge to behave better internationally in the future. But that's just me writing a 2008 victory speech for Al Gore. | |||
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Bollocks. That directly contradicts your argument that the US is more benevolent than other past empires... if they were so powerful and ruthless they'd still be here, no? China failed to subdue tiny Vietnam, the Soviets couldn't get their own way with Afghanistan, Britain failed in India, etc. It matters not a jot how global powers justify their dominance, the fact remains that it's not complete and they're quite limited in their ability to control and shape the world. The Cold War, as I say, was a clear testament to that, what with the global empires trying desperately to maneuver and manipulate little local client politicians who often-as-not didn't do what they were told.
No, past great powers ran afoul of their own limitations just as surely as any current and future global powers are doing and will do. Iraq was, at its core, an attempt to remake a country into something more pleasing to the attacker, and that would've failed just as surely if it was a ruthless authoritarian state trying to impose its will. Global powers are not omnipontent, they have limited power to shape world events. And it's quite substantially more limited than they're usually willing to acknowledge or accept, that's why we have over-reach and countries getting burned by ambitious adventures, and that's why stuff gets out of their control so often, as a consequence of local conditions and events. So to will China, especially as one power among several, be limited in its ability to shape the world in any real or lasting way. (edited by Arwon on 12-30-06 12:00 AM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| TWAJS. | |||
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| No, not the American party.
I'm talking about whether monarchies should become republics. I guess there's a lot of Europeans here who live in monarchies, plus there's Ziff in her Majesty's Dominion of Canadia. You all seem a lot happier with constitutional monarchies than many Australians including myself. I believe as a general principle that countries should become republics rather than monarchies, but more specifically I believe very fervently that Australia needs to become a republic, for several reasons. First, on a philosophical level I dislike monarchy and its inherent elitism and heirarchical nature. All that pomp and privlege and meaningless titles and so forth, it just bugs me. The ultimate soveriegn should be the people, not some inbred figureheads who got there by dint of a lucky birth. Second, there's the small Commonwealth-specific matter of our Queen living on the other side of the planet on a shitty little island in the North Atlantic. It'd be nice to have our own head-of-state, rather than just the Queen and her proxy the Governor General. Third, practical reasons relating to the structure and nature of our political system. The Governor General has gotten directly involved in Australian politics before, dismissing a government in 1975 in very controversial circumstances. The Governor General has very wide reserve powers that give the power to dismiss govenrments and appoint them, command the armed forces, and so forth. It's a hangover from a time when the colonial structures of Great Britain were basically military in nature... especially here in a place which was founded on white slave labor. There is, of course, the question of what model to use. I don't like the American model and neither to most Australians. I don't want a strong and powerful president who's almost impossible to remove like in the USA and Latin America. I like the idea of the supremacy of the legislature. Ireland, India and Germany have such models, with the president largely ceremonial. It's been suggested that an appointed president can be better deprived of mandate than an elected one, I don't mind the idea of parliament with a 2/3rds or 3/4ths majority appointing the president (big majorities to ensure bipartisan consensus). The problem, though, is that Australians won't stand for a president who isn't elected because of that whole hating politicians thing. And, an elected president can tend to give them a political mandate like in France, as well as discourage people who don't like the hurly burly of elections, from running. It's a quandary. One idea I've seen is to elect a presidential assembly who's job is to vote with a 3/4ths consensus on a list of nominated candidates... I dunno. I'd settle for an elected president, as long as the constitution made them easy to dismiss, explicitly laid-out all their powers (unlike the present Governor General situation) and specifically deprived them of powers. (edited by Arwon on 01-04-07 08:48 PM) (edited by Arwon on 01-04-07 08:53 PM) |
