The "Freeola Customer Forum" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only. You cannot post here or create a new thread or review on this forum.
And so it is that I find a piece of news that goes some way to confirming what anybody who observed the debacle that was the US Presidential election had long since either known or suspected; that Dubya is in the White House thanks entirely to the scheming and underhand machinations of his brother Jeb. Co-incidentally the man who is Governor of Florida. Co-incidentally, the state where all of the controversy over vote counting and voting irregularities was centered. Co-incidentally the state that won the election for Dubya.
Essentially, the US civil rights commission have found that good 'ol Jeb is guilty of a gross and negligent dereliction of duty by failing to address any of the massive number of problems that either prevented people from casting their votes in the first place or guaranteed that those who did vote would do so incorrectly, thus spoiling their ballot papers. "Fair enough" you may think, "so Jeb is an incompetent and inefficient politician; nothing special there, and his failures will have affected all voters, not just the Democrats".
Well, to be blunt, you'd be wrong. For starters, black voters were 10 times more likely to lose their votes in Florida. Historically, black people have predominantly voted Democrat, so amazingly enough Jeb's failure benefited Dubya...who would have thunk it?! (Incidentally, the reasons as to how it was black voters who suffered because of the 'mistakes' range from the bureaucratic, such as barring people from voting who had the same name as a convicted felon; as half of Florida's prison population is black one can see how this caused problems. There are also the more sinister occurrences such as the State Troopers setting up multiple roadblocks and random spot checks on cars and people, all of which was done in predominantly black neighbourhoods)
Essentially, he helped to guarantee that the affluent white areas that were inclined to Republican could, and that the poorer minority areas that were inclined to vote Democrat, could not.
So then, just one more example of how Democracy can be corrupted, twisted, and used to the benefit of a few. Now that Dubya is in, he is doing his utmost to use his power for the benefit of his friends in big business by introducing tax cuts, allowing oil drilling in Alaska, and trying to manufacture an energy crisis in California (the latter two are being derailed since the defection of a Republican senator). Speaking frankly, I am getting as sick as hooker on her 90th bj of the day of being let down by our supposedly fair system of democracy, and at the risk of sounding like some sort of anarchist, I think it's getting near the time where we need to rewrite the rules so that the system actually works, or risk losing the whole damn thing and having to start again.
You may think me somewhat...excitable in thinking like this. You may even think I'm completely round the twist. In my defence I would say this; if you had said to a citizen of the Roman Empire living in the reign of the Emperor Trajan (about 100AD) that in a little over 200 years the empire would crack and fall they would have laughed you out of Rome (after having marveled at your funny clothes...and assuming that they understood a word you said as well...actually, this isn't a very good example at all if I analyse it too closely but let's ignore that for now).
The Roman parallel can be drawn with various other points of our society; I have previously made the point that under our democracy, the wielding of power is dependent on being elected by the people. The people are made rather more malleable by a press that helps keeps us stupid and help to think as little as possible (and if that sounds paranoid, bear in mind that The Sun is the best selling newspaper in this country) and so the process of election of our leaders becomes little more than a vacuous popularity contest. On that basis, the current government will do whatever it takes to keep them popular with the people in order to get themselves re-elected. As they are in power for less than 5 years, they have to do something within that time in order to keep the masses satisfied, and so they will always take a quick and temporary solution over a difficult to implement but ultimately long term solution. We don't have a society, we have a 5-year cycle.
In Rome before the emperors the same held true. The wielders of supreme power were known as Consuls. The citizens elected them for 1-year terms. The citizenry could be influenced by bribery and so the process of election of their leaders became a contest between the rich. However, as the people then were rather more fickle than they are now, no Consul would ever take for granted being re-elected (before the first Dictator of Rome, a bloke named Marius, no-one had been Consul more than 7 times) and so would not authorize any public works that would not be completed within their term. This short-term thinking led to the gradual, almost imperceptible decline and fall of the Roman Republic, then the Empire afterwards.
You may have heard of the saying "He who does not heed history is doomed to repeat it". To an extent, this is true, although not entirely. Circumstances now are not exactly the same as they were then; we do not have endless waves of Barbarians threatening our borders (unless you count the French...) and they do not have complexity of Global Economics and Globalisation. I've also oversimplified one or two points from Roman History so as to save you from excruciating boredom. But the basic principles are there. I would say that Rome initially had the right idea in that they limited the right to vote to citizens. In principle, this was a sensible move, although they went about it the wrong way because they used predominantly financial criteria to decide who became a citizen. In today’s world where we have 1 man = 1 vote, this means that you and I can vote for our leaders. At the risk of sounding like an elitist, this also means that the any Tasha Slappa and charva (the geordie colloquialism for what I believe TLC would have referred to as a 'scrub') over the age of 18 can also vote. If someone appeals to the lowest common denominator then they will get elected. Quite frightening really, isn't it?
