UN- A Meaningless Forum?

[SEVERUSMAX]

Who are they?

Oh - and what you're talking about isn't sovereignty. I think you're referring to a checks-and-balances system similar to the American one. That's just one of the solutions for governing. Not my favourite, but better than the Chinese model.

Essentially, what you conceive under "national sovereignty" then, is pretty much that a country has a right to decide on it's own internal policies and so on?

Checks and balances are necessary to keep one branch from tyrannizing over the people through the use and abuse of excessive power. I don't trust anyone with both executive and legislative power. Parliamentary republics are often controlled by unbridled majority rule without the rule of law. Separation of powers ensures that the people's representatives don't betray them. If they have to SHARE power, it's harder to pull off. Which is why I like gridlock and want to saddle President Bush with a Democratic Congress.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

No, they are responsible to the Communist Party of China and via the Communist Party the Workers of China. Of course, that is utterly unlike the American system.

Since when does the Communist Party actually get held accountable to the Chinese people? I don't recall multi-party elections there. Where is the opposition? Where is the means for FORCING the Party to listen to the people? There has to be a means of enforcement for anyone's rights.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Oh, I've just heard of a major firing of a UN official for "sexual harassment". Hmm....what about firing people over incompetence and corruption, too? Come on, Kofi, you can do it!

 

[SummerMorning]

"...You assume I am "left-wing" just because I consider materialist dialectics a valid theory for explaining the Capitalist phenomenon? That's new...."

No, it is not new. you left out 'Marxist' in your description of "...materialist dialectics...explaining Capitalism phenomenon (sic)

Marxism is a 'faith' based on a political and philosophical assumption. Free market capitalism, with a small 'c', is a rational, objective, scientific study of the market place.

amicus...

I know - but in this debate, he was going on the little sig besides my AV.

I'm not a marxist myself, but I do accept materialist dialectics. I'm refering to capitalism as a form of organising economic production. I agree that marxism has come to be applied to something resembling a "secular religion," with its gurus, its creation myths, its eschatology and so on. But the basics of what Marx wrote, are actually very sound social science. What Lenin wrote was mostly quite addled.

I have to disagree with you on free marke capitalism though, it is not a rational and objective study of the market place. Like every single human enterprise it is subjective and based on irrational impulses. "Science," on the other hand - yes sometimes it is scientific - where by scientific I understand a system of more-or-less falsifiable knowledge statements.

But, science itself - when looked at from a broader perspective - is yet another system of assumptions and beliefs. It's essentially impossible to get beyond the subjective.

 

[SummerMorning]

I have a very precise and accurate view of representation. I won't dilute it for the benefit of tyrants (like Zhu Rongji). There must be either direct or indirect connection to the people (the Supreme Court is an example of the latter). I have little use for unconstitutional bodies like the FCC, either.

Well then, in that case and with those qualifiers, yes - I agree with you. The Chinese government is not representative.

 

[SummerMorning]

Checks and balances are necessary to keep one branch from tyrannizing over the people through the use and abuse of excessive power. I don't trust anyone with both executive and legislative power. Parliamentary republics are often controlled by unbridled majority rule without the rule of law. Separation of powers ensures that the people's representatives don't betray them. If they have to SHARE power, it's harder to pull off. Which is why I like gridlock and want to saddle President Bush with a Democratic Congress.

I agree.

But, as someone quite famous once said: "Democracy is the worst form of government ever invented ..."

 

[SummerMorning]

"... except for all the others."

Churchill, I believe.

 

[SummerMorning]

Since when does the Communist Party actually get held accountable to the Chinese people? I don't recall multi-party elections there. Where is the opposition? Where is the means for FORCING the Party to listen to the people? There has to be a means of enforcement for anyone's rights.

Well, apparently the Communist Party is the vanguard of the revolution and as such has to undertake extraordinary powers, introducing the dictatorship of the proletariat and such, so that it may transform society, introducing socialism and then through the withering away of the state, communism.

It doesn't work, of course.

But that's just one of the more obvious examples of a mismatch between ideology and intersubjective cosmology.

 

[SummerMorning]

Oh, I've just heard of a major firing of a UN official for "sexual harassment". Hmm....what about firing people over incompetence and corruption, too? Come on, Kofi, you can do it!

No, the UN is a bureaucracy. Bureaucracies do not fire people over incompetence and corruption, bureaucracies hire ADDITIONAL people to overcome incompetency and corruption.

It's something of a vicious cycle. The iron law of bureaucracy, somebody once called it.

 

[Somme]

This is a porn site?

Damn.

Then what did I just post on ChristmasCookies .com?

That's where I posted my knitting patterns too....<nods>

 

[SummerMorning]

That's where I posted my knitting patterns too....<nods>

Thredd-jack.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Summer Morning actually agreed with me over something? Expects the world to end.

 

[SummerMorning]

Summer Morning actually agreed with me over something? Expects the world to end.

You were citing facts which were correct and I happen to agree with your conclusion based on those facts. I would agree with anyone in those circumstances.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Well, for once, we agree.