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Arwon Bazu  Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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Originally posted by SilvershieldOriginally posted by ArwonHahahahahaha Depends on the country. In Australia, the Queen's representative is the Governor General, as I said, and mostly ceremonial as in other British Dominions like Canada and New Zealand... BUT in 1975 during a constitutional crisis, the G-G exercised executive powers to dismiss a government, call elections, and install a caretaker government. It was a rather painful ordeal that could've gotten a lot messier than it did. This dismissal, known as The Dismissal in Australia, was the Crown acting with real temporal political power, and there's no reason it can't happen again. Which given that it's a non-elected representative of a monarch half a world away, is pretty galling. The thing to understand about Westminster systems in particular is that a great deal of what happens is unwritten, purely done by convention and precedent and so what is written on paper is only part of the story. The Prime Minister himself is actually a product of these unwritten conventions, it's not a position described in the Australian constitution (for that matter, our constitution is purely procedural, no bill of rights or anything in it... and it's so outdated it still lists New Zealand as a member). The constitution gives the Governor General, as representative of the Crown, great power. The unwritten conventions against the G-G taking a day-to-day role in government is all that keeps the Governor General, the Queen's representative, from exercising this wide variety of discretionary reserve powers. It's a flawed arrangement that has gone wrong in the past. Overhauling the process and the political structures, renewing the constitution, through the creation of a republic, is a great way to deal with all this, and it dovetails neatly with the need to ditch outdated symbolism. Because that's the key here--symbolism. As you say, many monarchs are purely symbolic and ceremonial. But I say that even if there's no practical reason, becoming a republic is still a good thing to do. It doesn't matter if they're purely ceremonial or purely decorative or whatever, even as a ceremonial symbol it is distasteful and anarchronistic... they're still kings and queens, they're still social elites with no purpose, and we don't need them, they don't deserve the power, prestige and wealth they have purely for winning a genetic lottery. Why should any citizen of a modern democratic state have to show deference and subjugation to anyone, especially someone who has done nothing to earn it? The fact that here, it's a foreigner on the throne doesn't help, either. Monarchy is at odds with things like individualism, liberty, the rule of law, and so forth... this is evident in the fact that to even remain remotely acceptable to anyone, monarchies have had to be watered down into ineffectiveness. Why not finish the job and get rid of them? DahrkDaiz: Relatively speaking to other republics (outside of Latin America which use similar systems to America), the United States system has a powerful president. He's very hard to remove aside from election times because impeachment is such a difficult process. Elsewhere the legislature has greater primacy, and in many, the Prime Minister (head of the legislative body, equivalent of your House Majority Leader and/or Speaker) is the primary face of government. What you say is right though, most republicans don't want the American system because of its various flaws. (edited by Arwon on 01-04-07 11:50 PM) (edited by Arwon on 01-04-07 11:53 PM) |
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Arwon Bazu  Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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Originally posted by Koryo I'm a fifth generation white Australian with predominantly Irish Catholic roots. The attitude that Britain is somehow less a "foreign" country shits me, because firstly it recalls things that resulted from delusions of unbreakable kinship ranging from the insanity of the First World War, to the Brisbane Line, to the British testing nuclear weapons in South Australia, to the fact that we didn't even have our own passports for 50 years after becoming a country... and secondly because Britain stopped having a special relationship with us a long time ago. These days at the airports we stand in the "other" queue (rather than the EU one) alongside Bhutanese and Venezuelans. That, and the fact that the majority if illegal immigrants are British citizens who overstay their visas somehow escapes notice, even as we're instituting draconian policies directed at everyone else. The Queen is a citizen of a country half way around the world who's been here maybe twice, her first loyalties are to another country. She's every bit a foreigner. Just because she's white and speaks English and her country's flag is on our flag shouldn't make it less so. Would you be happy if your president was a New Zealander who lived in Auckland?
