Lets say we start with a blank slate, nothing except knowledge of past human failures (I can't think of any true successes) influencing our ideas and choices, and try to create something that would benefit every person under it equaly, while remaining stabile and self-sustaining. Why don't we try an experiment and see if we can come up with something workable. To make this a truely blank slate, and to connect it to sci-fi a little, lets say our experiment is to be worked out on Mars or the moon (I'd prefer Mars, as it is further away from and therefore less influenced by Earth, yet still marginally habitable and accessible).
I think we want to make sure that our governmental/economic system promotes and rewards innovation, while preventing harmful class differences and granting equal rights to necessities (what those necessities should be should also be debated).
I think we should try and actually write a constitution. It would definately be an interesting challenge, and we could even post it online for all to see upon completion. There seem to be quite a few people here interested in political science, so lets give it a try!
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Sean Robertson
[email protected]
WEBolutionary Consulting Services
Mania-Online
"Great is the glory for the strife is hard"
- Wordsworth
"Why must I be surrounded by frickin' idiots?"
- Dr Evil
For ME, an ideal government is where I wield all the power & utilize it according to my every whim & change of mood.
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"There are three things I HATE, Jet: kids..pets..& women with attitudes. So WHY do we have all THREE on BOARD?!?"--Spike Spiegel
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Sean Robertson
[email protected]
WEBolutionary Consulting Services
Mania-Online
"Great is the glory for the strife is hard"
- Wordsworth
"Why must I be surrounded by frickin' idiots?"
- Dr Evil
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Intelligence, Integrity, Responsibility.
Vote Bush/Cheney 2000
You know, this really does worry me. I'm not saying that the US is bad or anything, but there do seem to be an awful lot of people who'll say "the US may not be prefect, but it's the best thing we currently have".
Do you really believe that the US is more "democratic" or whatever than the UK? Or Canada? Or Australia? Are you saying that you're a better country than Japan, when your country has to "censor" Japanese cartoons to "protect" children, even though Japanese children manage to watch them without taking a gun into a school and killing everyone?
This isn't bashing the US (again he says, covering his back). I'm sure the US does some things better than the UK. But I'm also sure the UK does some things better than the US. Same with Australia and all the others. I'd hesitate to call one "better" than the other.
Of course, I have to say this, because if I don't, nasty men in black coats will come around and take me away. If only I had a weapon to protect myself with...
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"Why do you want to spend time with a deer? They're so stupid, they get hypnotized by headlights!" - Guido Anchovy
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Sean Robertson
[email protected]
WEBolutionary Consulting Services
Mania-Online
"Great is the glory for the strife is hard"
- Wordsworth
"Why must I be surrounded by frickin' idiots?"
- Dr Evil
I have never heard about censoring Japanese animation in the US. Where did this occur? By the way, I'm an executive member of the anime club here at my university to promote Japanese anime.
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Intelligence, Integrity, Responsibility.
Vote Bush/Cheney 2000
I hope the politic "arena" will be gone in fifty years or so. I think smoking will.
Heh, that's a nice parallel, actually. Politicians (in the worst sense of the word) and smoking both go under the "We Haven't Got Time To Fuck Around Anymore"-category... We're dying here.
[This message has been edited by Nimrod (edited September 03, 2000).]
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Conservative, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.
--
Ambrose Bierce
****
Read chapter one of "Dirk Tungsten in...The Disappearing Planet"! It's useless to struggle.
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Sean Robertson
[email protected]
WEBolutionary Consulting Services
Mania-Online
"Great is the glory for the strife is hard"
- Wordsworth
"Why must I be surrounded by frickin' idiots?"
- Dr Evil
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"Poetic souls delight in prose insane."
--Lord Byron
Bravo Seanr, welcome to Modern Socialism 101 (Omega, please don't give us any crap on Socialism being impossible and a paradox). One of the beliefs of Modern Socialism is that they believe that there are many Companies that influence the government for their own benefit, and not the benefit for society. For example, the Lumber magnate would lobby the prospective candidate for lighter environmental laws so he can cut down any number of trees that he wants, or the Chemical Magnate who wants lighter environmental laws so he can dump his chemical crap in the river any way he sees fit. With no repercussions of course. The possibilities are endless, from Genetically Modified Foods to Gun Control (from both sides of the issue, let's not go there yet).
I'm not saying Corporate Influence is a bad thing. There are the "good" companies who try to work for the greater good of society, but the other "black eyes" taint the image of Corporate Influence as a whole. Socialists paint ALL companies as "money grabbing pigs who don't care about others, only their money".
Tora: Zoicite (i think it is) looks like a girl, and was given a girl's voice in the US version. In the Japanese version, that same character was given a MAN's voice, and that bad person was in another relationship with some other baddie (who I don't know), who also looks like a girl, but has a MAN's voice in both versions. This comes from putting up with a very annoying female cousin for the past few years.
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"My Name is Elmer Fudd, Millionaire. I own a Mansion and a Yacht."
Psychiatrist: "Again."
