View Full Version : European Parliament Exposed
These are a few days old already, but apparently, they're now available with subtitles:
Part I:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9BC7BlfJfY
Part II:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcnM2QHOauU
4 years ago, there was something similar from a German newssite. Guess that 4 years of crisis didn't change the mentality of our glorious European leaders.
Rotten to the core :no:
Those few thousand Euros won't save us.
Also if they don't pay enough, all the talent will wander off to the private sector and then the politicians will only be the worst people we can find.
Greyblades
07-01-2013, 13:09
I did wonder where all the competence went, all the people who could have become good politicians without being utter bastards have gone to greener pastures.
Those few thousand Euros won't save us.
Also if they don't pay enough, all the talent will wander off to the private sector and then the politicians will only be the worst people we can find.
I sincerely hope this is one of those jokes I don't get.
The idea that anyone, besides those filling their pockets themselves, can defend this sort of behaviour is absurd.
What has become of us Europeans if we do not only stay apathic when confronted with this, but also start to actively defend the people robbing us?
I did wonder where all the competence went, all the people who could have become good politicians without being utter bastards have gone to greener pastures.
Ask our Greek or Spanish unemployed friends what they think about the competence of our Eurocrats and their accomplice, the IMF.
Fisherking
07-01-2013, 14:23
I sincerely hope this is one of those jokes I don't get.
The idea that anyone, besides those filling their pockets themselves, can defend this sort of behaviour is absurd.
What has become of us Europeans if we do not only stay apathic when confronted with this, but also start to actively defend the people robbing us?
They sound as if they are behaving just like the US Congress.
Greyblades
07-01-2013, 14:28
Ask our Greek or Spanish unemployed friends what they think about the competence of our Eurocrats and their accomplice, the IMF.
Er... I can only assume from the tone of the post taht you think I have a high opinion of Eurocrats. I most certainly dont.
Geenstijl for the win as usual
They sound as if they are behaving just like the US Congress.
And how do US citizens react to that? They just think it's all ok? Or you protest, but nothing really happens?
Except for Husar here today, I haven't met a single person who wasn't fuming with anger after seeing this. Yet, nothing happens about it.
What a joke, isn't it? Freedom of press, freedom of expression and all that. Those bastards were exposed 4 years ago already and... nothing happened about it. It just continued.
While the European ship continues to sink, those bastards have no shame at all to continue what they're doing.
The only difference between us and a dictatorship, is that we are allowed to whine in public.
Er... I can only assume from the tone of the post taht you think I have a high opinion of Eurocrats. I most certainly dont.
Then I misunderstood your post. Sorry :bow:
That German booksalesman who is so good after the war's reaction is very telling, naturally a Godwin. It gets a lot creepier, the EU is looking to banning journalists who don't uphold the EU's values. I don't think Tom Staal is invited at the next press-conference. The international-socialism has no shame
Fisherking
07-01-2013, 15:10
And how do US citizens react to that? They just think it's all ok? Or you protest, but nothing really happens?
Except for Husar here today, I haven't met a single person who wasn't fuming with anger after seeing this. Yet, nothing happens about it.
What a joke, isn't it? Freedom of press, freedom of expression and all that. Those bastards were exposed 4 years ago already and... nothing happened about it. It just continued.
While the European ship continues to sink, those bastards have no shame at all to continue what they're doing.
The only difference between us and a dictatorship, is that we are allowed to whine in public.
Well, their media keeps them pacified with other stories and polarized thinking it is all the other political party’s fault, so most sheepole don’t care.
If mainstream news is not upset, no one notices. Disgusting!
And so much for freedom of the press, they just keep the scoundrels in office.
I sincerely hope this is one of those jokes I don't get.
It is a common argument in regards to public service jobs that the high salaries and perks are to ensure that people don't leave for the public sector where they can apparently make far more. In reality, we call this argument "male-cow manure".
Well, their media keeps them pacified with other stories and polarized thinking it is all the other political party’s fault, so most sheepole don’t care.
If mainstream news is not upset, no one notices. Disgusting!
And so much for freedom of the press, they just keep the scoundrels in office.
And in Euro land, we have our own polarized thinking.
I don't know how it goes in other countries, but here they keep the plebs busy by making them blame:
- the, of course lazy, immigrants;
- the, of course lazy, unemployed;
- the, of course lazy, civil servants;
- the babyboom generation that wasted everything;
- the youth who doesn't want to work anymore;
- etc.
It is a common argument in regards to public service jobs that the high salaries and perks are to ensure that people don't leave for the public sector where they can apparently make far more. In reality, we call this argument "male-cow manure".
Of course it's "male-cow manure". Not only is it questionable that these people could earn more if they actually had to work a normal job for a living. There's also the question if it is ok and defendable that some CEO fill his pockets with billions every year, getting bonuses for firing employees who actually need their salary to live.
"Hey, but that guy over there could earn even more in the private sector!"
Why yes, being the professional crook he is, he most certainly is capable of filling his pockets somewhere else. What was the point of the argument?
What joke?
It's not like we don't have lobbying but the US congressmen and senators are even deeper in the pockets of big business than our guys.
I'd rather have overpaid people who serve the people 50% than underpaid ones who serve big business 100%.
The whole Euro crisis thing wasn't caused by MEPs, it was caused by the directly and democratically elected local politicians who also got a say in certain EU matters. The MEPs on the other hand keep representing European and general human interests much stronger than any of the local governments do, despite all the naysaying that's going on.
I could just as well make a positive report about the integrity and moral stability of our politicians because they don't raise their own pay by 100% every week. There used to be a time when politics were only viable for the rich because only they earned enough to do the whole (then unpaid) politician thing as a hobby, do you want to return to something similar to this?
If you want something done well, you have to throw more money at it because we still have a capitalist system. That means if you think they're not doing a good job, we aren't paying them enough yet. Unless you want communism, but even there the politicians had more luxury than anyone else. In monarchy it's even worse, name a system where politicians don't get a lot of money and don't ruin the country through enormous corruption.
Fisherking
07-01-2013, 17:08
It doesn’t matter what you pay them, they will still be in the pocket of big business 100% of the time. The only thing the people get is the tab for salaries and expenses.
If you think they are representing you then either you are in big business or you have not researched the facts to the fullest extent to see who actually benefits from the laws.
Appearances can be deceiving.
Sarmatian
07-01-2013, 17:14
I sincerely hope this is one of those jokes I don't get.
The idea that anyone, besides those filling their pockets themselves, can defend this sort of behaviour is absurd.
What has become of us Europeans if we do not only stay apathic when confronted with this, but also start to actively defend the people robbing us?
Well, a lot depends how you look at the issue.
If you're trying to say MEPs are behaving irresponsibly and we should apply pressure on them to stop that, I agree fully.
If you're trying to say: OMG, this is outrageous, dismantle EU this instant!!! - then we don't agree.
And, of course, there's the other issue that national parliaments function pretty much on the same principle...
Problem with elected politicians is that it makes it very difficult to 'fire them'. Only way to solve it would be to employ stringent rules on the behaviour and activities of MEP's and have an overseeing body giving them the boot. Otherwise, there is simply no way to get rid of them due to any perceived dismissal as being a political ploy by one side or another.
This is done by attendance for meetings and discussions being compulsory. Failures to turn up or 'disappearing acts' end up with that MEP losing their seat.