Firstly, you people are misunderstanding my description of the president as "powerful". I'm not saying they have ABSOLUTE power, but relative to many other republics the president has substantially more. Ultimately the difference is that they're not beholden to the legislature and they exercise significant day-to-day executive functions. Most Australians can't name our executive now, but we still have the same name recognition and personal politics stuff. Not everyone can name their local member of parliament but we can all name the Member for Bennelong, because he's the PM. You don't need a powerful president to create interest and name recognition. We just focus on the Prime Minister instead, as do other countries with mostly ceremonial, non-political presidents. I'd hope in an Australian Republic this'd mostly remain the same. Further, in this style of system, the executive is mostly in the hands of a cabinet of ministers rather than the presidential office, so they're not necessarily any "weaker". If that were the case, our system would be weaker now. My main objection to the presidential system of the United States is that he exercises significant day-to-day authority and is, essentially, a political figure with a lack of real accountability short of invoking criminal proceedings. Further, it encourages extremely polarised and adversarial politics because the presidential office is such a coveted prise that only one person can have... parliamentary systems are more flexible and fluid. Also, this "presidential" style of republic has a far higher rate of failure (the US is practically the only one to never have fallen into dictatorship) than republics with legislative supremacy. Honestly, any sensible electoral system would have dismissed and replaced a leader with as little competence and popular support as George Bush, by now. I'm a far bigger fan of the Irish or Indian style Parliamentary model, countries which do elect a president, but one who basically stays out of day-to-day politics and remains more ceremonial and above the fray, and one who, more importantly, is beholden to the legislature... This is partly because they're much closer to the Westminster style parliamentary democracy Australia... hell they're ideal models (also South Africa) because they've already made transitions from British-ish systems to republics. We don't need to throw our political culture or traditions out in order to become a Republic. Also, we have compulsory voting and 90%+ turnout, so the point about voter turnout is kinda moot. (: (edited by Arwon on 01-05-07 05:43 AM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| I'm really struggling to work up an opinion about Hussein's hanging. It was always going to be happening, and frankly, the bigger concern is how EVERYTHING ELSE IN IRAQ is fucked up. Academic discussions about capital punishment are fine and all, but this was not in any way an important event in the context of the Iraq war. I'm sure a few jingoistic goons Stateside will temporarily think the war was a good idea because of it, but that won't last. Aside from adding one new grievance to the litany of grievances fuelling sectarian violence this whole episode accomplishes precisely nothing. | |||
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Arwon Bazu  Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| "A number of EU countries, such as Germany, the UK, and Italy, are above that on the chart, while most of the rest are below it. This means that most of the EU is not nearly as developed and wealthy as the Western and Northern European countries that we all think of when we think of EU economic power. The US is more homogeneous. I hope those poorer countries will be brought up to the level of Germany and the UK, but it is not likely to happen tomorrow."
I dunno, there could well be as much disparity between Sweden and Slovenia as Mississippi and Masachusetts, if you counted the latter separately. |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| I'm at work, I wasn't logged in. Still ain't. | |||
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Oh I know the US median is higher, you said so yourself last post. I just wasn't sure if the disparity between EU nations (Romania and Bulgaria aside, since if you're gonna include them you might as well include Puerto Rico) was really that much higher than the disparities in the US. If you can think of the EU as "carrying" some of it's poorer states, I reckon you can say the same about the US and it's poorer states, particularly in the South (and also New Mexico) which are massive absorbers of redistributed money at a federal level.
This kinda illustrates the limitations on comparing through one indicator alone. First, I'm pretty sure those GDP per capita figures aren't PPP adjusted, which makes comparison incredibly tricky. There's no way in hell that there's anything like equivalent wealth and standard of living between Mississippi and Germany, for example. That's to say nothing of using GDP as a proxy for "strength". I mean, given that most of our first world economies these days are services and meaningless unproductive consumption how much can "strength" and economic growth they really be said to correlate? What about things like primary industries, manufacturing base, balance of trade, current accounts, income inequality, employment rates (including underemployment), public debt, productivity, corruption levels, soft power, social welfare and health care, quality of life, education quality, etc? In many of these areas the US falls down rather badly, in others it doesn't. Comparing countries is not an easy process. Finally, if you adjust EU and United States economic growth rates to take into account differing population growth rates they actually come out a lot closer. |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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Originally posted by Koryo So? I'm less interested in the veracity of this argument than in the motive for it. It's okay to make laws based on forcing outdated and counterproductive morality on people because, hey, back in the dim dark days most people believed in god? |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| 1. What? I'm interested in the motive for making the "everything we hold dear comes from religion" argument, since usually it's an effort to marginalise and demonise atheists and attempt to appropriate some sort of moral high ground - "you didn't invent these things like human rights and rule of law, they come from God and religous people, therefore your opinion doesn't matter, stop trying to change our laws since we own them".