[This message has been edited by Tahna Los (edited September 04, 2000).]
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"More beer, more beer, more beer, more beer! ARSE!"
- Ode to God.
And Robotech was actually made up from THREE different Japanese series (Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada).
Amasingly, possible the best dub job out of all Anime is Pokemon. Okay, the names have changed (but that's par for the course here, with the exception 0 knida- of DragonBall), but the voices are way above average for a dub job, the music's the same, dialogue and plotwise, it's extremely faithful to the original. Hell, even some of the voices for the Pokemon are the original Japanese voices. About the only censoring is the flashy lights in the early episodes, and the removal of japanese words, incase an American kid reads something in another language, and spontaniously combusts. (Although they did cut out Misty slapping Ash in episode one. Dunno why, they leave in everyone else ripping into each other).
Come on, you're in charge of an anime club, and you didn't know that? Pah. Next thing you'll be telling me that Thundercats is Japanese..
And you may be right about being able to do stuf fin the US that you can't do in other countries. But apart from being able to stuff your faces with food, take a gun to a local shopping hall and mow everyone down, and blame it on "society", name something that you can't do in the UK, Canada or Australia. That's actually import. So being able to marry your cousin in certain states does not count, m'kay?
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"Why do you want to spend time with a deer? They're so stupid, they get hypnotized by headlights!" - Guido Anchovy
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Sean Robertson
[email protected]
WEBolutionary Consulting Services
Mania-Online
"Great is the glory for the strife is hard"
- Wordsworth
"Why must I be surrounded by frickin' idiots?"
- Dr Evil
Seanr: Evaluate my comments. I want opinions.
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"My Name is Elmer Fudd, Millionaire. I own a Mansion and a Yacht."
Psychiatrist: "Again."
What I do consider myself as is a democrat in the truest sense. Not in the sense the most americans think of (if you asked me which party I prefer, on half the issues, I'd say Republican), but rather in the sense that I believe that every person should have direct equal input into the government. The technology now exists for every person to be able to stay informed and actively participate in a truely democratic government.
The internet is, of course, going to be a key part of any truely democratic process, because it has the unique ability to take power away from special interests behind closed doors and bring it back to the people for which government is really supposed to be working. Candidates can directly contact constituents via email and cmapaigns can be conducted over the internet far cheaper than has ever been possible before.
Education is the other key. Students need to be far better educated than they are now. First off, a far more creative approach needs to be taken twoards teaching history. History is not a list of names and dates, but rather a tapestry of events, ideas, goals, and beleifs that have dramatic influences on each other and daily life. Kids need to be taught not what happened, but why it happened. They need to be inspired to find creative solutions for problems that take into account the why of history. We can make hate crime laws all we want, for example, but we cannot change a thing unless we understand the root cause of the problem and change the forces that create the symptoms we hear about on the news every day. That kind of proactive approach is completely missing from education and government alike.
I believe that government probably functions best as a representative system because of its size and the nature and amount of work being tackled, however, constituents should have more control over their representatives. Campaign financing needs to be removed from the loop altogether, replaced by free access to media outlets, which will be made significantly easier by the internet. For that to work, the so called digital devide needs to be bridged, through free, easy access to public terminals in libraries, schools, and government offices (this can now be accomplished with incredibly cheap internet appliances). We must also break the incumbancy issue. Without corporate involvement, political duty should return to the concept of temporary civil service. It may even be possible to have one house of congress actually drafted, rather than voted. Technology might enable them to work almost exclusively from their home towns, perhaps without even leaving their normal job (absence from their job becomes a sticky issue, but should be workable, I think).
These are just a few of my thoughts; I'd rather encourage you to post your own, than go on at length with my own thoughts, as many of you may have better ideas and more creative solutions than I have, being so blinded by my own casual but constant examination of the american political system.
The other side to this is the economic system, for which I have very few ideas. It has become clear to me that our system is breaking down in many ways, but I have yet to see any real solution, and I surmise that something complately radical and different from any previous economic system would be needed to promote the interests of the inidivual above all else.
That is my goal, I think; to make the individual the focus of the system. Each person has a right to be heard, and a right to be involved in te ongoing creation of a system that will improve their entire lives. Each individual has a right to choose a profession and a lifestyle that is beneficial to them without harming others, and has a right to the tools necessary to acheive that goal. I think money might have to be removed from the system entirely for any of it to work, but it will have to be replaced with a better incentive. Wealth will have to be replaced in life as the primary purpose with the will to better onesself and those around one. To re-use an underused cliche, success must become measured by everyone in society not by how much you collected for yourself, but by how many people were made better by your presence. That basic value system must be engineered into every aspect of society.
What we should strive to do is create something that comes as close to accomplishing that goal as we possibly can, and we should publish it every place we can. I think people would be pleasantly shocked to see a group of (for the most part) teens and college aged artists working on such a forward thinking concept. If you'll forgive me for continually waxing philosophic and perhaps even wasting bandwidth, I think that is something we can and should strive to accomplish, for no other reasons than the knowledge that we have created something meaningfull and the shear challenge of the endeavour.