Eliminating the majority of expenses and cutting the pay in half.
Ultimately, this will end up breeding a ground of people who do the job for more or less the better reasons than the greedy money grabbers, as those money grabbers would 'profit' more working elsewhere.
The Stranger
07-01-2013, 18:40
it could also open the way for more corruption.
gaelic cowboy
07-01-2013, 23:04
what do ye expect MEP's are a joke there "parliament " is a joke an there generally failed national politicians or someone who wants take it easy for a few years after getting knifed in party squables
Philippus Flavius Homovallumus
07-02-2013, 00:50
There used to be a time when politics were only viable for the rich because only they earned enough to do the whole (then unpaid) politician thing as a hobby, do you want to return to something similar to this?
Shockingly, it was those men who extended the franchise so you could vote, but you'd never vote for them.
Which suggests that they were wrong to believe extending the franchise would improve democracy.
As for a joke? The whole EU is a joke, and so is the US Congress. So was the Russian Empire, and the Roman Empire.... every large state is a big joke about a city that rules over people that none of the rulers ever meet.
Dissolve the EU says I - ban all Eurocrats from holding Office for life, start again.
Ladies&gentlemen, start your lmaorofl http://www.geenstijl.nl/archives/images/briefransdorf12801.html
Is that real?
If so, then I must say that his English is horrible.
I guess that throwing money isn't enough to ensure capable people enter parliament...
Kralizec
07-02-2013, 09:36
Which part of this is new or groundbreaking?
The video makes a lot of troulbe of stuff that is commonplace in national parliaments as well. Attendence for example: the Commons chamber of the UK has only enough sitting space for about a quarter of its members. When it was rebuilt after burning down in WW2, Churchill purpusefully kept the small size because the debates and votes would look more important if the room was full and crowded. This is one reason why the government and opposition parties of the UK use pairing agreements where an equal number of their own voting cattle are excused from attending.
If you want something done well, you have to throw more money at it because we still have a capitalist system. That means if you think they're not doing a good job, we aren't paying them enough yet. Unless you want communism, but even there the politicians had more luxury than anyone else. In monarchy it's even worse, name a system where politicians don't get a lot of money and don't ruin the country through enormous corruption.
This must be one of the most nonsensical things I've ever read on these boards.
Paying a lot of money is a guarantee for quality? Do you really believe that?
How about adding accountability and responsiblity? Because if you throw money at people but never really punish them if they :daisy: up, then you won't get much quality. You'll get people grabbing every cent they can get, without shame, and who will disappear once the :daisy: hits the fan. To come back, once the dust has settled, to grab even more euros. And some will continue to grab, no matter what, since nobody is touching them anyway. As you can see in those movies I posted. How many more do you need to see before you'll open your eyes? How many more until your outrage-o-meter will go up?
Money was been thrown at top bankers, see where that got us.
What sort of propaganda spewing indoctrination machine did this to you?
Is that real?
If so, then I must say that his English is horrible.
I guess that throwing money isn't enough to ensure capable people enter parliament...
Not sure if it's real, but Geenstijl is usually very reliable. I don't know how they do it but they are always right on top of everything a whole lot faster. Their style isn't apreciated by everyone but they sure do a good job of bringing news a lot faster. A lot of Flemmish come there as well, if you have an incredibly juvenile sense of humour you will love it.
Which part of this is new or groundbreaking?
The video makes a lot of troulbe of stuff that is commonplace in national parliaments as well. Attendence for example: the Commons chamber of the UK has only enough sitting space for about a quarter of its members. When it was rebuilt after burning down in WW2, Churchill purpusefully kept the small size because the debates and votes would look more important if the room was full and crowded. This is one reason why the government and opposition parties of the UK use pairing agreements where an equal number of their own voting cattle are excused from attending.
What fascinates me, is that we keep putting up with it. Why do we accept this? Why should we accept this?
If we all keep going "you can't do anything about it, you have to accept this", then yeah, nothing will ever change indeed.
And when all goes well and most people are employed, it's not dangerous, but when the continent is plunged into crisis, its' southern members into poverty, then this becomes dangerous.
Then you'll either get protests that get out of hand, or a regime in which such videos and the journalists who make them will disappear to be replaced with propaganda. And before you know it, you'll find yourself living in a dictatorship.
Look at that letter written by Mister Ransdorf. What he asks is for those journalists to be kept away out of the building. What's the next step?
Greyblades
07-02-2013, 09:55
Not sure if it's real, but Geenstijl is usually very reliable. I don't know how they do it but they are always right on top of everything a whole lot faster. Their style isn't apreciated by everyone but they sure do a good job of bringing news a lot faster. A lot of Flemmish come there as well, if you have an incredibly juvenile sense of humour you will love it.
Kinda wish they did a english language version.
Well, a lot depends how you look at the issue.
If you're trying to say MEPs are behaving irresponsibly and we should apply pressure on them to stop that, I agree fully.
If you're trying to say: OMG, this is outrageous, dismantle EU this instant!!! - then we don't agree.
And, of course, there's the other issue that national parliaments function pretty much on the same principle...
The basic ideas behidn the EU are ok, it doesn't need to be dismantled. But the excesses need to stop asap. The longer it takes before you do anything about it, the worse it will get and the more difficult/impossible it'll get to do something about it in a more or less civilised way.
Pressure to stop it? It's not enough to just stop it. The excesses that already happened, shouldn't go unpunished. Each and every member of Parliament who asked money for expenses, should send in justifications. No justifications, then they need to pay back every euro they ever received + a fine of 10 times that amount. Or 1.000 times, if that's what's needed to put them into extreme poverty.
If you shamelessly grab money like that in an age where people in the EU have lost everything and live in poverty, depending on humanitarian aid to survive, then no punishment can be harsh enough for you. The people who cannot justify their behaviour need to be put into a position that they need humanitarian aid to survive as well. They need to be left to rot for a few years, to get the message accross.
And yes, national and local politicians do the same. But that's not exactly a justification for the European money grabbers, now is it? That only means that we'll need to take action in our own countries as well.
It doesn’t matter what you pay them, they will still be in the pocket of big business 100% of the time. The only thing the people get is the tab for salaries and expenses.
If you think they are representing you then either you are in big business or you have not researched the facts to the fullest extent to see who actually benefits from the laws.
No, you're wrong. If you think that is the case then you are stuck in US politics and simply haven't studied Europe well enough.
Shockingly, it was those men who extended the franchise so you could vote, but you'd never vote for them.
Which suggests that they were wrong to believe extending the franchise would improve democracy.
Guess that was horribly naive of them, just how it's horribly naive for a poor guy to trust a rich guy.
But just because you want Donald Trump for PM there's no reason to assume I would never vote for a rich guy.
As for a joke? The whole EU is a joke, and so is the US Congress. So was the Russian Empire, and the Roman Empire.... every large state is a big joke about a city that rules over people that none of the rulers ever meet.
Dissolve the EU says I - ban all Eurocrats from holding Office for life, start again.
Every city government is already a joke, tribes and families are what evolution made us capable of working with, remember the monkeysphere, about 130 people.
To balance things, companies need to be cut to the same size, no inter-tribal companies, just trade.
Which part of this is new or groundbreaking?