So what is to be done? Once again, Light cops out and states that he doesn't rightly know. Some sort of citizenship exam would be a good idea but as to how to implement that, I couldn't say. To save me from the accusation of being in favour of a Nazi-like state, I should also make it clear that any such system would have to ensure that people who don't have the vote have all of the same rights (bar voting of course) and treatment on the same level as those who do. By saying that, and knowing human nature the way I do, I've undoubtedly consigned the whole thing to the status of "Pipe-dream".
Regardless of what needs to be done to remedy the current democratic crisis, I hope that I have at least gone some way to impressing on you that there is one. I wholeheartedly believe that there is, and I dearly hope that there is something that can be done to make the transition from this system to whatever is coming next a little easier than the upheavals that were suffered by Rome. As in all things, time will tell.
Essentially, the US civil rights commission have found that good 'ol Jeb is guilty of a gross and negligent dereliction of duty by failing to address any of the massive number of problems that either prevented people from casting their votes in the first place or guaranteed that those who did vote would do so incorrectly, thus spoiling their ballot papers. "Fair enough" you may think, "so Jeb is an incompetent and inefficient politician; nothing special there, and his failures will have affected all voters, not just the Democrats".
Well, to be blunt, you'd be wrong. For starters, black voters were 10 times more likely to lose their votes in Florida. Historically, black people have predominantly voted Democrat, so amazingly enough Jeb's failure benefited Dubya...who would have thunk it?! (Incidentally, the reasons as to how it was black voters who suffered because of the 'mistakes' range from the bureaucratic, such as barring people from voting who had the same name as a convicted felon; as half of Florida's prison population is black one can see how this caused problems. There are also the more sinister occurrences such as the State Troopers setting up multiple roadblocks and random spot checks on cars and people, all of which was done in predominantly black neighbourhoods)
Essentially, he helped to guarantee that the affluent white areas that were inclined to Republican could, and that the poorer minority areas that were inclined to vote Democrat, could not.
So then, just one more example of how Democracy can be corrupted, twisted, and used to the benefit of a few. Now that Dubya is in, he is doing his utmost to use his power for the benefit of his friends in big business by introducing tax cuts, allowing oil drilling in Alaska, and trying to manufacture an energy crisis in California (the latter two are being derailed since the defection of a Republican senator). Speaking frankly, I am getting as sick as hooker on her 90th bj of the day of being let down by our supposedly fair system of democracy, and at the risk of sounding like some sort of anarchist, I think it's getting near the time where we need to rewrite the rules so that the system actually works, or risk losing the whole damn thing and having to start again.
You may think me somewhat...excitable in thinking like this. You may even think I'm completely round the twist. In my defence I would say this; if you had said to a citizen of the Roman Empire living in the reign of the Emperor Trajan (about 100AD) that in a little over 200 years the empire would crack and fall they would have laughed you out of Rome (after having marveled at your funny clothes...and assuming that they understood a word you said as well...actually, this isn't a very good example at all if I analyse it too closely but let's ignore that for now).
The Roman parallel can be drawn with various other points of our society; I have previously made the point that under our democracy, the wielding of power is dependent on being elected by the people. The people are made rather more malleable by a press that helps keeps us stupid and help to think as little as possible (and if that sounds paranoid, bear in mind that The Sun is the best selling newspaper in this country) and so the process of election of our leaders becomes little more than a vacuous popularity contest. On that basis, the current government will do whatever it takes to keep them popular with the people in order to get themselves re-elected. As they are in power for less than 5 years, they have to do something within that time in order to keep the masses satisfied, and so they will always take a quick and temporary solution over a difficult to implement but ultimately long term solution. We don't have a society, we have a 5-year cycle.
In Rome before the emperors the same held true. The wielders of supreme power were known as Consuls. The citizens elected them for 1-year terms. The citizenry could be influenced by bribery and so the process of election of their leaders became a contest between the rich. However, as the people then were rather more fickle than they are now, no Consul would ever take for granted being re-elected (before the first Dictator of Rome, a bloke named Marius, no-one had been Consul more than 7 times) and so would not authorize any public works that would not be completed within their term. This short-term thinking led to the gradual, almost imperceptible decline and fall of the Roman Republic, then the Empire afterwards.
