Latvia applies to enter eurozone

[Frank Merton]

It's like governments worldwide are not even pretending to be democracies anymore. And there are many people (even on this forum) who giving away parts of your sovereignty to an unelected elite is a good thing.

I am not much of a fan of democracy. People fool themselves into thinking that they have a voice in democratic systems, and I guess they do, a teeny-tiny little voice that no one hears. The people are too easily swayed by propaganda and clever TV, by grandstanding and simple solutions. Look at how popular Chavez is in Venezuela in spite of the mess he has made of their economy. He makes a big deal of "helping the poor" and the poor are swept along because they think maybe they will get something.

Republics put a layer of elected representatives between the people and government, and this helps mitigate the problem, although even here people rarely have anything more than the vaguest notion of who they are voting for, and are swayed by all sorts of irrelevancies like looks and TV skills and family and negative mudsling ads and name recognition.

[Space Commander Travis]

You seem to have forgotten that it is NATO that guarantees the apparent Freedom of its members. If Old Eastern Bloc nations elect to join NATO then they also fall under its protection. 21 EU members are also members of NATO (Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Austria, Malta and Cyprus are not) and the two organisations work very closely together.

Yes, but NATO and the EU are two quite seperate organisations, aren't they. The only way that the EU could defend one of its Members against some other country would be to threaten to swamp whoever was acting aggressively with Directives.

[Space Commander Travis]

I am not much of a fan of democracy. People fool themselves into thinking that they have a voice in democratic systems, and I guess they do, a teeny-tiny little voice that no one hears. The people are too easily swayed by propaganda and clever TV, by grandstanding and simple solutions. Look at how popular Chavez is in Venezuela in spite of the mess he has made of their economy. He makes a big deal of "helping the poor" and the poor are swept along because they think maybe they will get something.

That's probably because he stood up to the mighty Uncle Sam, which is always a way to make yourself popular (see also: Ahmadjibajad). Or Fidel Castro.

[TheLastLazyGun]

It's like governments worldwide are not even pretending to be democracies anymore.

Especially those on Continental Europe.

Edited March 7, 2013 by TheLastLazyGun

[Frank Merton]

That's probably because he stood up to the mighty Uncle Sam, which is always a way to make yourself popular (see also: Ahmadjibajad). Or Fidel Castro.

Standing up to Uncle Sam is a bit foolish. What Uncle Sam did was pretty much ignore him except quitely pump some but not much money to his enemies, and start buying their oil elsewhere. (Of course as much as he mismanged things the Venezuelans don't have much oil to sell now). Still, that sort of demagoguery has always gone down well with the masses -- part of why I don't trust democracy.

Especially those on Continental Europe.

That is so as to get something done.

[Space Commander Travis]

That is so as to get something done.

i do agree there; Democracy is hopeless at getting anything done, as Politicians can only ever think in the short term; will this help us get re elected, what can we do that will grab the headlines? Hence Tony Blair's enthusiasm for waging War, as he thought that it worked for Mrs T, so it ought to make him a national hero too. There's no point planning anything that will only see any fruition in the long term, as they know they won't be in power by then, so why should they let the other lot get the credit? And it also applies the other way round, of course, like how Labour under Gord Brown borrowed ginormous amounts, knowing that they wouldn't have to worry about paying it off, since they knew they hadn't a hope getting re elected. Sometimes it virtually amounts to sabotage.