The video makes a lot of troulbe of stuff that is commonplace in national parliaments as well. Attendence for example: the Commons chamber of the UK has only enough sitting space for about a quarter of its members. When it was rebuilt after burning down in WW2, Churchill purpusefully kept the small size because the debates and votes would look more important if the room was full and crowded. This is one reason why the government and opposition parties of the UK use pairing agreements where an equal number of their own voting cattle are excused from attending.
Exactly, we need to disband cities. Düsseldorf just had a scandal where officials accepted presents, here in Essen we have outrage about the closing of public bathes because they're supposedly too expensive. The local level is really no better.
This must be one of the most nonsensical things I've ever read on these boards.
Thanks, I'm aiming for a majority share in that category.
Paying a lot of money is a guarantee for quality? Do you really believe that?
I didn't mention a guarantee but cheap clothes are made by child labor, you pay more to end this.
How about adding accountability and responsiblity? Because if you throw money at people but never really punish them if they :daisy: up, then you won't get much quality. You'll get people grabbing every cent they can get, without shame, and who will disappear once the :daisy: hits the fan. To come back, once the dust has settled, to grab even more euros. And some will continue to grab, no matter what, since nobody is touching them anyway. As you can see in those movies I posted. How many more do you need to see before you'll open your eyes? How many more until your outrage-o-meter will go up?
Money was been thrown at top bankers, see where that got us.
What sort of propaganda spewing indoctrination machine did this to you?
That's horribly naive, we live in capitalism. You control literally everything with money. Money = incentive and money = power.
That means two things, first of all accountability is something the powerful (i.e. the rich) impose on the less powerful, not the other way around. The same is true for responsibility, it's a one-way street. People high up get paid more because they are responsible until something bad happens and from there on they have no responsibility whatsoever.
And it makes no sense to fight this, if you want to escape you have to live the dream and become rich yourself or move to another country where value other than that of money still counts for something. It's not just the rich who impose this, it's all layers of society, it's the small guy who wants to look down on the even smaller one and the middle class guy who wants to look down on the poorer ones, they all contribute to this.
And that's why noone is doing anything against this system, because they all just think about themselves and how they can improve their own situation relative to everyone else. And people wonder where the 50% divorce rate comes from when partnership is all about what benefits *I* can get from it...
Really, the MEPs are not a problem, they're a chance, a chance to become a bigger collective of egoists than the USA and get more shiny than them, it's in all our cumulative interests, some people are just too stuck in irrational nationalism and idealism to realize this.
Philippus Flavius Homovallumus
07-02-2013, 14:47
Which part of this is new or groundbreaking?
The video makes a lot of troulbe of stuff that is commonplace in national parliaments as well. Attendence for example: the Commons chamber of the UK has only enough sitting space for about a quarter of its members. When it was rebuilt after burning down in WW2, Churchill purpusefully kept the small size because the debates and votes would look more important if the room was full and crowded. This is one reason why the government and opposition parties of the UK use pairing agreements where an equal number of their own voting cattle are excused from attending.
That's incorrect - the Commons chamber can comfortably seat about 600, the number of MP's is 650. After WWII the Commons chamber was reconstructed (including the Speaker's chair) as a sign of continuity. The reason for the space allocation in the 19th Century was to make a full sitting uncomfortable, not to discourage attendance but because the Commons are not supposed to be comfortable, that's what they have padded benches, and not desks with microphones as in the US or Australia.
I'd like you to explain these "pairing" arrangement, because I've never heard of them - if you're talking about the shape of the chamber, it's based on the Chapel parliament used to sit in. If you're talking about the arrangement of having a Loyal Opposition and a shadow cabinet, I don't feel I need to defend the practice.
Kralizec
07-02-2013, 15:55
Well, we're both off:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/h-l/82332.stm
At such sessions, and during debates on controversial matters, the Commons Chamber can become very crowded as it is not large enough for the current number of MPs - there are only 427 green leather seats for 646 MPs.
Pairing agreements:
http://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/pairing/
Pairing is an arrangement where an MP of one party agrees with an MP of an opposing party not to vote in a particular division. This gives both MPs the opportunity not to attend. Pairing is an informal arrangement and is not recognised by the House of Commons' rules. Such arrangements have to be registered with the whips who check that the agreement is stuck to. Pairing is not allowed in divisions of great political importance but pairings can last for months or years.
EDIT:
I know that the Commons was not made smaller, but when it was to be rebuilt there was some support for a larger chamber because there were more MPs then there were when the old building was constructed. If I remember correctly one of my old teachers at university said that Churchil decided against it because the attendance was inevitably going to be less than 100% most of the time and he didn't like the idea of a half-empty chamber.
Fisherking
07-02-2013, 16:09
Husar, like I said, you are not looking deeply enough.
Simple, who was helped by the light bulbs? Not the common guy, it was a special interest.
Who was helped by the change in copyrights? It did not help artist and authors but it did help the US recording industry.
Who was helped by the continuing education requirements for Engineers and Architects? Not the people, it drove up costs, not the engineers, it caused many to quit. It resulted in oversights and errors in construction that caused some buildings to collapse. It was a jobs program for the recently graduated.
Who was helped by not being able to sell undersized or oversized potatoes? Not the farmer! Not the consumer! They could not even be given to the poor or to live stock! But it was of mild benefit to wholesale packagers.
Do I need to keep going on?
Husar, like I said, you are not looking deeply enough.
Simple, who was helped by the light bulbs? Not the common guy, it was a special interest.
How and which one?
CFLs and LEDs are cheaper than incandescents for the normal guy.
Additionally not wasting electric energy is good for everyone.
Who was helped by the change in copyrights? It did not help artist and authors but it did help the US recording industry.
How does abandoning the EU help any of this? Is national law any better?
The GEMA was said to ruin nightclubs with their recent changes to the cost calculation model.
Who was helped by the continuing education requirements for Engineers and Architects? Not the people, it drove up costs, not the engineers, it caused many to quit. It resulted in oversights and errors in construction that caused some buildings to collapse. It was a jobs program for the recently graduated.
No idea what exactly you mean, searching for "continuing education requirements for Engineers and Architects" only brings up articles about the USA/Alaska apparently. The recently graduated aren't big business however.
Who was helped by not being able to sell undersized or oversized potatoes? Not the farmer! Not the consumer! They could not even be given to the poor or to live stock! But it was of mild benefit to wholesale packagers.
Not very different from a national level, the whole giving food to the poor thing has been over for a while, companies in Germany do apparently have to pay sales tax if they do that (it counts as non-materialized but possible sales or so I was told) so they rather throw it away, it's what we did at the fuel station I worked at.
Do I need to keep going on?
Maybe by explaining who was helped by the restrictions against false advertising on food packages?
Who is helped by the improvements in personal data protection?
Who is helped by the universal human rights?
It's easy to find some banana laws that will supposedly bring about the end of the world while ignoring the fundamental benefits that the EU offers its citizens in many other areas.
Fisherking
07-03-2013, 08:28
You misunderstand, I am not with those who would scrap the EU.
I do recognize that it has had some positive effects but I do see that there are also serious problems in need of addressing and reforms.
They need more oversight and they need to be responsible to the people. If these things are not done then the only ones represented are the lobbyists and their own whims.
As to the lights, if something is such a wonderful deal everyone will gladly jump on board and it does not need to be legislated. Denying choices to the public is not the way to go.
