taken from Maclean's Magazine (Sept. 1, 2008 issue, pg. 20):
"[UN] Soldiers frequently remind themselves: 'Just remember, all of our equipment was made by the lowest bidder!' There is a similar attitude regarding Security Council mandates: 'Just remember, the wording of our UN mandate was the result of the Permanent Five agreeing to the lowest common denominator!' When China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States look at a threat to international peace and security through the prism of their own country's self-interests, they will never completely agree on everything. What follows in the pursuit of "doing something" is a mandate for the UN field commander that is laced with compromises and omissions."
In other words, "Country X ignores strongly worded UN letter protesting its invasion of Country Y. UN sends a strongly worded letter protesting their letters being ignored."
The diversity of the population being governed is inversely proportional to the ability of the governing body for that population to engage in, or execute, any meaningful decision-making process.
And I think a clue to that problem can be found in the above quote: When you get a large number of interest groups all acting in their own self-interest, you get a million people pulling from all different directions. What you end up with is something that's torn to shreds from all the pulling.
What is necessary for any meaningful decision-making process is trust. The ability for interest groups to STOP pulling, STOP preventing other interest groups from pulling by scheming etc, and find someone who's got a good idea of what should happen, and cede power to him.
A benevolent monarchy is the only governmental system that could possibly work for us.
However, given that we will NEVER be able to trust, we will NEVER be able to find a philosopher-king, and the fact that, even if we DO do those two things, our ingenuity has already, or soon will, find ways around it that we can leverage in our own self-interest, I think it's obvious to anyone that we are not so much *unworthy* as we are *incapable* of forming an effective government.
And that's why Barack Obama will go down in history as the world's Most Promising President. Because people will put their trust in him, and putting their trust in him, will place their power in him as well. And placing their power in him, they will surrender their power to the ubiquitous power-mongering schemers that thrive in dark, Light-less areas like Capitol Hill. In will, in short, be business as usual, and everyone, at the end of four years, will be like, what the fuck? And they'll become even MORE disinterested in the political process, and as such, will free up one more hand of the scheming power-mongerers.
"[UN] Soldiers frequently remind themselves: 'Just remember, all of our equipment was made by the lowest bidder!' There is a similar attitude regarding Security Council mandates: 'Just remember, the wording of our UN mandate was the result of the Permanent Five agreeing to the lowest common denominator!' When China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States look at a threat to international peace and security through the prism of their own country's self-interests, they will never completely agree on everything. What follows in the pursuit of "doing something" is a mandate for the UN field commander that is laced with compromises and omissions."
In other words, "Country X ignores strongly worded UN letter protesting its invasion of Country Y. UN sends a strongly worded letter protesting their letters being ignored."
The diversity of the population being governed is inversely proportional to the ability of the governing body for that population to engage in, or execute, any meaningful decision-making process.
And I think a clue to that problem can be found in the above quote: When you get a large number of interest groups all acting in their own self-interest, you get a million people pulling from all different directions. What you end up with is something that's torn to shreds from all the pulling.
What is necessary for any meaningful decision-making process is trust. The ability for interest groups to STOP pulling, STOP preventing other interest groups from pulling by scheming etc, and find someone who's got a good idea of what should happen, and cede power to him.
A benevolent monarchy is the only governmental system that could possibly work for us.
However, given that we will NEVER be able to trust, we will NEVER be able to find a philosopher-king, and the fact that, even if we DO do those two things, our ingenuity has already, or soon will, find ways around it that we can leverage in our own self-interest, I think it's obvious to anyone that we are not so much *unworthy* as we are *incapable* of forming an effective government.
And that's why Barack Obama will go down in history as the world's Most Promising President. Because people will put their trust in him, and putting their trust in him, will place their power in him as well. And placing their power in him, they will surrender their power to the ubiquitous power-mongering schemers that thrive in dark, Light-less areas like Capitol Hill. In will, in short, be business as usual, and everyone, at the end of four years, will be like, what the fuck? And they'll become even MORE disinterested in the political process, and as such, will free up one more hand of the scheming power-mongerers.
Too cynical? Talk to me again in 4 years.
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