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Strategies & Market Trends : Ask Vendit Off-Topic Questions -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Vendit™ who wrote (3659)	1/8/2005 8:29:54 PM
From: Walkingshadow	Respond to of 8752

LOL! Maybe it's just me, but there isn't much I find sexy about the Middle East at all. What a rat's nest. I can only hope you are right about the Sunnis. But looking at the history of the region, I am skeptical. I don't think the Sunnis or the other sects and countries in the Middle East particularly care what flavor of government is in power (democracy, socialism, dictatorship, etc), just so long as THEY hold power. The problem has little to do with the style of government, much more to do with the way things are done historically in the region, and the approach people take towards life and their fellow human beings. That is not something I expect to change quickly. True, things are exacerbated there and everywhere else when too much power gets concentrated anywhere in anybody. But the antidote is not democracy, because the problem is not dictatorship---that is the manifestation of the problem. Changing the government to solve the problem is like sitting in a bathtub of ice water to cure the fever caused by tuberculosis. That said, instituting a democracy will probably help IF and ONLY IF it tends to prevent too much power from becoming concentrated in any one place. In other words, I am convinced that Lord Acton was dead on: "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely." Had they given Mother Theresa enough power, she would have ended up unwittingly and unintentionally abusing the poor of Calcutta. It is just the nature of the beast, and the nature of all humans (yes, even me... maybe even especially me). The corollary, and I am just as convinced of this, is that the only thing that makes our form of government superior is that it tends to prevent too much power concentration: the system of checks and balances. Absolutely brilliant IMHO, and I hope it is NEVER compromised or done away with. Otherwise, our very survival is threatened by the greatest enemy we will ever face: ourselves. The irony is that every political administration unwittingly tries to do precisely that. God help us all if any of them ever succeed. I think it would behoove us and everybody else involved to give a lot of thought to what it is like to be an Iraqi... by that I mean to understand where they have been in their history, and how that has shaped them into what they are today. Walk a mile in their shoes. At least. T

To: Vendit™ who wrote (3659)	1/8/2005 8:50:53 PM
From: Walkingshadow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8752

Just a thought.... In America, we grow up to value our personal freedom. Naturally enough, we want to share that with the world. But it strikes me this might be a bit misguided because it stems from a basic misunderstanding---we think our freedom is a direct result of democracy. I think this can be true, but does not irrevocably follow. You can and often do, for example, have an unwitting and even completely unintentional oligarchy of the people that paradoxically causes tight restrictions on freedom. The fact that slavery was legal in this country until the Emancipation Proclamation is a classic example. After that, severe restraints were placed on blacks in a way that was legislated by democratic rule. And I also think the converse is not true (that lack of democracy necessarily means lack of freedom). What I mean is this: the thing that enables personal freedom is the fact that power is effectively dissipated by the system of checks and balances. And also, just as important, that freedom is defined by structure and limits. Freedom does NOT mean that you can do anything you want whenever you want. It means more that your actions are shaped in a way that is in your best interests, and contributes towards the common good, while causing minimal harm. So I suspect that regardless of the particular form of government, it is only the dissipation of power that creates the environment where freedom can flourish, and people can lead happy, satisfying lives without too much persecution. "Benevolent despot" is an oxymoron that is as unstable (and unsexy) as tightly contracted BBs. Of course, some forms of government lend themselves to checks and balances more readily than others, but I think it important to make a distinction between political systems (which are IMHO much more rhetoric/theory/propaganda, much less reality) and power management systems. T