Better for who? Do you mean we're safer if other people are oppressed? Are you OK with that? Would you personally do a bit of oppression on our behalf?
We live a life of unprecedented luxury in the west. If we equally distributed wealth amongst the whole world's population (which is where your questions are heading), I wonder what our standard of living would be like?
If we equally distributed wealth amongst the whole world's population (which is where your questions are heading), I wonder what our standard of living would be like?
My guess is almost all of us would be better off given the vast wealth held by so very very few.
No one will trust the Libyan security forces now...after this. The country will become a war zone for upto a Decade.That is.....until America steps in to secure the oil
Sounds good to me.
You seems to be leaning towards communism rather than democratic there.
Anyway:
Why the constant updates on the Princes's?
'cos it sells newspaper & magazines etc as a large part of the population seem to want to know about them
Why the public holiday for a Prince's wedding?
Why not?
Why the pledge of allegiance to the crown?
Well, as the 'head of state' that would seem appropriate, but as we all know the monarchy doesn't actually run the country anymore. In fact the pledge actually goes on to say: 'I will give my loyalty to the United Kingdom and respect its rights and freedoms. I will uphold its democratic values. I will observe its laws faithfully and fulfil my duties and obligations as a British citizen'
Why can't we have a Republic?
We can, if someone takes out the royals!
We live a life of unprecedented luxury in the west
I disagree.
In a country where elderly people can't afford to heat their houses all winter.
I also can't remember wafting into work in my Veryron this morning nor can I remember my bank balance looking red.....
I disagree.In a country where elderly people can't afford to heat their houses all winter.
I also can't remember wafting into work in my Veryron this morning nor can I remember my bank balance looking red.....
This suggests... the average income world wide is $7,000 (the world's average income - total world income divided by total number of people).
So... an end to all oppression worldwide means your income will drop to £4,600 p/a.
Recently we read of the ex Somerset council Chief Executive who was paid £600 last year. How? Hes there to serve the people.
Did he deliver pizza or something? If he did he needs a quicker moped if that's all he earned.
Stop and have a think are you really trying to claim that life in the 5 th richest country in the world is some sort of hardship ? Do you need pictures of ghettos, refugees, starving people, the third world,shanty towns, disease , dying children from malnutrition and treatable diseases to counter your point?
We live a life of unprecedented luxury in the westI disagree.
The top 1% is 30K pa FWIW
Think anyone who disagrees about the "life of unprecedented luxury" most likely doesn't really understand what it means. Yes some pensioners can't afford to heat their houses. But they have houses, and heating. That's unprecedented luxury.
Why? Not everyone lives under a sheet in a famine.
Unprecedented-luxury isn't a society that allows neglected and vunerable people to die due to lack of the basics; heating affordability or abuse of the elderly in care homes.
Basics should be covered first before we talk even about the simpliest luxury.
How many poor families this winter will be suffering just to put food on their table?
There is plenty of talk of child poverty increasing in the UK.
So... an end to all oppression worldwide means your income will drop to £4,600 p/a.
Though that in turn would lead to a lot of things in the currently better off places becoming cheaper.
Hora perhaps you want to pay more tax and have a larger state to help the needy .. presumably why you voted Tory?
Again relative poverty here is nowhere near the levels of actual poverty worldwide.
Though that in turn would lead to a lot of things in the currently better off places becoming cheaper.
Hora. Are you having the spirit of TJ channeled through you? When did you become Che Guevara?
when he discovered it could get him laid ? 
when he discovered it could get him laid ?
ernie_lynch - Member
...But today the UK can be described as a liberal democracy. Something which she can afford to allow - as power, wealth, and influence, are all strictly controlled and guaranteed.
Maybe so, but there are important freedoms that are curtailed.
Free speech
Freedom of movement in England (no right to roam)
We are subjects not citizens.
And we will not have a properly functioning democracy as long as corporations are allowed to make political donations or lobby.
Or as long as the media is controlled by a select few.
Free speech is not curtailed.
Mazlows hierarchy of needs.. Most of us get most of them. A lot of folk in the world struggle to complete the lowest two
They don't have to curtail free speach TJ, most people only believe what the TV tells them and will ridicule anything that's different.
The war being fought on these shores isn't a physical one, it's a psychological one, the scum bags that make our lives difficult and stressful here, make it almopst unbearable elsewhere.
The difference being the amount they can get away with, we don't have a democracy but the illusion of one, it's a bit like the judicial system and most other things in the UK.
It looks good on paper and people will buy into it, because it gives them a false sense of security, but the reality is far from the general perception of the situation.
Zedsdead - MemberBP are an American company.
Eh, no, they are not. As someone who works for BP, I can assure you that they are a British company. Why do you think the US are so pissed off with BP over the GOM spill? They were not pissed off with Occidental over the Piper Alpha, or with Exxon over the Valdiz, or with Union Carbide over Bohpal.
So... an end to all oppression worldwide means your income will drop to £4,600 p/a.
That really is complete bollox.........if you don't mind me saying so.
Giving people in oppressive countries their democratic rights, including, education, healthcare, housing, and employment, is the basis for making them far more productive. So your simplistic arithmetic bears no resemblance to reality.