Do you need a nanny or do you have the capacity to make your own decisions?
You misunderstand, I am not with those who would scrap the EU.
I do recognize that it has had some positive effects but I do see that there are also serious problems in need of addressing and reforms.
They need more oversight and they need to be responsible to the people. If these things are not done then the only ones represented are the lobbyists and their own whims.
I do not disagree that there is a lot of room for improvement, there always is.
My point was merely that people never recognize the positive things and keep on harping about the negatives until they come to the wrong conclusion that it's all negative and needs to be abandoned.
In the USA the bodies that are directly responsible to the people are still more subject to lobbying than the non-responsible ones in the EU. If being directly responsible to the people would end all lobbying that would be nice but it's obviously not nearly the case.
The whole thing about paying them more is stuff that belongs in every capitalism 101 book. The more money these people get from taxpayers, the more loyal they will be to taxpayers. If they get hardly any, they will look for other means to buy their luxuries and some lobbyists and industrials will gladly help in return for some legislative favors.
The best argument for a lobbyist is to show the politicians how the constituents hate them anyway unless they live like priests and how big business can protect them and care for their expenses. The lobbyists do not furiously shout and scream at politicians, they pretend to be their best friends, since politicians are humans, they also want friends, like everyone else...
There's actually a new book by a former lobbyist who seems to describe it just like that, I only heard about it on the radio though.
As to the lights, if something is such a wonderful deal everyone will gladly jump on board and it does not need to be legislated. Denying choices to the public is not the way to go.
Do you need a nanny or do you have the capacity to make your own decisions?
I don't, I switched to cheaper lightbulbs long before they were mandated and I have lately decided to replace all broken ones with LEDs instead of CFLs.
The whole nanny thing is necessary because when it does not exist, people will not gladly jump on board of the better train because they don't calculate or research. Instead they are influenced by misleading advertisement and superstitions.
This kind of rational profit-oriented behavior is mostly found in companies and not even all of them. The big ones however invest so much in advertisement because it does indeed pay off for them since they know it will influence people more than the truth does.
Why else does bottled tap water sell for 10-20 times the price?
InsaneApache
07-03-2013, 09:52
You don't rate your fellow man much do you? :shame:
Husar, if you watched those two vids closely, then you would've noticed that these people already get a more than decent wage. If you would've watched both closely, you'd have seen the part about MEP's hiring some Bulgarian at 1.200 € a month to drive around, so that the MEP can cash 3.000 € a week for travel expenses, why he does the actual travelling with an Easy Jet flight. You would've seen the part about MEP's "hiring" their own wife and cashing 20.000 € for it. You would've seen that hiring your own wife will no longer be allowed after the next election (why not now immediately?) but that in some parties, politicians already agreed to simply hire each others' wife. Then you have the practice of cashing 300 € a day by simply signing a document in some obscure office and then leaving the building instead of actually being present (what the 300 € fee is intended for).
That is actively abusing the system. These people already get payed more than decent wages. How much more do you want to throw at them?
If these people only wish to do a good job if they get paid completely absurd amounts of money (there was this Maltese Commissioner accused of corruption, an amount of 60 million euro was mentioned; do we now need to pay all commissioners more than the lobbyist would do, say more than 60 million euro a year for each commissioner???), then perhaps, the logical conclusion should not be that we don't pay enough, but that they are greedy bastardly scumbags that we should get rid off asap.
I never said the EU as a project needs to be abandoned. I'm very much of favour of the EU and the idea of integration, close cooperation and a united Europe. But that doesn't mean I am not allowed to criticise and to demand the despicable practices to be stopped and those who have been guilty of it punished.
I don't pay taxes so some guy who already earns a very good salary, can go dining in a restaurant for free and get served exquise dishes and Châteauneuf-du-Pape or can get driven around in an expensive Mercedes to all kinds of frivoulous parties. That's not what I am paying taxes for.
You don't rate your fellow man much do you? :shame:
No, I've seen too many people who knew they're buying the worst tabloid and did it anyway, then discuss everything inside as though it's all 100% true.
The news these days are less politics and more celebrities because that is what people want, because it improves their ratings. If nothing were wrong with people, then news organisations would make the most money by performing quality reporting. But they don't. They make more money by talking about Beyonce's new boyfriend or what the Kardashians are up to because that is what people want and care about.
Andres, it doesn't matter who you put in office because every human is a greedy scumbag once the chance to be one arises. That's why capitalism works so well, because it uses the greedy scumbag in every human in an attempt to make everything work.
Andres, it doesn't matter who you put in office because every human is a greedy scumbag once the chance to be one arises. That's why capitalism works so well, because it uses the greedy scumbag in every human in an attempt to make everything work.
So, you are willing to accept this, because you believe every human being is the same: a greedy scumbag who'll grab whenever he can.
That is very cynical.
But if everybody would have that rather apathic attitude, because of his own conviction about the evilness of men, then our MEP's could just continue and go further and further, until you end up with a bunch of dictators who force you into slave labour for their benefit and execute you if you look funny at the picture of the puppet they put forward as the glorious leader.
Wasn't it you who said in an earlier thread that the Cyriots or Greeks didn't have the right to complain about their corrupt politicians, since they elected them themselves and thus only have themselves to blame? If you become apathic and just accept everything, then, by your own logic, you'll have no right to complain either when disaster strikes you personnally. By your own logic, you'll be to blame yourself, since you didn't care/were apathic.
EDIT: and capitalism doesn't work. If not controlled, it eventually leads to complete destruction of the majority of humankind.
So, you are willing to accept this, because you believe every human being is the same: a greedy scumbag who'll grab whenever he can.
That is very cynical.
You have to be if you want to succeed in life, the world is a cynical place.
Even if there are people who are not greedy scumbags, they will never rise to such an office because they will be perceived as "weak" and not elected or promoted by anyone. It's like the women who stay with the guy who treats them badly because he seems more able to defend his family or something. Men show the same behavior when it comes to electing leaders.
But if everybody would have that rather apathic attitude, because of his own conviction about the evilness of men, then our MEP's could just continue and go further and further, until you end up with a bunch of dictators who force you into slave labour for their benefit and execute you if you look funny at the picture of the puppet they put forward as the glorious leader.
And then a bloody revolution happens. Such is the never ending circle of life. Well, until the sun is burnt out.
The other fallacy may be that you assume they will go further and further when in fact they do not. They just use some perks they technically shouldn't have because it makes them happy and spices up their life, nobody likes people who stick to zero tolerance policies in all cases because they end up throwing little children into jails. It's a long way from using your business car to attend a birthday to supporting a dictator but don't let reason stop you from making the wildest accusations.
As for putting family into high positions for no good reason, in Greece this happened on a much larger scale but we all know they're really just the poor victims of the Eurozone so I don't know why you're angry at the MEPs.
Fisherking
07-03-2013, 11:45
Husar
You have a stilted mind set. People should be free to chose what they want from life.
Free to be brilliant or free to be a fool. It is their choice.
We do not live our lives to be of benefit to society or government. Those are personal choices we make. It is the job of government to give us those choices, not to inhibit them. To protect our rights as individuals and to set limits so we do not deprive others of their rights.
You would have a benign dictator tell us these things so we do not need to make choices. But who is that to be? And what is to keep them from going bad?
I would just as soon suffer the fools making poor choices as having someone dictate how we are to live our lives.