You may have heard of the saying "He who does not heed history is doomed to repeat it". To an extent, this is true, although not entirely. Circumstances now are not exactly the same as they were then; we do not have endless waves of Barbarians threatening our borders (unless you count the French...) and they do not have complexity of Global Economics and Globalisation. I've also oversimplified one or two points from Roman History so as to save you from excruciating boredom. But the basic principles are there. I would say that Rome initially had the right idea in that they limited the right to vote to citizens. In principle, this was a sensible move, although they went about it the wrong way because they used predominantly financial criteria to decide who became a citizen. In today’s world where we have 1 man = 1 vote, this means that you and I can vote for our leaders. At the risk of sounding like an elitist, this also means that the any Tasha Slappa and charva (the geordie colloquialism for what I believe TLC would have referred to as a 'scrub') over the age of 18 can also vote. If someone appeals to the lowest common denominator then they will get elected. Quite frightening really, isn't it?
So what is to be done? Once again, Light cops out and states that he doesn't rightly know. Some sort of citizenship exam would be a good idea but as to how to implement that, I couldn't say. To save me from the accusation of being in favour of a Nazi-like state, I should also make it clear that any such system would have to ensure that people who don't have the vote have all of the same rights (bar voting of course) and treatment on the same level as those who do. By saying that, and knowing human nature the way I do, I've undoubtedly consigned the whole thing to the status of "Pipe-dream".
Regardless of what needs to be done to remedy the current democratic crisis, I hope that I have at least gone some way to impressing on you that there is one. I wholeheartedly believe that there is, and I dearly hope that there is something that can be done to make the transition from this system to whatever is coming next a little easier than the upheavals that were suffered by Rome. As in all things, time will tell.
And so it is that I find a piece of news that goes some way to confirming what anybody who observed the debacle that was the US Presidential election had long since either known or suspected; that Dubya is in the White House thanks entirely to the scheming and underhand machinations of his brother Jeb. Co-incidentally the man who is Governor of Florida. Co-incidentally, the state where all of the controversy over vote counting and voting irregularities was centered. Co-incidentally the state that won the election for Dubya.
Essentially, the US civil rights commission have found that good 'ol Jeb is guilty of a gross and negligent dereliction of duty by failing to address any of the massive number of problems that either prevented people from casting their votes in the first place or guaranteed that those who did vote would do so incorrectly, thus spoiling their ballot papers. "Fair enough" you may think, "so Jeb is an incompetent and inefficient politician; nothing special there, and his failures will have affected all voters, not just the Democrats".
Well, to be blunt, you'd be wrong. For starters, black voters were 10 times more likely to lose their votes in Florida. Historically, black people have predominantly voted Democrat, so amazingly enough Jeb's failure benefited Dubya...who would have thunk it?! (Incidentally, the reasons as to how it was black voters who suffered because of the 'mistakes' range from the bureaucratic, such as barring people from voting who had the same name as a convicted felon; as half of Florida's prison population is black one can see how this caused problems. There are also the more sinister occurrences such as the State Troopers setting up multiple roadblocks and random spot checks on cars and people, all of which was done in predominantly black neighbourhoods)
Essentially, he helped to guarantee that the affluent white areas that were inclined to Republican could, and that the poorer minority areas that were inclined to vote Democrat, could not.
So then, just one more example of how Democracy can be corrupted, twisted, and used to the benefit of a few. Now that Dubya is in, he is doing his utmost to use his power for the benefit of his friends in big business by introducing tax cuts, allowing oil drilling in Alaska, and trying to manufacture an energy crisis in California (the latter two are being derailed since the defection of a Republican senator). Speaking frankly, I am getting as sick as hooker on her 90th bj of the day of being let down by our supposedly fair system of democracy, and at the risk of sounding like some sort of anarchist, I think it's getting near the time where we need to rewrite the rules so that the system actually works, or risk losing the whole damn thing and having to start again.
You may think me somewhat...excitable in thinking like this. You may even think I'm completely round the twist. In my defence I would say this; if you had said to a citizen of the Roman Empire living in the reign of the Emperor Trajan (about 100AD) that in a little over 200 years the empire would crack and fall they would have laughed you out of Rome (after having marveled at your funny clothes...and assuming that they understood a word you said as well...actually, this isn't a very good example at all if I analyse it too closely but let's ignore that for now).
