EU and Democracy

How do you feel about EU? Wouldn´t it be good to stop those beaurocrats a little? What do they think? Any superstate is an end to last vestiges of democracy. Who will know or be able to contact his PM? Understand the interplay of lobbyists/PMs in Brusselles? Participate?

Or what?

 

On the other hand the world is too small and too fragile for individual countries to dictate policy, to themselves or anyone else.
Devil's advocate - it's a point of view
Oli

 

Counterweight for USA? At the cost of losing the smaller but more transparent units? Is it worth the price? I had the privilege to talk to my MP, and another MP, who invited me to talk after I commented on his book. And these people have the sovereign power in the land. Something like that would be impossible in a big EU with power in the center.

Imo democratic order has a certain max. size. Over which it becomes totally removed from the base.

 

I agree, but at the moment every little country (and in the UK some counties!!) keep talking about "full autonomy".
Like I said, the world is too small and too fragile.
Never liked democracy anyway - my idea of a real government is an (wait for it....)

Oligarchy

:lol: :lol: :lol:
Put me in charge and i'll solve all your problems.
Oli

 

ok, Oli. I´m with you.

Small Elites/Establishments are less overwhelming than big ones. As to democracy - well, it´s pretty ineffective to have to cheat and otherwise coach the public, but it works somehow without too much suffering and bloodshed. At the moment. I don´t see a better solution, realistically.

sorry for this serious tone, I´m tired (working) :roll:

 

Yeah my objection to democracy is that the idiots I meet everywhere are allowed to vote just the same way I am. Why should an idiot get a choice in who runs a government that is looking after my welfare?

BTW, I did some searching on the net,
definition of a moron (in medical terms) is someone with an IQ of 50-69
average person has an IQ of about 100
my IQ is 163
which means, roughly, that I'm as much smarter than an average person as that that person is smarter than a moron.
Would you let a moron vote?
Why should I let an ordinary person vote? :lol: :lol:
Bwahahaha, look out world, I'm coming :smok:
Oli

 

I'm with you, except that setting up some kind of intelligence limit for the right to vote would mean that the vast majority of the electorate would be highly educated, probably therefore well-to-do, and thus that the results of any and every election would be conservative and/or liberal. Kind of defeats the purpose of democracy.

The most common argument against a further centralization of the EU is that such a large unwieldly state would surely never know what is good for its people, and I tend to side with that. However, a centralized EU government wouldn't govern over a whole lot more people than the US federal government; the individual states in the EU would probably hold the same position as the States of America within their Union. So it is indeed workable, if we are to follow the American example.

Now does any nation-state want that? I guess not. Therefore, don't count on the EU becoming a centralized state any time soon.

 

Sorry, but intelligence does not mean anything. Intelligence sometimes good for making argument in the bad side.
:bang:

 

Yeah, but if I was in charge it wouldn't be a democracy - voting rights would depend not just upon intelligence but whether I like you or not :lol:

I'm more aware of that than most people (honestly), you think I can be this smart and not know? :smok:
Seriously, absolutely right, OTOH, in my experience, the smarter you are the less likely you are to make bad judgements, and IMHO and experience, the more likely you are to tend towards altruism.
The "evil genius" is a Hollywood creation - in fact name one mainstream Hollywood film where the good guy is really intelligent, generally the bad guys are clever and the good guys are lucky, tough, get the girl (damn, I knew there was downside to brains)
Oli

 

your iq is no indicator of how smart you are!

also if you think that by having a high iq that makes you a better person and more righteous than someone with a lower score..then this shows how far from being smart your really are.

 

Actually that is all IQ is: :lol: It doesn't measure how you apply it, only your general fitness at solving problems, relating what you already know to things you've just learnt etc etc - in short, how smart you are.
As for "making me a better person and more righteous than someone with a lower score", I didn't say that, I didn't imply that and I didn't mean that.
The majority of my comments were "tongue in cheek" and "frivolous", perhaps you've heard of those expressions?
I said, and re-read this, in my experience, the smarter you are the less likely you are to make bad judgements, and IMHO and experience, the more likely you are to tend towards altruism.
Your cleverness, IQ, whatever you want to call is a measure of how you evaluate new things and past experience - in other words exactly what is needed to make a good judgement!
As for the altruism, I was trying to make the point, the reference to Hollywood evil geniuses should have given you a clue, that smart people, in general are not intent on taking over the world, but working to make things better for everybody.
I don't consider myself "better" than anyone, but I am, and it's been demonstrated, smarter.
Oli :smok:

 

Oh yeah? I'm smarterer than... oh darn!