2. What's Europe got to do with anything here? 3. This is a thread about counterproductive moralist laws against things like hardline drug laws and prohibition of prostitution. What does the Christianity or otherwise of one's ancestors have to do with good laws? Why should the religious moralism of a section of the population serve as justification for bad, harmful laws? The point about separation of church and state is that "one religion says it's wrong" or "one religion says it should be this way" is not a sufficient justification for a law. That's why things like bans on sodomy are so abhorrent and have been overturned in most of the West, that's why the opponents of gay marriage are frustratingly wrong-headed. Smug pontification about how everyone used to believe in God so therefore anything they invented in the way of ethical or philosophical matters must be religious in nature and inspiration, matter not a jot here. The point is the moralism at play in the drafting of these laws should not just be irrelevant, but has been demonstrably counterproductive. The laws are bad and wrong regardless of where they came from. If it's your contention that it's Christianity and lingering religious sentiment that's responsible for the harm inflicted by pointlessly moralistic laws of the sort we're talking about, then I guess that's just one more reason to be glad I've forsaken the sacred historical roots of my civilisation and become a nasty secular atheist sabateur who just doesn't belong and isn't capable of ethics without God there to tell me right from wrong. Feh. And just to forestall the inevitable "but things are worse in the rest of the world" retort, I'll just say right now, that the sooner it's possible to sell double-ended dildos in Teheran because somebody can see the profit in it, the better off we're all going to be. |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| WE ALREADY HAVE A DOZEN ABORTION THREADS GO PLAY IN THOSE YOU GOONS.
Now. OK. We now have Koryo telling us that ethical behaviour is essentially not possible without belief in a God to keep you in line. How sad that one could have such a shallow respect for the lives of others that only the great punishment/reward system in the sky is keeping them from a life of bloodshed and cruelty. My response to that is that some people won't behave and be good without a parole officer, but that doesn't mean everyone can't. If anything, the taboo on killing could even be stronger among atheists since the belief that there's NOTHING waiting after death should make the act of killing an even graver act than if you believe in a Great Beyond that means you didn't *really* end anything. Do you know why we have the ethical systems against killing and hurting others that we do? It runs much deeper than any religious concept. All you need to be able to decide these things are wrong is basic Theory Of Mind, the ability to understand that other people are entities with thoughts and feelings too. From this flows the Golden Rule of reciprocity in behaviour, the ultimate basis of essentialy every code of ethics system both theist and nontheist. Christianity has the "do unto others" thing but it hardly invented it. Zoroastrianism, the original monotheistic religion had a version, as does Hinduism and Jainism, etc etc. Confucianism says "What you do not wish upon yourself, extend not to others" and Oscar Wilde, notable degenerate atheist homofaggot, said "selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live" and arch-post-modernist Jean Paul Sarte said it as "You should always ask yourself what would happen if everyone did what you are doing". It's what's called an obvious idea, THAT'S why it's old, not because it was necessarily derived from religion... if anything it's the converse.
Clearly you know different Christians than I do...
See, this is the crux of what I'm talking about. Moralist approaches to law being counterproductive and making the thing they're opposing more harmful. Someone criticises hardline drug policies such as jailing casual drug-users because it's a policy which makes drugs MORE HARMFUL, and the response doesn't go any deeper than "Drugs are bad and if you legalise them more people will do them". We don't necessarily NEED to legalise them, but nobody should EVER go to jail for mere personal possession or use of any substance. Fine them if it helps satisfy the puritans, but that's all. Decriminalisation is a better policy because it reduces the harm drugs do which is after all what we all WANT. But no, "drugs are bad" reflexive moralism keeps them more harmful than they otherwise would be. You win again, moral majority. Same with prostitution... it's a harmful and exploitative industry that can be made safer and less harmful if it's legal and regulated, but no, the people thinks SEX IS BAD (with various shades of naunce, naturally) and so unfortunate women continue to get abused, exploited and put at risk because they're afraid to access legal and health systems and bear the brunt of most anti-prostitution legislation. Don't even get me started on your apparent yearning for Sodomy laws, since we just can't have people engaging in wanton acts of oral and anal sex without punishment. Hmm.