Husar
You have a stilted mind set. People should be free to chose what they want from life.
Free to be brilliant or free to be a fool. It is their choice.
We do not live our lives to be of benefit to society or government. Those are personal choices we make. It is the job of government to give us those choices, not to inhibit them. To protect our rights as individuals and to set limits so we do not deprive others of their rights.
You would have a benign dictator tell us these things so we do not need to make choices. But who is that to be? And what is to keep them from going bad?
I would just as soon suffer the fools making poor choices as having someone dictate how we are to live our lives.
If you never let anyone dictate what you can or cannot do then you will never get a job.
And without a job you don't get to do a lot. Men have deprived women of their rights for thousands of years and now you tell me people want to be free and want everyone else to be free. People are more free with the big government that we have now than they've ever been before. Even the LGBTs are now more free after having been repressed by society and all the "benign idiots" around them for hundreds of years. The unification of the USA was pushed through by the politicians against the will of all the fools around them. Should that not have happened?
If foolish people get to make foolish choices as much as they want to, they make everyone else around them suffer for it as well.
If people get to use 4-5 times as much energy as necessary and we burn more fossil fuels as a result, then that affects us all, that's probably why the US decided pretty much the same thing and stopped fools from using incandescents.
Fisherking
07-03-2013, 12:34
If you never let anyone dictate what you can or cannot do then you will never get a job.
And without a job you don't get to do a lot. Men have deprived women of their rights for thousands of years and now you tell me people want to be free and want everyone else to be free. People are more free with the big government that we have now than they've ever been before. Even the LGBTs are now more free after having been repressed by society and all the "benign idiots" around them for hundreds of years. The unification of the USA was pushed through by the politicians against the will of all the fools around them. Should that not have happened?
If foolish people get to make foolish choices as much as they want to, they make everyone else around them suffer for it as well.
If people get to use 4-5 times as much energy as necessary and we burn more fossil fuels as a result, then that affects us all, that's probably why the US decided pretty much the same thing and stopped fools from using incandescents.
You seem to like to take things to illogical extremes. Choosing to work by an employers rules is a choice we can make. We can also choose to leave that job for another.
Big government doesn’t make you freer, they make not laws or decisions that smaller ones cannot.
And just what we are discussing here is foolish people in government making choices for everyone.
No matter what rules are in place you cannot stop some people from abusing them or using more than others. It is a waste of time and resources to try to police everyone. It only puts limits on those who choose to obey.
HoreTore
07-03-2013, 13:13
Does anyone have a written source on this?
Videos are for fascists and the incompetent, and I refuse to watch them.
Edit: ah, no need, I see Andres made a good summary of it. So it's about pocket-change going in the wrong pockets, eh?
I don't see why I should get all worked up about such small sums.
InsaneApache
07-03-2013, 13:55
Why should you get worked up about 'pocket money'. You aren't paying it. We are.
HoreTore
07-03-2013, 13:58
Why should you get worked up about 'pocket money'. You aren't paying it. We are.
Of course I am paying it, just as much as a member state actually. The difference is that we only have taxation, we don't have representation.
I seem to recall some revolution or something based on such a situation....
You seem to like to take things to illogical extremes. Choosing to work by an employers rules is a choice we can make. We can also choose to leave that job for another.
Big government doesn’t make you freer, they make not laws or decisions that smaller ones cannot.
And just what we are discussing here is foolish people in government making choices for everyone.
No matter what rules are in place you cannot stop some people from abusing them or using more than others. It is a waste of time and resources to try to police everyone. It only puts limits on those who choose to obey.
Exactly, and that's why the lightbulb law is a good example of a very effective law since everyone follows it and benefits from it in the long run. If you think not being able to allow incandescents turns your county into a dictatorship then I don't know how to help you.
And what HoreTore said.
Fisherking
07-03-2013, 14:48
Because they have no choice?
I am sure there are still some of the old bulbs out there, so wrong!
Because they have no choice?
I am sure there are still some of the old bulbs out there, so wrong!
No, not wrong, the law is effective and good because it does not punish the customer who uses the bulb but simply stops production and sale of the bulbs entirely. Unlike certain other countries where the possession of even small quantities of marijuana alone is responsible for filling large parts of private prisons and ruining a lot of lives. Not only is such punishment counter productive, it's also far less effective than simply stopping production.
Of course it's possible that the lightbulb mafia will find ways to deliver incandescents to addicts but I doubt the EU is bothered by that or plans to criminalize owning an incandescent. Now that would be wrong.
Fisherking
07-03-2013, 16:55
This is a not so witty tangent but I will humor you.
And of course one can not object to the mandated mercury vapor lamps on safety reasons, even though they have a tendency to violently explode. Because they are so green and energy saving.
Endangering the public is perfectly all right if it is done in a good cause. Spending a few thousand euro to clean up the spill is noting in comparison to the energy saved by all those light and it has to come from the consumers pocket, and if he doesn’t spend it, then he only leaves the house as a health hazard for a decade or two.
Other alternatives were not available at the time, but no big deal, right?
The European Parliament only has the peoples best interests at heart and are infallible so this is only a misperception. And what if some people get sick or die, look at all the energy it saved and a few less people to feed.
How caring of them!
Regardless of how green you are, if you don’t see anything wrong in this approach then you should invest heavily in bridges and swampland.
HoreTore
07-03-2013, 20:39
Deaths........?
Hyperbole, anyone?
That's the main problem with those who oppose the EU: things are always taken to ridiculous and imagined extremes.
"Prisons are made more comfortable? What's next, they're going to pay people to come and rape my wife?"
Fisherking
07-03-2013, 20:47
I suppose you have proof that there is no such thing as mercury poisoning?
The other excuse is that you have been exposed to too much of it.
HoreTore
07-03-2013, 20:50
I suppose you have proof that there is no such thing as mercury poisoning?
The other excuse is that you have been exposed to too much of it.
You've thrown away all those lethal and genocidal thermometers as well, or what?
This is a not so witty tangent but I will humor you.
And of course one can not object to the mandated mercury vapor lamps on safety reasons, even though they have a tendency to violently explode. Because they are so green and energy saving.
Endangering the public is perfectly all right if it is done in a good cause. Spending a few thousand euro to clean up the spill is noting in comparison to the energy saved by all those light and it has to come from the consumers pocket, and if he doesn’t spend it, then he only leaves the house as a health hazard for a decade or two.
Other alternatives were not available at the time, but no big deal, right?
The European Parliament only has the peoples best interests at heart and are infallible so this is only a misperception. And what if some people get sick or die, look at all the energy it saved and a few less people to feed.
How caring of them!
Regardless of how green you are, if you don’t see anything wrong in this approach then you should invest heavily in bridges and swampland.
First of all there are LED lightbulbs and even if they were hardly available when this law was made, it may just have caused them to surface even faster.
Secondly the amount of serious CFL accidents lacks some credible statistics, anecdotal evidence is not very useful.
Thirdly, cars kill more people than CFLs and we still continue to use them, the endangering the public argument is full of fake outrage and hyperbole.
Let me quote you right back:
You seem to like to take things to illogical extremes.
That said, there's no doubt that LED is superior to CFL but noone should really miss incandescents.
InsaneApache
07-04-2013, 08:08
The thing is governments are evil. Oh they don't mean to be but they are. Having worked in the public and private sectors and can tell you which one has the most devastating effects on people when they don't get it right.