I leave you now with a pair of quotes from someone who is perhaps one of the greatest orators of the last fifty years (though maybe not the best Attorney General ):
"The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of bold projects and new ideas. Rather, it will belong to those who can blend passion, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the great enterprises and ideals of American society."
-- Robert F. Kennedy
"Some people see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not?"
-- Robert F. Kennedy
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Sean Robertson
[email protected]
WEBolutionary Consulting Services
Mania-Online
"Great is the glory for the strife is hard"
- Wordsworth
"Why must I be surrounded by frickin' idiots?"
- Dr Evil
But awesome speech. Run for politics and you'll get my vote anyday.
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"My Name is Elmer Fudd, Millionaire. I own a Mansion and a Yacht."
Psychiatrist: "Again."
[This message has been edited by Tahna Los (edited September 06, 2000).]
There are examples throughout history of good leaders: perhaps we should determine what qualities they tend to have in common.
I'd start with education. Moreso, a diversity of fields of education. The most intelligent leaders (or really, people of any kind) I've ever known were virtual polymaths, with knowledge and experience in a large variety of subkects. In fact, I'd say very often people like that can end up being leaders without really trying.
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"Ed Gruberman, you fail to grasp Ty Kwan Leap. Approach me, that you might see." -- The Master
I suppose if I'd gotten some people to work for me and get out the vote, I could have pulled it off, but I relied more on campaign posters ($100 worth of color copies, paid for out of my own pocket) and direct campaigning. If I ever do run for office, I won't make the mistake of trying to be too self-sufficient again. First of Two: The problem there is that absolute power corrupts absolutely (and we ain't talkin' 'bout no vodka, eitha!). The second problem there is that no single person can possibly understand and represent everyone's needs equaly, because no leader has had the experiences of all their subjects. That is the whole reason for representative democracy.
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Sean Robertson
[email protected]
WEBolutionary Consulting Services
Mania-Online
"Great is the glory for the strife is hard"
- Wordsworth
"Why must I be surrounded by frickin' idiots?"
- Dr Evil
------------------
"My Name is Elmer Fudd, Millionaire. I own a Mansion and a Yacht."
Psychiatrist: "Again."
Oh well. I'll support First of Two when he gets in though, and if he needs to employ a mad scientist, I'll certainly apply
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Intelligence, Integrity, Responsibility.
Vote Bush/Cheney 2000
"They're Pinky, Pinky and the Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain, NARF!"
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"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."
- George Bernard Shaw
F'r instance, my need for inexpensive reading material does not equate with your need for a steady job, to use but a minor analogy.
The job of a leader is to choose between options which will satisfy the greater needs, often at the cost of the lesser. (And we're not talking about 'perceived needs' which are really WANTS, but most people today who want feel better thinking they need.)
I just saw the results of a study... the average 'poor' US citizen owns a microwave, a color TV, and gets cable. This is NEED?
I agree, Representative Democracy is 'fairer' (except in the bread-and-circuses 'Tyranny of the Majority' Jefferson worried about.
But Benevolent Tyranny is still more efficient.
As to power corrupting... perhaps, perhaps not. (I refuse to use the 'God analogy' any more, it's old.)
In any case, I promise only to abuse my power when I believe it's in the best interests of all concerned. Unlike a current seated president who shall remain nameless.
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"Ed Gruberman, you fail to grasp Ty Kwan Leap. Approach me, that you might see." -- The Master
quote:
Are you saying that you're a better country than Japan, when your country has to "censor" Japanese cartoons to "protect" children,
I always wondered why Nipon cartoons were so bad. Now I know. CENSORS.
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Sailing the Slipstream
It's "They're dinky, they're Pinky and the Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain
Next week, the complete lyrics to "Tiny Toons".
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"Why do you want to spend time with a deer? They're so stupid, they get hypnotized by headlights!" - Guido Anchovy
Perhaps it's the difference between the opening sequence on the TV show and the little clip they play at the end of the cartoon...
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"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."
- George Bernard Shaw
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"...you know, Omega, there's a phrase you might want to look up. It goes something like "paranoid arrogant fuckwit who has more chance of ejaculating to the moon than he has of ever convincing a girl that he's a viable prospect for marriage." -PsyLiam, September 16, 2000 10:23 PM.
It might, might occasionally be "They're Pinky, they've Pinky..." but it's more likely a case of whatever that "I think it's something so I hear it" phenonemon is called. Listen for "dinky", and you'll probably hear "dinky". Someone a FAQ...
But, just to clear it up, Is Buttercup the "hardest fighter" or the "toughest fighter"? I know. Honest. I'm just checking...
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"Why do you want to spend time with a deer? They're so stupid, they get hypnotized by headlights!" - Guido Anchovy
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love's function is to fabricate unknownnness
--
E. E. Cummings
****
Read chapter one of "Dirk Tungsten in...The Disappearing Planet"! And party everyday.