Naked Science Forum
General Discussion & Feedback => Just Chat! => Topic started by: Jolly on 01/05/2016 03:28:10
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So it's all about democracy and Britain in or out of Europe
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I've voted for both ends of the scale.
A United States of Europe, with a democratically elected, or preferably soviet-mandated parliament (served by, not serving, the civil service), with a single overarching criminal code, one official language, one central bank, one federal police force, one military command, one hereditary head of state (think President Trump, or President Blair, before you dismiss the idea of Kate'n'Andy as constitutional monarchs)....it could be a civilised version of the USA - a free-enterprise welfare state with military clout but no civilian guns.
But the present organisation does not make economic or political sense for Britain. The UK has always traded at a loss with the rest of Europe: lowering trade barriers has simply increased the deficit. UK law is based on an entirely different concept (criminalisation and prosecution of wrongs) from that of Europe (enforcement of rights) because under UK law, the state exists to serve the citizen, which is political anathema to our neighbours and does not require a constitution, human rights, and all the other crap that makes work for lawyers and frees criminals to travel and ply their trade across Europe.
As the UK only has one vote, I can't see any possibility of democratic reform that will benefit us.
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I've voted for both ends of the scale.
A United States of Europe, with a democratically elected, or preferably soviet-mandated parliament (served by, not serving, the civil service), with a single overarching criminal code, one official language, one central bank, one federal police force, one military command, one hereditary head of state (think President Trump, or President Blair, before you dismiss the idea of Kate'n'Andy as constitutional monarchs)....it could be a civilised version of the USA - a free-enterprise welfare state with military clout but no civilian guns.
But the present organisation does not make economic or political sense for Britain. The UK has always traded at a loss with the rest of Europe: lowering trade barriers has simply increased the deficit. UK law is based on an entirely different concept (criminalisation and prosecution of wrongs) from that of Europe (enforcement of rights) because under UK law, the state exists to serve the citizen, which is political anathema to our neighbours and does not require a constitution, human rights, and all the other crap that makes work for lawyers and frees criminals to travel and ply their trade across Europe.
I've heard this arguement before, about how human rights laws protects criminals, and how criminals do not deserve any rights. But this is all propoganda really, the states of europe are all including Britian acting criminally, take mass survilence, the state was acting criminally and invading our privacy, but they denied it, then snowden proved to the world they are, so now they are just making their criminal behaviour legal and passing mass survilence into law, the problem for the secutiry services with regard to human rights law, it's not that it protects criminals, inreality no law protects the people from the security services, rather human rights laws makes what the states agencies do- Criminal.
"If no one knows it doesn't happen" This philosophy is what the security services used to engage in mass survilence, and many other pratices, their concern is should the truth of their behaviour come out, under human rights law they'll be in trouble. So if they just get rid of the law, they'll be able to continue their inhuman practice and know they'll be safe from legal issue in the future.
There is no law if it is not enforced, and there can be no law when "if no one knows it didn't happen" is a driving force in activity- any thing goes, just don't get caught.
The defence of one persons rights is the defence of everyones!
And if you are not prepared to defend the rights of others, you certainly not worthy to have them for yourself. People are not criminal till proven so in a court of law. Ofcourse looking at america which is currently drone stiking people(and the neibourhood) they suspect of engaging in criminal behaviour, or suspect might in the future, combined with things like Gantanamo where people were left for years, tortured, mistreated and with no trial at all, says a lot about what the leaders of the first world think about justice and law.
An Exhortation to the English Sargon of Akkad
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In a civilised society where the state exists to serve the citizen, the state has no more power or authority than the citizens give it. Thus you do not need a "right to life" because the state is subject to the same criminal law on killing as any citizen. Nor do you need a "right to family" because it would be an offence for anyone to interfere with your personal life.
Yes, there is a big "unless" hanging over all this, which is why criminal law is complicated, but it does make daily life a lot simpler. If I have a right to life, that imposes a duty on everyone else to preserve it, apparently regardless of circumstances, and so it goes on: rights always imply duties, but rarely state on whom that duty falls, whereas statutes based on wrongs are perfectly explicit: thou shalt not kill/steal/covet/whatever thy neighbour's ox, ass, wife....
The clearest example of the difference that I know is in the Air Navigation Order. The UK preamble states "flying is prohibited in the following areas.....": prima facie the sky belongs to everyone and government has to make a case* for additional prohibition for each and every prison, nuclear plant, or whatever. The Danish preamble begins "flying is prohibited except in the following areas...." i.e. the sky belongs to the government and you have to get permission to use any part of it.
*which can be challenged. You can in fact fly over most prisons except in a helicopter, and nuclear power plants are only protected up to a specified altitude.
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In a civilised society where the state exists to serve the citizen,
Oh really I was under the impression that the states main function was upholding property rights.
the state has no more power or authority than the citizens give it.