I see what you did there. In the course of one paragraph you managed to tell us that the Christian rules for living are the One True Ruleset Of Life (as rigid as the laws of Baseball fer chrissake) and accused atheists of adultery, incest, bestiality and pedophilia. Wow. Between all that and the Reducto ad Hitlerum (I point out that law-making is a practical exercise and moralism can be counterproductive and you go "Nazi Germany was a "practical" government too"? What are you, an 8th Grade Debater?) arguments I'm not really finding much substance to work with here. Do you have any contentions other than "Atheists are immoral and have no ethics" to make, here? Ultimately, the mere fact that you feel it necessary to throw out a caveat like "that's not to say that atheists and other religions shouldn't be allowed in America." tells me more than anything you've said yourself. (edited by Arwon on 01-11-07 11:28 PM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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I'm afraid you believe wrong, as I'll show you below. Your middle class drug users do exist, but they're not the ones getting arrested and stuff. Hell, there are even stable, functional middle class recreational heroin users. You are're right, young people and minorities do cop the worst of drug related harms. But let's look at this for a moment and ask why they cop it so bad and how we could make them cop it *less* bad: "Of the $35 billion or so that the American authorities spend each year on tackling drugs, at least three-quarters goes not on prevention or treatment but on catching and punishing drug dealers and users. More than one in ten of all arrests—1.5m in 1999—is for drug offences. Some 40% of those drug arrests were for possessing marijuana. Fewer than 20% were for the sale or manufacture of drugs, whether heroin, cocaine or anything else. The arrests also sweep up a distressingly large number of teenagers: 220,000 juveniles were picked up for drug offences in 1997, 82% more than in 1993. " "America's prisons are crammed with drug offenders, who now account for roughly one in four of those in custody, and more than half of all federal prisoners. Most of these drug offenders are locked up for non-violent crimes: in only 12% of cases was any weapon involved. Almost all are from the broad bottom end of the drug-dealing pyramid. America's imprisonment rate for drug offences alone now exceeds the rate of imprisonment in most West European countries for crimes of all kinds." "Disturbingly, even though drug use is spread fairly evenly across different racial groups, three-quarters of those locked up are non-white (see chart). For example, most users of crack cocaine are white, but 90% of crack defendants in federal courts are black or Hispanic. White people, being generally richer, do their deals behind closed doors, whereas blacks and Hispanics tend to trade on the streets, where they can be caught more easily. A report by The Sentencing Project, a group lobbying for criminal-justice reform, notes that black people account for 13% of monthly drug users; 35% of those arrested for possessing drugs; 55% of those convicted; and 74% of those sentenced to prison." I'm taking this from the Economist because they're the guys with the numbers. Great harm is being done by a hard-line drug policy, for no benefit (drug usage in America wouldn't be lower than, say, the Netherlands or Switzerland). Particularly to the young and non-white. This harm wouldn't be done if the end-user was thoroughly decrminalised and simply fined or given other non-criminal penalties instead. It's counter-intuitive, but they way to make drugs stop hurting so many people so much is to lessen the criminal sanctions since they aren't working. PLUS, you can even focus on fighting the dealers and breaking their exploitative hold over users instead! Hell, decrminalising drug use and possession actually HELPS fight exploitation because junkies are less dependent on their criminal suppliers since they an access legal and medical facilities without fear. |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| See I think the debate about micronations is far more interesting than the copyright issues.
Why isn't Sealand or the Hutt River Province a country? |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| In a country full of elite and elitist private universities it seems strange to attack a top public university for elitism and catering to rich kids... | |||
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Sealand and Hutt River both do have governments. | |||
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| Generally I like a full, strong dark ale. Tooheys Old and Carlton Draught are two decent and cheapish beers readily available in the pubs and taverns of this land, and beyond that, the best beer I've ever had is probably the Olde Admiral brewed at the Lord Nelson Hotel at the Rocks (old part of Sydney). 6.2% alcohol, very dark but not as bitter as some other dark beers, went down smooth, claimed to taste chocolatey and actually sort of did. Wonderous. | |||
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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Originally posted by Ailure Not necessarily. Established states don't tend to consider these things actual countries, so different norms apply, even though I personally believe that Sealand and Hutt River, for example, probably deserve to be actual countries. Italy once stormed an articifical structure built by an engineer and declared an independent country, and attempts by businessmen to construct an artificial island near Tonga were met by annexation. I'm not sure too many people would raise an eyebrow if England or Germany sent the Navy to Sealand and tore it down. |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 5909 days Last view: 5909 days |
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| As good a bit of news as this is given America's extremely low bottom-end wages, does anyone else find it incredibly ass-backwards and inefficient that politicians get to set minimum wages? |
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| Acmlm's Board - I3 Archive - - Posts by Arwon |
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