 

voters

i think letting parasites vote is a mistake. if you're letting others support you do you have a right to have a say in running things? now there are those who arte supported by the public through no fault of their own and we can argue about their vote but as a general rule i think welfare checks should cut off the voteing rights. too many lazy SOBs voting themselves raises [ or is that congress]

 

Sorry can't agree with you on that because of my fabulously high altruism and impeccable moral standards. Plus the fact that I'm a "welfare" case :lol:
Have effectively been out of work for four years, lost the house, car, motorbike (God I loved that thing - only just got it run in before I had to let it go, never did a chance to open it up a straight road, supposedly 180 mph :evil: ).
I keep getting told I'm overqualified for the jobs I apply for, and can't afford to move anywhere else at the moment - I'm trapped.
Oli
But in principle, yeah there are people, and I know some of them personally, who haven't got a job, don't want one and know the system inside out, and therefore get more money than they would if they were working. Me, I haven't even got fridge! It died before Christmas and I have to wait 6 months before I qualify for any help - and this after 27 years of paying in to the system :bang:

 

Re: voters

If the government can find people living off welfare for no reason other than being lazy, they won't withdraw their vote; they'll withdraw their support fees instead. The lazy bum is sent to work and will earn his vote once again. The problem is not that these people still vote while being supported by others without reason, but rather that they can't be effectively tracked (in other words, that the cost of tracking them is higher than that of paying them).

 

i think you will find that the majority of the ppl who dont vote in elections...are in fact mainly the ppl you lot dont think should be allowed 2 vote in the first place!

as i said b4 common sense is much more and indicator of being smart, i worked with a guy who was a self confessed member of mensa who failed his driving test 11 times and counting, and just couldnt get his head round the basic concept...his level of common sense was zero..he might have been good at solving puzzles and conudrums etc, but anything that was actually useful in the real world there was nothing upstairs.

 

Back on topic, for once.
The EU, (and IMHO Blair's government) are increasingly making stupid little rulings that have to be followed, affecting the day-to-day life of citizens.
Government should be invisible. Example, Sunday night's 55 Degrees North (a UK cop TV show for those in foreign places) had a sub-plot about a market trader selling fruit and vegatables in pounds and ounces, instead of the regulation kilogrammes. He was prosecuted.
Does it matter what unit of measure is used in local market, providing his customers understand what that unit of measure is? Why has some bureaucrat, or group of bureaucrats decided that this is a worthwhile ruling?
Surely they'd be better employed sorting out industrial relationships, recessions (rescuing ailing car firms?), tackling violence, (and doing something real about anti-social behaviour (ASBO? pah)).
Government should govern, not rule, and most definitely not interfere.
Oli

 

yes its a stupid ruling...but then there is no ruling saying u cant sell in pounds and ounces as long as u show kilos and grammes too.

Things like that are because the uk is still transient between metric and imperial..it wont be long that we are all metric as those who were only ever taught in imperial measures grow old and die, evryone growing up is taught in metric today and have been for a while now.

 

I wasn't, and I'm only 25...

 

I wasn't either, however what I have found is that there are a great many areas where Imperial measures are used, even dominant, and in all likelihood will continue to be for some time so for many people including myself it is beneficial to be conversant in both.

Cooking, for example, I find it's a lot easier to cook in pounds and ounces than in grams and kilograms.

The Railway still uses imperial terms a lot, both in terms of actual working measurements and also safety instructions.

I think the thing that annoyed a lot of people in the UK is that the EU insisted that the main display be in Metric with Imperial conversions as a subscript, I believe originally the EU wanted Metric measurements only.