The Roman parallel can be drawn with various other points of our society; I have previously made the point that under our democracy, the wielding of power is dependent on being elected by the people. The people are made rather more malleable by a press that helps keeps us stupid and help to think as little as possible (and if that sounds paranoid, bear in mind that The Sun is the best selling newspaper in this country) and so the process of election of our leaders becomes little more than a vacuous popularity contest. On that basis, the current government will do whatever it takes to keep them popular with the people in order to get themselves re-elected. As they are in power for less than 5 years, they have to do something within that time in order to keep the masses satisfied, and so they will always take a quick and temporary solution over a difficult to implement but ultimately long term solution. We don't have a society, we have a 5-year cycle.
In Rome before the emperors the same held true. The wielders of supreme power were known as Consuls. The citizens elected them for 1-year terms. The citizenry could be influenced by bribery and so the process of election of their leaders became a contest between the rich. However, as the people then were rather more fickle than they are now, no Consul would ever take for granted being re-elected (before the first Dictator of Rome, a bloke named Marius, no-one had been Consul more than 7 times) and so would not authorize any public works that would not be completed within their term. This short-term thinking led to the gradual, almost imperceptible decline and fall of the Roman Republic, then the Empire afterwards.
You may have heard of the saying "He who does not heed history is doomed to repeat it". To an extent, this is true, although not entirely. Circumstances now are not exactly the same as they were then; we do not have endless waves of Barbarians threatening our borders (unless you count the French...) and they do not have complexity of Global Economics and Globalisation. I've also oversimplified one or two points from Roman History so as to save you from excruciating boredom. But the basic principles are there. I would say that Rome initially had the right idea in that they limited the right to vote to citizens. In principle, this was a sensible move, although they went about it the wrong way because they used predominantly financial criteria to decide who became a citizen. In today’s world where we have 1 man = 1 vote, this means that you and I can vote for our leaders. At the risk of sounding like an elitist, this also means that the any Tasha Slappa and charva (the geordie colloquialism for what I believe TLC would have referred to as a 'scrub') over the age of 18 can also vote. If someone appeals to the lowest common denominator then they will get elected. Quite frightening really, isn't it?
So what is to be done? Once again, Light cops out and states that he doesn't rightly know. Some sort of citizenship exam would be a good idea but as to how to implement that, I couldn't say. To save me from the accusation of being in favour of a Nazi-like state, I should also make it clear that any such system would have to ensure that people who don't have the vote have all of the same rights (bar voting of course) and treatment on the same level as those who do. By saying that, and knowing human nature the way I do, I've undoubtedly consigned the whole thing to the status of "Pipe-dream".
Regardless of what needs to be done to remedy the current democratic crisis, I hope that I have at least gone some way to impressing on you that there is one. I wholeheartedly believe that there is, and I dearly hope that there is something that can be done to make the transition from this system to whatever is coming next a little easier than the upheavals that were suffered by Rome. As in all things, time will tell.
Essentially, the US civil rights commission have found that good 'ol Jeb is guilty of a gross and negligent dereliction of duty by failing to address any of the massive number of problems that either prevented people from casting their votes in the first place or guaranteed that those who did vote would do so incorrectly, thus spoiling their ballot papers. "Fair enough" you may think, "so Jeb is an incompetent and inefficient politician; nothing special there, and his failures will have affected all voters, not just the Democrats".
Well, to be blunt, you'd be wrong. For starters, black voters were 10 times more likely to lose their votes in Florida. Historically, black people have predominantly voted Democrat, so amazingly enough Jeb's failure benefited Dubya...who would have thunk it?! (Incidentally, the reasons as to how it was black voters who suffered because of the 'mistakes' range from the bureaucratic, such as barring people from voting who had the same name as a convicted felon; as half of Florida's prison population is black one can see how this caused problems. There are also the more sinister occurrences such as the State Troopers setting up multiple roadblocks and random spot checks on cars and people, all of which was done in predominantly black neighbourhoods)
Essentially, he helped to guarantee that the affluent white areas that were inclined to Republican could, and that the poorer minority areas that were inclined to vote Democrat, could not.
So then, just one more example of how Democracy can be corrupted, twisted, and used to the benefit of a few. Now that Dubya is in, he is doing his utmost to use his power for the benefit of his friends in big business by introducing tax cuts, allowing oil drilling in Alaska, and trying to manufacture an energy crisis in California (the latter two are being derailed since the defection of a Republican senator). Speaking frankly, I am getting as sick as hooker on her 90th bj of the day of being let down by our supposedly fair system of democracy, and at the risk of sounding like some sort of anarchist, I think it's getting near the time where we need to rewrite the rules so that the system actually works, or risk losing the whole damn thing and having to start again.