Oppressing people in distant far flung countries does not guarantee a higher standard of living for people in Britain. If it were the case, then living standards would have fallen dramatically after the collapse of the British Empire. And yet the complete opposite is true, ie, living standards have constantly kept increasing throughout the period since the end of the British Empire.
And all this is quite apart from the fact that enjoying a standard of living and quality of life based to the exploitation and oppression of powerless people, is morally repugnant and utterly indefensible.
Mugging old women for their pensions might well provide me with a higher standard of living, but it hardly represents an acceptable way for me to increase my purchasing power.
Giving people in oppressive countries their democratic rights, including, education, healthcare, housing, and employment, is the basis for making them far more productive.
You forgot to add "in a capitalist economy where they see the rewards for their increased productivity"
We are subjects not citizens.
I'm not.
I didn't forget to add anything.
I said : "their democratic rights, including, education, healthcare, housing, and employment"
None of those democratic rights are an intrinsic part of "a capitalist economy".
I suspect that my definition of democracy might differ to yours.
"where they see the rewards for their increased productivity" did make me chuckle though .... such quaint naivety
A lot of folk in the world struggle to complete the lowest two
I suspect some people on here struggle to tick off all the items in box 1 given the frenzy that accompanies pictures of Victoria Pendleton and the like 
BP is owned, like any other company floated on the stock market, by it's shareholders who in this case, are 56% American...
BBC has just announced that the Libyan Army has deployed "in some strength" West of Tripoli, where demonstrators have been burning more government buildings.
Ahmadinejad going "Ooh, ooh, me too, me too lookit me" and so on.
Iran is doing something that any country in the world can do and israel does not like it. One cans see why , I mean one could never accuse Israel of being provactive in its foreign policy or of illegally manufacturing nucleur weapons or indeed waging war on its neighbours now.
That really is complete bollox.........if you don't mind me saying so.
Giving people in oppressive countries their democratic rights, including, education, healthcare, housing, and employment, is the basis for making them far more productive. So your simplistic arithmetic bears no resemblance to reality.
However you look at it resources are finite. If the rest of the world gets its fair share the rich west is screwed. Even if we manage to extract more resources instead the environment is screwed.
Our national interest is served by getting more than our fair share. Which is of course pretty repugnant, but I suspect most people would give up their liberal credentials rather than let the rest of the world get their fair share (by handing back their unfair share). Maybe I'm a cynic?
OK, lets say the rest of the world embraces democracy and become a success. Everyone's income raises to £25k.
Where do get that from ? Give people their democratic rights and their income will automatically increase by £25k ? You best hope that the word doesn't get out, otherwise there will be spontaneous revolutions throughout the world.
Our national interest is served by getting more than our fair share.
So they would like you to believe. But of course that's also bollox. As I said a couple of weeks ago :
Expanding and protecting British interests isn't designed to benefit ordinary British people you know - only the gullible and hopeless naive would think that.
Britain at one time was the most powerful and wealthiest nation on earth, that didn't however translate into any meaningful benefit for its people. For example, in the 1840s Britain had complete global sea supremacy, she had a significant and continuously expanding global empire. The government of the day was, you could say, committed to "Britain's national best interest".
However, for the overwhelming majority of the British people life was a short miserable existence of unending toil and wretched abject poverty - only a tiny minority which made up the ruling classes actually benefited from Britain's great power and wealth.
In fact life for an average Englishman, was shorter and more miserable, than the life of a slave in the 1840s (slaves were a prized possession) Urban and rural life expectancy in England, and I'm talking about lower and middle classes not upper classes, was less than 25 years. A slave in the Southern United States could expect to live until about the age of 30.
And exactly the same self-evident truths apply today. Our recent military adventures in Iraq might well have increased Britain's global influence, but that has not translated into any meaningful rewards for the overwhelming majority of British people. Our standard of living has not increased one iota as a result of our invasion of Iraq, despite the fact that it has undoubtedly brought vastly increased profits to US and British companies. We paid for the war - they reaped the rewards.
Imperialism and neocolonialism is only designed to benefit the ruling classes. If the people benefit at all, then it is by accident rather than design. Governments might well beat the patriotic drum, but it is absurd to suggest that classes with diametrically opposed interests should share a common purpose - rarely does that happen. One notable exception was 1939 when both the ruling class and the people shared an obvious common purpose - to repel a foreign invasion. But that is clearly the exception, rather than the rule.
You've failed to address the key point. Inequality.
Or are you not advocating equality? In which case, that's fine.
But, we in the west, the average person on £25k, is incredibly wealthy in very real terms. All that means is that we are able to consume more than our fair share.
Equality would mean we consume less than we do now (given finite resources). You seem to be suggesting this isn't in our national interest?
You seem to be suggesting this isn't in our national interest?
If you had read and understood my post, you would have seen that I do not believe there is such a thing, in the general sense of the word, as "national interest". That can only happen in a truly democratic society. At the moment our society does not function to serve the best interests of the British people. It functions to serve the best interests of a privileged few. And they don't even have to be British.
It all started going pear shaped when some ijut (in the middle East!) started planting seeds and domesticating animals. Before you knew it we had commodities, wealth, division of labour and a life of slavery for worthless possessions.
A million years it took to evolve to be perfect (ly happy) hunter gather's, and the last 10k we ruin it all.
**** national interest and democracy, **** agrarian utopias I say get back to basics and start cloning mammoths.
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