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Re: This Might Upset a Few Applecarts
Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 4:21 pm
by Minimalist
Doesn't surprise me a bit.

Re: This Might Upset a Few Applecarts
Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 4:23 pm
by Rokcet Scientist
Digit wrote:
Forward brothers! To the revolution!
That's a bit drastic, Roy!
A thorough overhaul of the obsolete Constitution, judicial/legal system, national health care system, electoral/political system, and Ivy League schools is enough.
For starters.
Re: This Might Upset a Few Applecarts
Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 4:43 pm
by Digit
I think we in the UK are more in need of your assistance than the Americans RS.
We have a PM who can't tell the the truth, a Chancellor who can't count, the Government's top legal officer employing an illegal immigrant, a defense minister who seems unsure which end the bullets come out of and an agricultural ministry that can't distinguish Sheep from Goats!
Roy.
Re: This Might Upset a Few Applecarts
Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 5:05 pm
by Rokcet Scientist

, you're describing a lot of western governments, Roy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWPwlMv8lNI&feature=fvst
Re: This Might Upset a Few Applecarts
Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 5:09 pm
by Digit
But this lot were gonna clean up politics, that was their first lie!
They spent 700hrs debating Fox hunting 'cos it was cruel and less than 100th of that to attack Iraq!
Roy.
Re: This Might Upset a Few Applecarts
Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 5:23 pm
by Rokcet Scientist
And now you've got millions of CCTVs watching your every move, you can get frisked at every street corner, you can get imprisoned indefinitely under terror laws, and you can be blackmailed under the Official Secrets Act.
You're living in Airstrip One right now, Dig! As we speak!
You are Winston Smith...
We lowlanders aren't too far behind though: we lead the charge (proportionally) with the highest number of tapped phone conversations!
Re: This Might Upset a Few Applecarts
Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 6:20 pm
by Minimalist
A thorough overhaul of the obsolete Constitution, judicial/legal system, national health care system, electoral/political system, and Ivy League schools is enough.
Sorry, R/S. I shudder to think what this collection of fascists in the streets would want in such a revised constitution.
Re: This Might Upset a Few Applecarts
Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 7:46 pm
by Rokcet Scientist
Minimalist wrote:A thorough overhaul of the obsolete Constitution, judicial/legal system, national health care system, electoral/political system, and Ivy League schools is enough.
Sorry, R/S. I shudder to think what this collection of fascists in the streets would want in such a revised constitution.
Absolutely! That's a serious concern. Which is why you must'nt try and have it all signed, sealed, and delivered by month's end. This is a project. A BIIIIG project. Not unlike the development of the EU, which is and has been going on for 60 years already, and is not near completion by a long shot. But it's developing. Carefully, gradually. In the debate-and-consent/power-sharing model. Not the US winner-takes-all model.
Re: This Might Upset a Few Applecarts
Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 10:34 pm
by Minimalist
Oh we don't have that kind of patience.
Re: This Might Upset a Few Applecarts
Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 12:38 am
by Digit
You're living in Airstrip One right now, Dig! As we speak!
Yep! All carried out by a party claiming to be 'of the people' and in the name of freedom!
Roy.
Re: This Might Upset a Few Applecarts
Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 6:54 am
by Rokcet Scientist
Digit wrote:You're living in Airstrip One right now, Dig! As we speak!
Yep! All carried out by a party claiming to be 'of the people' and in the name of freedom!
That's 'Newspeak' right there!
Re: This Might Upset a Few Applecarts
Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 7:04 am
by Rokcet Scientist
Minimalist wrote:Oh we don't have that kind of patience.
Then you'll have to pay the price.
Re: This Might Upset a Few Applecarts
Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 7:22 am
by Digit
That's 'Newspeak' right there!
Yep! Big Brother is watching even as we speak. Vive la Revolution!!
Fortunately we don't need one, this mob in charge are heading for the last roundup.
There have been half a dozen socialist administrations in the UK since the 1930s, every one has had the battle cry of 'soak the rich to feed the poor' whilst busy making sure they themselves are far from poor and every administration has taxed everything that moves and every one has run out of money!
Einstein commented that 'true madness comes from repeating the same process over and over again and expecting a different result!
They qualify!
Roy.
Re: This Might Upset a Few Applecarts
Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 9:54 am
by Minimalist
'soak the rich to feed the poor'
Taxing the poor accomplishes little, though.
Re: This Might Upset a Few Applecarts
Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 11:27 am
by Digit
True Min. But our welfare payments are such that people can live on them and never work, we have millions of people who have never had a job and some households are second and third generation jobless.
A woman died here recently giving birth to her 11th child, I can only assume that she was ensuring that she could remain on welfare for the rest of her life or was attempting to form her own soccer team!
To give some examples. Our tax system encourages people to co-habit rather than wed, we pay you to have children, a single parent with a child moves to the head of list for social housing, the rent and taxes will be paid for them. On top of that money will be given for food etc, with the child at school the school will feed the child for free.
Little of this money is available to a working couple.
Become a drug addict or alcohol dependent and the system will support you rather than breaking the addiction.
Granted that all this can be seen broadly as helping the 'less fortunate', but it is at the expense of those who do contribute.
A government can give nothing away that it has not first taken from somebody else.
Our press frequently conducts interviews with the feckless who will happily state that they have no intentions of working. Illegal immigrants when interviewed in France say that getting to the UK ensures that they will get benefits and a house supplied!
The system is unbalanced in favour of the work shy.
Welfare benefits now total more than defense, schools and health care!
Roy.