You may think me somewhat...excitable in thinking like this. You may even think I'm completely round the twist. In my defence I would say this; if you had said to a citizen of the Roman Empire living in the reign of the Emperor Trajan (about 100AD) that in a little over 200 years the empire would crack and fall they would have laughed you out of Rome (after having marveled at your funny clothes...and assuming that they understood a word you said as well...actually, this isn't a very good example at all if I analyse it too closely but let's ignore that for now).
The Roman parallel can be drawn with various other points of our society; I have previously made the point that under our democracy, the wielding of power is dependent on being elected by the people. The people are made rather more malleable by a press that helps keeps us stupid and help to think as little as possible (and if that sounds paranoid, bear in mind that The Sun is the best selling newspaper in this country) and so the process of election of our leaders becomes little more than a vacuous popularity contest. On that basis, the current government will do whatever it takes to keep them popular with the people in order to get themselves re-elected. As they are in power for less than 5 years, they have to do something within that time in order to keep the masses satisfied, and so they will always take a quick and temporary solution over a difficult to implement but ultimately long term solution. We don't have a society, we have a 5-year cycle.
In Rome before the emperors the same held true. The wielders of supreme power were known as Consuls. The citizens elected them for 1-year terms. The citizenry could be influenced by bribery and so the process of election of their leaders became a contest between the rich. However, as the people then were rather more fickle than they are now, no Consul would ever take for granted being re-elected (before the first Dictator of Rome, a bloke named Marius, no-one had been Consul more than 7 times) and so would not authorize any public works that would not be completed within their term. This short-term thinking led to the gradual, almost imperceptible decline and fall of the Roman Republic, then the Empire afterwards.
You may have heard of the saying "He who does not heed history is doomed to repeat it". To an extent, this is true, although not entirely. Circumstances now are not exactly the same as they were then; we do not have endless waves of Barbarians threatening our borders (unless you count the French...) and they do not have complexity of Global Economics and Globalisation. I've also oversimplified one or two points from Roman History so as to save you from excruciating boredom. But the basic principles are there. I would say that Rome initially had the right idea in that they limited the right to vote to citizens. In principle, this was a sensible move, although they went about it the wrong way because they used predominantly financial criteria to decide who became a citizen. In today’s world where we have 1 man = 1 vote, this means that you and I can vote for our leaders. At the risk of sounding like an elitist, this also means that the any Tasha Slappa and charva (the geordie colloquialism for what I believe TLC would have referred to as a 'scrub') over the age of 18 can also vote. If someone appeals to the lowest common denominator then they will get elected. Quite frightening really, isn't it?
So what is to be done? Once again, Light cops out and states that he doesn't rightly know. Some sort of citizenship exam would be a good idea but as to how to implement that, I couldn't say. To save me from the accusation of being in favour of a Nazi-like state, I should also make it clear that any such system would have to ensure that people who don't have the vote have all of the same rights (bar voting of course) and treatment on the same level as those who do. By saying that, and knowing human nature the way I do, I've undoubtedly consigned the whole thing to the status of "Pipe-dream".
Regardless of what needs to be done to remedy the current democratic crisis, I hope that I have at least gone some way to impressing on you that there is one. I wholeheartedly believe that there is, and I dearly hope that there is something that can be done to make the transition from this system to whatever is coming next a little easier than the upheavals that were suffered by Rome. As in all things, time will tell.
So, the Unbeliever gets into work this morning. He grabs a cup of fresh brew from the dispenser and settles down to do some hard work. Wait! Unbeliever decides to check the SR forums quickly to see if there's anything interesting - what have we here? Another political discussion? That's exactly what I don't need this morning. So, I'll log out of the forums and slink away to do some work. Contragulations, Light: you've just won my vote for best newbie.
Unfortunately, they stopped taking votes! Damn! Er...sorry, Light.
Unbeliever wrote:
> Unfortunately, they stopped taking votes! Damn! Er...sorry, Light.
Cah! Raising my hopes just to dash them! Tish and piffle to you sir!!
> Unfortunately, they stopped taking votes! Damn! Er...sorry, Light.
Cah! Raising my hopes just to dash them! Tish and piffle to you sir!!