Duckbreath, there is no need to be so insulting in your reply. It doesn't do anybody any good.
We have lost too many stimulating and intelligent posters from this board because of such loaded and aggressive postings.
As well as the insults and loaded terminology, you make baseless presumptions about what I think, what I know and what my motivations are.
If you thought about what I said you would already have the answers to some of the fears and charges you give voice to.
I made it plain that centralised power and its resultant authoritarianism are a Bad Thing. I said in plain terms that it's not *who* is in power but the existance of the power *itself* that is the cause of the problem, that such power corrupt all who wield it.
So how can you ask if I 'just want a 'revolution' and will then 'will' it over us all whether we objected or not'?
>once a leader has been elected he cannot consult >his party on every single issue
which is why it never works
>- you may not like
>it but thats the way the system works and those >are the terms in which you have to criticise it
No it is not!
Were we living in the USSR would you say 'well yes all the elections are for one repressive party; you may not like it but that's the way it is so that's the terms in which you have to criticise it'? Would you say the same under some medieval feudal system?
Or can we dream a bit bigger than that? Do we think we might not be just a change of party leader away from the best of all possible worlds?
>quite often when there are good people in charge >it leads to progress
Aside from the historical inaccuracy of what you say, the principle itself is wrong. You're saying that because you can name several occasions in which an appalling regime gave way to a less appalling one, therefore the power structures are fine.
Of course centralised power has delivered some good things (though the examples you quote are merely stopping doing some of the problems they had created), but no social system is entirely bad.
In the 1930s Nazi Germany had the lowest infant mortality rate on earth and an astonishing program of economic regenration. Doesn't mean we should have been cheering them.
>there's no country in the world at any time in >history who have made a better job
depends what you mean by country. There certainly have been societies that do a far better job of it, just no the mass societies we know. Once societies get so huge they cannot help but ignore, oppress and disenfranchise huge sections of their populations.
Western society cannot be measured simply by the material comfort of those who live in it. We have to factor in the people and places upon whose exploitation our comfort is based.
As with all great civilisations, the West is built on slavery. We've got squeamish about having darkies chained up in our back yards, so we have them a long way away, in the sweatshops of Malaysia or the cocoa plantations of west Africa. These people are not free from slavery and don't benefit from the social care you mention.
>your 'down with us' sentiments
they're actually 'up with us' sentiments.
Saying leaders can take our power and act against our will and interests is more like 'down with us'.
>a mixture of cynicism and 'revolutionary chic'
Again, I try not to respond to insults but this is so wide of the mark I can't help myself.
I believe that people should have the right to directly affect things that directly affect them, rather than hope for benevolence from a distant leader.
I'm saying that, given the chance, people would and should take an active interest in running their affairs. I trust that people really are that basically intelligent, trustworthy and good. If we can envision ways in which the world could be better then we should work towards making them so.
You can call that 'cynical' if you want.
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