What was it C.S. Lewis said....
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
He has a point.
The thing is governments are evil. Oh they don't mean to be but they are. Having worked in the public and private sectors and can tell you which one has the most devastating effects on people when they don't get it right.
What was it C.S. Lewis said....
He has a point.
How does he know the robber baron doesn't have a clean conscience?
And the answer is thus anarchy because all governments are evil?
I might as well say people are even more evil that's why we have historically favoured any government over anarchy.
The thing is governments are evil. Oh they don't mean to be but they are. Having worked in the public and private sectors and can tell you which one has the most devastating effects on people when they don't get it right.
What was it C.S. Lewis said....
He has a point.
How does he know the robber baron doesn't have a clean conscience?
And the answer is thus anarchy because all governments are evil?
I might as well say people are even more evil that's why we have historically favoured any government over anarchy.
The thing is governments are evil. Oh they don't mean to be but they are. Having worked in the public and private sectors and can tell you which one has the most devastating effects on people when they don't get it right.
What was it C.S. Lewis said....
He has a point.
Hammer on nail equals nailed
InsaneApache
07-04-2013, 08:46
How does he know the robber baron doesn't have a clean conscience?
And the answer is thus anarchy because all governments are evil?
I might as well say people are even more evil that's why we have historically favoured any government over anarchy.
I heard you the first time :wink:
It about some types of people who think they know best (Euro anyone?) and imposing that will on others whether they like it or not.
In theory democracy is supposed to counter that. However we no longer have democracy within the EU anymore.
It about some types of people who think they know best (Euro anyone?)
You mean everyone. If someone admits they don't know best, you're just talking about the wrong topic. And I know this best.
InsaneApache
07-04-2013, 09:03
Everyone?
Not me. As I've said before, when I left school I knew everything, as I got older I realised how much I didn't know and expect to die a complete ignoramus.
a completely inoffensive name
07-04-2013, 09:07
Husar is correct in that ultimately, we must agree that people in general do not know what they need, and even frequently we find that they do not even know what they want.
Fisherking also has a point that this universal characteristic should not or maybe even cannot be fixed by "big government", I use big government in quotations because I feel that regulations mandating the elimination of a type of light bulb isn't necessarily a big government decision.
What this ultimately comes down to is the degree of safety that surrounds a particular issue in regards to the measure of freedom that we sacrifice. There is no shame inherent in recognizing that experts who are knowledgeable about an issue should at times carry out a regiment that we should follow for our own betterment. We do this all the time with our own personal health do we not? Although none of us wishes to swallow the bitter pill, if the doctor(s) tell you "this is what needs to be done" then we do it. But isn't the difference here that following the doctors orders is still our choice? Yes and no, because following the orders of the government is still our choice, with just another level of abstraction applied. We cannot deny that we still live in democratic societies that still allow us, should we chose, to dismantle it all and to remove every last incumbent from office. There is always civil disobedience and there is always violent overthrow.
Are government's evil? yeah, about the big things. When we are talking about swapping light bulbs here, I find myself looking at the freedom fighters with the same disdain that I look at the young liberal "activists" who want to complain about the most minute and inconsequential things possible. I go toe to toe about things like Edward Snowden where real government officials are actively trying to suppress individuals and the public, but I applaud the government's efforts to promote efficient lighting. Why? because common sense tells me that it's not policies like the light bulb regulations which lead to NSA spying, it's our collective attitude towards security and terrorism.
There is nothing to be lost when it comes to light bulbs. Don't give me that nonsense about a violation here emboldens violations everywhere. That just degrades the concept of what freedom is from a state of being to an ability to make choices. There are no experts on how we should all pursue happiness, and that's where we should denounce the big government for claiming it knows best.
Fisherking
07-04-2013, 09:09
Some people think mankind is evil and ignorant, incapable of making decisions for themselves. These people think they are wise and have somehow escaped and are apart from the rest of humanity.
They have a mission to enlighten the rest of us.
Of course those who think of themselves as enlightened, usually aren’t. This includes governments.
But then again there are those who just enjoy telling other people how to live their lives.
Evil is usually easy to identify, it is the well meaning idiots that present the greater danger.
a completely inoffensive name
07-04-2013, 09:12
Some people think mankind is evil and ignorant, incapable of making decisions for themselves. These people think they are wise and have somehow escaped and are apart from the rest of humanity.
They have a mission to enlighten the rest of us.
Of course those who think of themselves as enlightened, usually aren’t. This includes governments.
But then again there are those who just enjoy telling other people how to live their lives.
Evil is usually easy to identify, it is the well meaning idiots that present the greater danger.
Are humans not constantly confused?
Are there not people who have attained mastery of technical crafts which provide meaningful benefits to us?
Is there not such a thing as knowledge and the ability to apply it to make life better?
What are your answers to these questions, and what is your opposition to theoretical masters of a craft being placed in roles in government? Where do we place our trust?
InsaneApache
07-04-2013, 09:18
Why not go the whole hog and have intelligence test mandatory for people before they can vote?
a completely inoffensive name
07-04-2013, 09:18
Why not go the whole hog and have intelligence test mandatory for people before they can vote?
Who are you asking that question to?
InsaneApache
07-04-2013, 09:21
As they say in Yorkshire; "If the cap fits, wear it!"
a completely inoffensive name
07-04-2013, 09:23
As they say in Yorkshire; "If the cap fits, wear it!"
It just seems odd, because I have been talking about knowledge not intelligence.
InsaneApache
07-04-2013, 09:50
Can you have one without the other?
Fisherking
07-04-2013, 09:57
Are humans not constantly confused?
Are there not people who have attained mastery of technical crafts which provide meaningful benefits to us?
Is there not such a thing as knowledge and the ability to apply it to make life better?
What are your answers to these questions, and what is your opposition to theoretical masters of a craft being placed in roles in government? Where do we place our trust?
I tend to trust the judgment of individuals and distrust the judgment of groups.
I think individuals are more than capable of making decisions for themselves. A group mentality, on the other hand , can make some very poor ones.
These may be generalities but government is usually that collective group mentality.
Choosing to listen to others who may know more than us on a particular subject can be beneficial.
Some people are more open to new ideas than others, however. The extent of the benefit also plays a part. Not every improvement works in every situation.
Sweeping pronouncements are usually short sighted. Authority mandating any one thing to the exclusion of another is likewise heavy handed and dangerous.
It sets a precedent for intrusion and abuse. Should be ban everything that is inferior to something else? Shall we ban all internal combustion engines in favor of electric? Shall we ban some foods as inefficient. Should be ban all autos except for a couple of brands?
How long would it be before the authorities began to ban books and ideas or even the infirm or mentally deficient. Might we not have seen this happen before?
Also, governments judging efficiency is an oxymoron.
As to knowledge in general it is best not to abandon one line of thought or technology for another. Keep them all. Some anachronistic line of thought could be the solution to a modern problem.
a completely inoffensive name
07-04-2013, 10:23
Can you have one without the other?
That's an interesting question. Let's explore that. Would you consider Forest Gump to be knowledgeable?
I tend to trust the judgment of individuals and distrust the judgment of groups.
I think individuals are more than capable of making decisions for themselves. A group mentality, on the other hand , can make some very poor ones.
