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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Philosopher who wrote (16757)	6/15/2001 4:48:05 AM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Power has to shift somewhere; and all these are governments passing power to others. UK - upwards and downwards to other elected bodies Privatisation - to markets BoE - to independent economic body Meanwhile, in the former USSR and many of its satellites we see all the above and a massive increase in indvidual rights; I tend to view the last as power devolution because an individual can only really wield power over his own actions, and there is indubitably far more freedom of thought, movement, speech, action and path for individuals now than then - not to mention their freedom to choose, democratically, their own leaders. The governments to which the USSR relinquished power did not exist before - they were new, elected bodies. OK, not all of ex-WarPac is freed, or not in the same degree - but check the Baltic states, not to mention Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic... things have changed beyond recognition from 20 years ago and in most respects far for the better. I've been to all the latter, and met various travellers (on business and - yes - tourists) from most areas, and indubitably nearly all are happier and more free. [Those who aren't happier? not that I met many, if any, but I gather they're those who had formerly been tolerably comfortable dependents, generally in state-ego industries kept active purely by subsidy.] No questions about it. And it's what they wanted and strove for before - genuinely; I was in Poland during the Solidarity period (82-83), went on marches and demo's with my hosts, saw what they were up against and the restrictions they lived under. Believe me, the state had incredible control on so much of your life - where you shopped (via rationing and restricted shops], where you lived, where you worked and at what, what you could read, watch or listen to, what you could say, what you could think... in safety, anyhow... No way can you argue that the governments in NE Europe now have seen anything but a drastic control reduction over the individual since ~1988. They do feel freer because they are free.