Posts by BenWilson
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well that's reassuring, every voter gets to decide. What kind of national referenda are conducted where every voter does <i>not</i> get to decide?
Hopefully none. Ergo, my point: Who cares what National's motives are?
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We should ask what motives National would have for promoting a referendum that would possibly get rid of MMP.
They could be as honest as the original reason for the first referendum that brought MMP in - because it was promised. Whether it was 'originally' promised is beside the point - National have been promising it for a while now and now they are delivering. This promise may be mostly to their base, but it is a promise of a referendum in which every voter will get to decide. Not the National base. They only form a minority, after all.
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I'm fairly convinced that it's a bad idea to call for any change or tweaks to the system, because that will just open the way for Nats and Labour to move back to an unfair voting system designed to enable them to alternate power. Look at the UK, where the parties are pretty much identical and "democracy" is just a matter of tone and personality.
That's a highly cynical view. In fact, it uses cynicism to advocate the status quo at the expense of potential improvements. I don't think that's very sensible. It seems to me that tweaks are a far, far safer way of moving policy in the right direction than the huge yanks provided by sweeping changes to the system.
To that end I think the current MMP could have been an excellent stepping stone to a tweaked version. It gave us data from over a decade from which to decide whether the danger of small parties is really as scary as the anti-MMP lobby suggested. Far from being wild and radical, it's introduced quite a lot of conservatism into the system - the governments nearing the end of their term become powerless from the indecision caused by their narrowing majority. I like that, particularly because it's conservatism that comes from the people, rather than powerful lobbies.
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Ukraine certainly does have talent. That's really good.
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John Ralston Saul is also a philosopher, not a military historian.
He writes quite a lot of military history in all of his philosophical works. So I dispute this claim. OK, he's not exclusively a military historian.
His point regarding the Blitzkrieg is that the military will for it required the driving political will, because there was quite a lot of resistance to the idea coming from within the General Staff.
I don't dispute that the idea did not start with Hitler. Nor do I dispute that it was a tactic that ran out of steam. I especially agree with you when you say:
It is my view that Nazism was uniquely attuned to (and probably partially derived from) this over-all emphasis on violent action, and as a political doctrine it blended into the mix an ideological perspective to a set of tactical and strategic instructions that created an overarching world view that aided the Germans in decision making in battle.
It was their strength and weakness at the same time, much like an aggressive boxer. They get lots of stylish fast knockouts, but they also punch themselves out easily, and are prey to Lennox Lewis style wars of attrition.
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select our Parliament Battle Royale style!
LOL, I've loved Beat Takeshi ever since "Violent Cop" aka "Watch Out! This Guy's Crazy".
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And I do agree with you that I'd love to see more light than heat from both sides on this one -- just as I did around the civil unions bill and the repeal of section 59.
I guess we're doing our little bit, right now. This could become a thread that will never die.
Oh no. Just Bill.
Heh, I wonder if Ben would lament that it wasn't the Ben and Bill party if the thresholds were lowered to 1 seat.
Frankly I don't see how Bill would have held the 'balance of power' any more than every other MP who could defect, withhold support etc. In such a fragile majority, everyone holds the balance of power.
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And from a military perspective the German tactics in WWII were truly impressive - in that they smashed their enemies to bits in ways that had not before been dreamed of.
John Ralston Saul suggested that Hitler was the driving force behind the use of tanks to smash through, instead of fighting wars of attrition. He argues that the military leadership of the time were against the idea, having cut their teeth in WW1. This may have been responsible for some of the view that he was a military genius. Another way of seeing it was that he liked to take a lot of risk, which as we all know sometimes pays off. In the case of Operation Barbarossa, it did not.
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I'd hope so, though I'm a little dismayed at his use of expressions such as "Speer's genius" and "economic miracle". The tawdry reality behind these political myths is that they were fuelled by industrialised ideologically-sanctioned theft and murder.
Haven't you ever heard of an evil genius?
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Is there much evidence that people who didn't vote under FPP started to do so under MMP? I'd be surprised - people who are convinced by the "rational voter's paradox" will feel similarly powerless under both political systems. Actually, I'd think they'd feel disinclined to engage any kind of democratic system, even including participatory democracy.
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