These may be generalities but government is usually that collective group mentality.
Alright, but is it not true that these group mentalities arise to begin with because individuals on their own accord have chosen to identify themselves as part of a group and participate in the groupthink?
How is it that we praise the individual but not the group when if we image the individual to be close to a perfect rational actor, he has willingly chosen to degrade his/her own mental facilities with the intoxication of group validation?
It sets a precedent for intrusion and abuse. Should be ban everything that is inferior to something else? Shall we ban all internal combustion engines in favor of electric? Shall we ban some foods as inefficient. Should be ban all autos except for a couple of brands?
Alright, let us be reasonable about the precedent a light bulb ban sets by being honest about the why's and how's this policy is being implemented. The key point here is that the incandescent is physically and unalterably inferior in its efficiency towards producing light. This is a matter of physics not personal preference and no matter of innovation can produce an incandescent better than an LED or CFL. When you want to make a comparison to banning car brands it falls flat because companies can improve car's energy efficiency relative to other brands since all car companies are working from the same basic blueprint, a combustible engine with wheels. This is different from talking about light bulbs which operate on fundamentally different physical properties. And if we get to the point where the inefficiencies of combustible engines demand that they be replaced with electric engines? Is this such a crisis? Are to lose anything but the subjective beauty of a loud engine roaring down suburban streets?
The food analogy is even more muddled, because what qualifies as an efficient food?
How long would it be before the authorities began to ban books and ideas or even the infirm or mentally deficient. Might we not have seen this happen before?
How long would it take to see how silly it is to jump from kW/lumens to censoring the text of a book?
Also, governments judging efficiency is an oxymoron.
And if the government is relying on experts, real certified engineers and economists who believe that the dangers of the reliance of old technology impede the ability of the US to secure energy security? Is the fact that government is making a decision make it an unqualified one?
As to knowledge in general it is best not to abandon one line of thought or technology for another. Keep them all. Some anachronistic line of thought could be the solution to a modern problem.
When the brilliant engineer that manages to make a glowing piece of tungsten more efficient than a CFL comes along, I am sure the laws can and will be reversed as long as there is a market for lobbyists to open up. But until then, I don't see how the 1890s will come around to solve 21st century engineering problems.
Fisherking
07-04-2013, 10:59
I said before this is only a tangent.
The light bulb is only a septum of a wider problem. There are other examples. The dietary supplements and many more. Even the bills in the US and Europe regarding CFCs were misguided.
It is not the product or technology, it is the rush to do something seen as better but untested or just arbitrary and based on perception rater than real benefit.
The idea of government dictating to industry a safety improvement that is proven and tested is much different than dictating what type of light bulb you should have in your home. The government does not pay your bills, you pay theirs and they waste a lot more of everything than the individual could ever dream about, including your money.
It is a distraction from bigger problems they should be addressing. It is also something that plays easily to corruption. Banning the products of one company in favor of another? Or the technology one has and the other has not gotten yet?
We already see activists wanting some foods banned. Is that freedom, should you eat your vegetables like a good boy an give up red meat? Should we all live a Vegan lifestyle? Is this the job of government?
If allowed, everything will be taken to the extreme. Stopping or at least slowing that should be the concern of all of us.
The problem with the EU is that government is unaccountable to anyone. Most are appointed and once there they are beholden to only themselves. They can not be recalled or voted out so they are free to be as foolish as they like.
Can you have one without the other?
Knowledge and experience are sometimes stubborn obstacles against creativity and innovation.
You also don't get to vote on who is head of the national bank or who is head of the supreme court yet these institutions have a whole lot of power.
I'll be with you once they actually try to ban meat, until then color me unconvinced.
Can you have one without the other?
No, if you have no intelligence as in 0 IQ then your brain is most likely not working at all.
As for having a lot of one and little of the other, yes, that is possible.
We shouldn't make the vote dependent on intelligence because the people deserve what they voted for, that's survival of the fittest.
And that's why Europeans are third rate citizens to America who can be spied on as deemed necessary because Europeans keep voting themselves out of a system that would actually make them fit to deal with globalization and superpowers.
The lightbulbs are indeed just a distraction, that's why it surprises me that the topic is constantly brought up.
If the EU is indeed developing into a dictatorship then the only way to overthrow it is a united European citizenry that isn't busy with infighting over who has the best national identity or who is the most American island or can offer the lowest effective tax rates while extorting money from others because the tax income doesn't cover the luxuries.
All these problems stem from a half-way integration because everybody wants to be part of the cake and eat it, too.
Fisherking
07-04-2013, 12:19
You also don't get to vote on who is head of the national bank or who is head of the supreme court yet these institutions have a whole lot of power.
I'll be with you once they actually try to ban meat, until then color me unconvinced.
To help understand your position, perhaps you could answer a few questions.
Does that mean we are only to except the status quo and not call for change or reform?
Do you see any issues in making those posts elected?
Is government to be the master of the people or their servant?
Are rights individual or collective?
If collective should one group have more than another? Why?
What do you see as the purpose of government?
At what point do you see government exceeding its scope?
Does that mean we are only to except the status quo and not call for change or reform?
No, it just means the whole "the EU is a dictatorship and needs to be abandoned because it banned incandescents" angle is overblown and not constructive. I'm not saying that's entirely your angle. As I tried to say earlier change is not often achieved by completely blocking everything the "wrong" party does.
Do you see any issues in making those posts elected?
No, it's just funny that these posts were created by our elected politicians whom we can supposedly trust so much more. If that were true, why did they create these posts which can apparently not be trusted?
I'm assuming of course that the EU institutions did not create themselves out of thin air and grew from contracts between the individual nations. There is actually some kind of voting process on which parties get how many seats in the EU parliament or something but I'll gladly admit that I obviously don't know much about how that works yet.
Is government to be the master of the people or their servant?
A bit of both depending on the situation, it cannot function without any power and it does not serve the people if it has all the power.
Still I see more politicians stepping down due to public pressure than top bankers. And I'm pretty sure banks are supposed to serve their customers and not be their masters. I mention this because of priorities and because privatization and other measures seem to have stripped the government of reigning in companies that have become too big/essential to fail and so on.
Are rights individual or collective?
Depends on the right and the situation. Most of them are probably individual but when individuals form a collective they usually surrender some individual rights that are transformed into collective rights which may or may not differ from individual ones. If we look back at tribal structures and older systems of government and democracy, purely individual rights seem like a relatively modern thing that's not all that old and established. Not that I'm an expert on this though.
If collective should one group have more than another? Why?
Because deus vult. Or because might makes right. For a normative statement however, they shouldn't.
In reality it's almost unavoidable however since there will always be conflicts of interest that affect the rights of someone or some group to do something. Does the right to take revenge trump the right of a murderer to live? I don't think society is anywhere near united on these questions and I can't claim to have a strict opinion on it either.
What do you see as the purpose of government?
To establish and maintain order. That's the extensible core. And it has to be taken with a grain of salt because 100% order easily equals tyranny. Extensions of the task of a government in the modern world are to provide a variable level of security since that is often something not everyone can be expected to provide for themselves. Additionally it provides for basic human needs and balances out deficiencies in human behavior if necessary. All in all the task of government is to keep society as a whole in a working condition without infringing anyone too much. The individual details of this are mostly up for debate today. I see few people who want toll booths at the end of every single road or who would rather spend 2000€ from their wallet to have a hole in the road in front of their house repaired.
