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Depository for off topic / political posts (NO brexit related posts please)

Generally I agree with LeSving’s description of the relation between government and people in the Nordic countries. I might not be quite so optimistic about the government always carrying out the will of the people since there are some high-profile issues in Sweden where the government certainly does not. But generally speaking, yes.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Airborne_Again wrote:

I might not be quite so optimistic about the government always carrying out the will of the people

He he. No, it’s more a kind of a “ideal” or something like that, idea perhaps. Far from fool proof in all circumstances

It is a bit intriguing to see the path of history. Pre-christianity there was freedom. Absolute freedom, unless you were a slave of course It was a violent society, hard and primitive, based on physical/psychological strength, the greater family, allegiances and honor. Many perished. But every “free” (as in not a slave) man and women was truly free. There was no tyranny, no single rulers with god given rights. Caused by lots of gods perhaps? No single truth. Then came Christianity, one single God, priests and kings who had rights given to them by that single God and a bulletproof hierarchical system of projected power. 90% of the population were held in tyranny by this system. People with questions were burned alive, literally. This lasted for centuries, the dark ages.

Nothing really happened until 1600-1700, but only slowly slowly. Only with humanism and communism did things start to really change in the 1700-1900. The rejection of Christianity as the single point of truth, and eventually the introduction of the welfare state, which is quite new. Today we are back were we started thousands of years ago. Back to the days before Christianity, but on a much more sophisticated level. It’s fragile, expensive. Will it last? who knows. The fact remains that no time in history of man kind is practically 100% of the population free to create their lives as we can today. Free of tyranny, free of “falling out” of the society. Free to mean and say whatever we want. Free of being afraid of dying due to being poor,

In that light the “COVID restrictions”, whatever they may be at one particular place, seems like nothing. IMO the main and only danger is when people start to mess around with some “one and only truth”, Nothing about COVID situation suggests this is the case. That danger comes from elsewhere, religion and some “-isms” mostly IMO

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

The ‘will of the people’ in a diverse society is often not anywhere near uniform, and tends toward chaos. However many of them can figure out how to get what they want just fine if left alone to spend their money versus it being taken and spent of what government decides is “the will of the people”

Obviously, the purpose of a constitution is to define the role of government and limit the power of direct democracy, a protection for minorities in a diverse society. The smallest and most defenseless minority is the individual.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 17 Sep 13:56

T28 wrote:

As a proof of the superiority of the “everyone for himself” system, the supreme leader of that enlightened nation assured us bleach cures not only autism but also Covid.

Im not a DT fan…. but even I know that if more than the 10 seconds that got HUGE airtime was listened to, it was completely obvious to even the thickest person that it was said as part of a jokey conversation… There was a similar clip of him supposedly talking to a puddle – but look at more than the 5 second clip used and its obvious he is pointing out the puddle to his wife and warning her not to step into it…

Maybe I don’t have the “corona herd-mentality” he was talking about so I couldn’t get his joke, or maybe I watched more than 10 seconds and I still didn’t get the joke.

Jokey? You mean like he said “I like playing it down” on the phone, then “In fact I played it up” during the TV interview?

The point is that a supposedly ultimately superior system driven by “chacun pour soi après moi le déluge” has managed to actually elect this person as the “caretaker – in – charge”, the ultimate exponent of the moral decrepitude of the statewide infrastructures this system supposedly offers to those entrepreneurs smart enough to be brought back from retirement and paid more than university professors.

Allegedly.

Last Edited by T28 at 17 Sep 15:59
T28
Switzerland

This drivel does not belong here, T28.

Also, from the Guidelines:

Political content: this is fine where directly relevant to aviation. Otherwise, it is likely to be eventually moved to a dedicated “politics/off topic” thread. Most online communities do not allow politics at all, so please use this facility with care, and only if you make genuine contributions elsewhere on EuroGA.

That addition to the guidelines was put in because we had a guy here dumping tons of purely political stuff, without making meaningful aviation contributions. It’s never good to have 1 or 2 people driving mod policy but sometimes it is the only alternative to simply removing them.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Silvaire wrote:

Obviously, the purpose of a constitution is to define the role of government

We’ve not written it down in England / Great Britain / the UK because we’re still trying to figure it out. It’s only been a couple of thousand years, so don’t rush us.

;-)

EGLM & EGTN

Graham wrote:

We’ve not written it down in England / Great Britain / the UK because we’re still trying to figure it out. It’s only been a couple of thousand years, so don’t rush us.

;-)

He, he quite right.

It could be argued reducing democracy to a constituition is to misunderstand democracy, the more so the more the constituition is set in stone.

Silvaire wrote:

The ‘will of the people’ in a diverse society is often not anywhere near uniform, and tends toward chaos. However many of them can figure out how to get what they want just fine if left alone to spend their money versus it being taken and spent of what government decides is “the will of the people”

Obviously, the purpose of a constitution is to define the role of government and limit the power of direct democracy, a protection for minorities in a diverse society. The smallest and most defenseless minority is the individual.

I don’t see why it shouldn’t “work” in diverse societies. A government is not needed to make it “work”. It could be more a consensus thing, people gathering together to set a common denominator for how to live, even though the society is diverse, or even particularly because it is diverse. But, there has to be a “will” there to make it work, some sense of right and wrong, justice and practical thinking that is common among everyone involved. I think history has shown that governments tend to make these things worse.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

LeSving wrote:

I don’t see why it shouldn’t “work” in diverse societies. A government is not needed to make it “work”. It could be more a consensus thing, people gathering together to set a common denominator for how to live, even though the society is diverse, or even particularly because it is diverse. But, there has to be a “will” there to make it work, some sense of right and wrong, justice and practical thinking that is common among everyone involved. I think history has shown that governments tend to make these things worse.

Interesting comment… in that its a pretty fair description of the how US ‘society’ functions, including the part about Government making things worse. Arguably the most prominent feature of the US in this regard is the willingness of people to cooperate spontaneously, without direction or social barriers, for their mutual benefit. Equally prominent is the lack of permanence in many such arrangements. People move on when circumstances dictate, and do it again.

This distinction may be why many Europeans seem unable to understand that the US can function fine, and is the opposite of uncaring etc, regardless of the societal dislike of ‘solidarity’, ‘getting organized’, taxation, regulation, imposed formality. We just do it Except for the media of course, which nowadays criticizes everything and anybody in sight without any connection to the society and without making any positive contribution.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 17 Sep 19:22
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