Well that's an interesting idea, when or where, may I ask, were the citizens consulted when Thather gave away power to the free market? When and where were citizens consulted about Britian becomming a negativly free society? When did citizens ever give authority for mass survilence? Before the Iraq war there was the biggest protest in British History, yet the people were ignored. It's a nice idea you propose, yet the reality does not bare it out.
I think it makes more sense to look at how things actually are, rather then repeat the propoganda we learn at school, or read in the media.
Thus you do not need a "right to life" because the state is subject to the same criminal law on killing as any citizen.
Oh really? and Bond doesnt have a licence to kill, and as the head of MI5 said in court during the Diana trial 'MI5 hasnt assasinated anyone in over 50' years(or something) [:D]
Nor do you need a "right to family" because it would be an offence for anyone to interfere with your personal life.
What a beautiful fantasy you live in, interference is inherently a factor of negative liberity, should you interfere with the negative liberity of others the state and its agents will work to prevent you, and corporations are people, that should be free from hearing your complaints. Ultimately if you simply walk into a room you effect the negative liberity of everyone there, and under the simplified models of human beings they base the theory on, most people need some form of treatment.
They interfere so we can all be free from intereference- what a cute joke it is.
So you see to have the model and the system, all forms of human activity are pre-decided as acceptable or unacceptable. And where do the citizens have any say over that criteria? They don't even know what system they live in! By design.
To quote Isaiah Berlin in my own words "Freedom for the Cat, means death to the Mice" Apart from the reductionist nature of the quote, in short 'no cats allowed'
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I had the pleasure of being an adult before Thatcher became an unlected president, and indeed before the UK was sold into servitude by Heath. In those far-off heady days, members of parliament were elected to represent their constituents, not their parties, and the prime minister was a spokesman, never referred to as a leader or considered equal to a head of state.
Alas, politicians have rather got above themselves, and somehow the electorate seems to have lost the will to mandate, criticise and protest. The increasing use of the police force as an arm of political government may have something to do with it, and Blair's contempt for truth, parliament and the public probably sealed the fate of the next generation. The best we can hope for in the short term is to get out of the EU, and maybe after another thousand years we might return to something like democracy and a government accountable to the taxpayer rather than its private and foreign paymasters.
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We joined the common market but ended up in a federation that continually hikes the membership fee. Our best choice is to get out.
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I had the pleasure of being an adult before Thatcher became an unlected president, and indeed before the UK was sold into servitude by Heath. In those far-off heady days, members of parliament were elected to represent their constituents, not their parties, and the prime minister was a spokesman, never referred to as a leader or considered equal to a head of state.
Alas, politicians have rather got above themselves, and somehow the electorate seems to have lost the will to mandate, criticise and protest.
The increasing use of the police force as an arm of political government may have something to do with it,
Certainly but it's bigger then that, the entire definition of democracy has been change, to mean "business rules" and voting takes place when people shop, the companies have the power and the people vote for them when consuming. Politicians simply manange the system, for the business' that the people have voted for.
That is the new definition of democracy that Thatcher and Regan brought in. Ofcourse today these companies are too big to fail, as they hold power ofcourse, and even if people stop shopping with them, they are too big to fail and dont need your votes :)
and Blair's contempt for truth, parliament and the public probably sealed the fate of the next generation.
They have all been following the same aganda since Thatcher, because business is now making the decisions and deciding the agenda, no matter who you vote for, you get the same policies. Democracy as it once was is finished in the extreme. Thatcher and Major attacked the NHS in their ways, then Blair and Brown raised up to cost to a completly unsustainable level while allowing the private sector in, which meant the NHS became too expensive to run and then with the private sector already inside and working, with the ecconomic downturn everything is shifted off to the private sector, Cameron is finishing the job that Thatcher started, which Blair, Major and Brown all incrementally played their part in helping to happen. We expect this behaviour from the conservatives, what Blair did as a supposed Labour MP is a real betrayal, he even sold the new investment and public private partnership at the time as "saving the NHS", which in reality was the biggest step in destroying it, and clearly when you wake up to the free market agenda and the role of politics today- that was the point!
So even if the vast majority of the people want the NHS, there is no plan for it, in future planning; The Business agenda wants a completely private system, and they are in charge. The people have no means of really tackeling that- if they did it would be a democracy, which Britian isnt anymore. Still most are waking up to the reality that it makes no difference who you vote for. Still doesn beg the question how bad does it have to get, before the people take to streets?
Leaving EU isnt going to change that tho.
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Leaving EU isnt going to change that tho.
It will remove one layer of "government by business", which is why Cameron is so scared of Brexit.
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Leaving EU isnt going to change that tho.
It will remove one layer of "government by business", which is why Cameron is so scared of Brexit.
It's not going to remove government by business, it'll just stream line it- government run by business is the model, that will only change if Britian decides to redefine what it calls democracy, which is unlikly considering that Britian and America developed the current model together and then thrust it on the world.
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https://vimeo.com/user14444354/review/166378572/11244b88d0
Brexit: The Movie