As such government also functions to distribute costs and risk. Now why is that? IMO it's a historical development because people figured that in the long run everybody is better off if certain things are shared. Trade and alliances developed from peoples' needs and government has always changed and conducted social engineering to provide more stability. The medieval lords already attempted to get more people to settle problems in a courtroom rather than have bloody family feuds even though that meant in rare cases a peasant might win a lawsuit against his lord. Was that a positive change or should people be allowed to murder each other if they so wish?
What would our societies look like if we still had family feuds where two families shoot at eachother on the open street? Is there a basic human tendency towards peaceful resolution or should momentary instincts take precedence after a crime happened? Don't crimes often happen due to momentary instinctual reactions? What I'm saying is that not every individual notion should trump the collective but on the other hand single individuals are sometimes right against the opinion of the majority. It cannot be answered in general as my horribly confusing and imprecise answer proves. ~;)
At what point do you see government exceeding its scope?
Depends on the individual case again, to make a generic statement it's probably around the time it starts to try and regulate more than 5-10% of daily personal decisions. If it tells us when we can go to the toilet and what we are allowed to eat, it exceeds its scope. If it tells private businesses that they cannot put harmful substances into food they sell to the public without writing in big letters onto the package that this food is harmful then that's perfectly within what government should do.
Basically you can add establishing information symmetry to the things that government should establish because asymmetry of information destroys the self-regulation on a free market. And to demand that everyone is an expert on everything he buys when the people who produce it studied a collective 180+ years to know what they know then that is completely outlandish and unrealistic given that the whole idea of a market is that people specialize in different areas.
The role of government in this case is to employ experts to make sure that offers on this market are declared truthfully without omitting dangers or praising non-existent benefits. Part of this function also goes to courts of course if the blunder was only found after the fact.
Since you're going to bring up CFLs now most likely, I'm still unsure about the dangers they pose as I couldn't find any statistic on the percentage of CFLs that explode before they go out for other reasons, just some anecdotal scare stories. Excessive energy consumption is detrimental for all however and by now I suggest to buy LEDs anyway. One law alone does not a dictatorship make anyway, it is now several years old and there haven't been hundreds of other laws like it so that slippery slope may take centuries to materialize.
HoreTore
07-04-2013, 15:53
Can you have one without the other?
Definitely.
I've had several students who know a whole bunch of facts(knowledge), but who are almost incapable of connecting the dots between those facts and construct meaning from them(knowledge). As the school I work for give separate grades for this, it's easy to see that I have given high scores in one field and a low score on the other for the same student. Although I would add that the discrepancy is rarely extreme, they tend to be around the same level for most students and students with a high score on connecting dots and a low score on knowledge is a lot rarer than the opposite(though that may be because their "connecting dots"-score suffer from a lack of dots to connect in the first place).
Tellos Athenaios
07-04-2013, 23:41
Knowledge and experience are sometimes stubborn obstacles against creativity and innovation.
But then again: do I want my MEPs to be creative, soy-latte clichés and all?
More seriously: especially in technical fields it's often a specific set of skills that is useful. Eventually it leads you to build up domain specific knowledge; but the flow is largely one-way. The skills appear to center around problem solving by way of analysis and process of elimination. You'd be surprised how few people appear able to do it. I expect most just play stupid in the hope someone else will do the hard work for them.
What do scream when you obviously got busted, exactly. That Geenstijl reporter might be a terrorist.
lulz
Sir Moody
07-10-2013, 17:17
A bit of both depending on the situation, it cannot function without any power and it does not serve the people if it has all the power.
Still I see more politicians stepping down due to public pressure than top bankers. And I'm pretty sure banks are supposed to serve their customers and not be their masters. I mention this because of priorities and because privatization and other measures seem to have stripped the government of reigning in companies that have become too big/essential to fail and so on.
I mostly agree with what you are saying but the above point fails a touch.
Banks (and any Business in fact) are not their to "serve" their customers - they exist to "serve" their Stake Holders by taking as much money off their customers as they can reasonable get away with.
The public/customers as a whole putting pressure on a Business will not necessarily put pressure on the Stake Holders to force the Company to shed the offending weight.
Elected Ministers have far more at stake and since they require the public to remain in power the public can provide direct pressure on them - in a way the public IS the stake holder in government
I mostly agree with what you are saying but the above point fails a touch.
Banks (and any Business in fact) are not their to "serve" their customers - they exist to "serve" their Stake Holders by taking as much money off their customers as they can reasonable get away with.
Yes, my statement was of a normative nature because in a properly functioning market the customers will let them only take as much money as they deserve and switch to another company if they don't deserve it. How many customers switched to different banks after the banking crisis and how many banks were forced to adapt their policies due to extreme losses in customers? What does this tell us about this market?
The public/customers as a whole putting pressure on a Business will not necessarily put pressure on the Stake Holders to force the Company to shed the offending weight.
If the company goers bankrupt, what happens to the money the stakeholders invested into the company? Are you saying the potential loss of all their invested money is not pressure? There is no pressure however if customers stay no matter what the company does.
Elected Ministers have far more at stake and since they require the public to remain in power the public can provide direct pressure on them - in a way the public IS the stake holder in government
Who are the customers of the government?
HoreTore
07-11-2013, 00:31
To build on Husar's post, there's also the iron law of institutions to consider, which holds that leaders in institutions(banks and other big companies, hospitals, schools and academia, goverment, military etc etc) will eventually start caring more about their own power and position within the institution, than the power and position of the institution compared to other indtitutions.
Pannonian
07-11-2013, 00:54
To build on Husar's post, there's also the iron law of institutions to consider, which holds that leaders in institutions(banks and other big companies, hospitals, schools and academia, goverment, military etc etc) will eventually start caring more about their own power and position within the institution, than the power and position of the institution compared to other indtitutions.
Some time back, I was discussing with another TWC moderator our exhaustion and desperation to hand over power to someone whilst making sure the whole thing didn't fall down. We discussed the ideal volunteer moderator, and we agreed that we wanted people who didn't particularly value power or desire to be a moderator such as ourselves, but the flipside of that was that they (we) were more likely to burn out quicker and want out. The people we'd probably want to be our representatives are probably not those who'd want to pursue a political career to get into a position to be our representatives.
HoreTore
07-11-2013, 01:01
Some time back, I was discussing with another TWC moderator our exhaustion and desperation to hand over power to someone whilst making sure the whole thing didn't fall down. We discussed the ideal volunteer moderator, and we agreed that we wanted people who didn't particularly value power or desire to be a moderator such as ourselves, but the flipside of that was that they (we) were more likely to burn out quicker and want out. The people we'd probably want to be our representatives are probably not those who'd want to pursue a political career to get into a position to be our representatives.
I see the description as more of an observation of the nature of the institutions themselves rather than an observation of the people in question, though.
Hmmmmmm, the international-socialism not only wants control over what you write about the international-socialism, and a berurftverbot for non-cheering journalists, but they also want to know where you are: chips in your licence-plates comming up. And don't bother asking for a link if you only read quality-media, otherwise feel free to do
Kewl, Germans on our borders are enriched by our youths who have chances&culture, really easy to get away. Aren't we all blessed with open borders and multiculture. like that plumb DDR-workhorse Merkel says. lol
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