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UK GOV CONFRONTS IMAGINARY PROBLEMS. Is solidarity so dead that noone cares?   You are logged in as Guest
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guitarbuddha

 

Posts: 2970
Joined: Jan. 4 2007
 

UK GOV CONFRONTS IMAGINARY PROBLEMS.... 
So the UK government is going to bravely demand the production of photo ID at polling stations to prevent ballot fraud.

This is of course the IMAGINARY PROBLEM of ballot fraud, a phenomena almost completely absent from recent UK electoral history (please don't cite the irrelevant one off postal ballot fiasco of a few years ago I am depressed enough already about this).

Since the prevention of fraud is clearly horsesh1t one can only assume that the American model of disincentivising the poor from voting is the actual goal.

Lets hope that we will be as effective in this aim as the home of the free has been.

I doubt if there will be anyone in the main political parties with the decency to resist this nail in the coffin lid of universal suffrage. The Liberals have sold their soul at a public auction and no doubt the day will come soon when 'Labour' rebrands as 'Capital'.

I can't help but imagine Senator Joey McCarthy smiling broadly in his grave and clicking his heels.

Meanwhile lets all keep voting not only against our own interests but also against common decency.

D.
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jan. 9 2014 14:23:34
 
Aretium

Posts: 277
Joined: Oct. 23 2012
 

RE: UK GOV CONFRONTS IMAGINARY PROBL... (in reply to guitarbuddha) 
Its amazing how all the ideas floating around in the 60s and 70s amongst youths and adults has completely disappeared. I can safely say after 3 years at University, everyone seems to be more obsessed with image, binge culture and behaving the way society expects them to. Personality and free thinking is all but lost.

Education these days is just an investment for the future where as knowledge is just a by product of it. The result of this is that the modern generation knows nothing regarding their world nor do they care.
Amazing how right wing Europe has become, people being ruled by their fear and artificially generated hatred created by the media.
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jan. 9 2014 19:38:57
 
Ruphus

Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
 

RE: UK GOV CONFRONTS IMAGINARY PROBL... (in reply to guitarbuddha) 
Agreed.

There is also to the opposite a gross down-playing of blatant conditions.
-

When I tell youngsters of the era of actual chances, like last time just weeks ago, of hope and explosion of musical creation, they become homesick for a time they could not participate in and which in regard of musical composition will never occure again.

Such a pity how the chance for humane society was not taken advantage of. How the establishment grabbed the wheel and turned it around again. ( Leading right into the crass opposite with the following Eighties `everyone´s got to have his nonechalance and Cartier watch´paradigm.)

And those hanger-ons ( never having had a cognitive clue of what the rebellion was about) who now themselves with the plutocracy, today saying like "I was young, naive and foolish" ... How I despise them. >O|

Ruphus
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jan. 10 2014 8:53:25
 
hamia

 

Posts: 403
Joined: Jun. 25 2004
 

RE: UK GOV CONFRONTS IMAGINARY PROBL... (in reply to guitarbuddha) 
Some immigrant communities (by no means all of course) have shown themselves more than willing to use dishonest means in local elections. One of the UK's most senior legal officials recently spoke about the fraud that is endemic in the British Pakistani community. Since we're talking about the UK, anyone saying these types of things is instantly put under pressure to backtrack (no matter that the allegations are supported by documented facts). The UK along with many other European countries is slowly committing suicide with its open door immigration policy. And the crazy thing is that we don't need any immigrants - we just need to make the workshy get out of bed.

Apathy and tolerance - the last virtues of a dying society ...
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jan. 10 2014 11:29:16
 
Ruphus

Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
 

RE: UK GOV CONFRONTS IMAGINARY PROBL... (in reply to hamia) 
quote:

ORIGINAL: hamia

- we just need to make the workshy get out of bed.



Much better than that, constitute the inalienable condition of labour value and introduce a granted minimum income regardless.

Without treadmill pressure in people´s neck / no constant force to entertain usury tarifs, and with an actually democrat state´s emphasis on determining and supporting youth´s individual talent people will experience their suitability and passion and be glad to live an internally motivated, satisfactory life with good earning on top.

Only in the first generation of folks, justifiedly used to duck away, will you see misuse of a granted minimum income. Already with the kids of the second generation however should you see greatly self-motivated and production / invention wise highly efficient people.

We need to realize the latent and patent ways and dimensions of exploitation and damage in the first place, before pondering on actually pragmatic changes.

Long before any lazy poor is there in question an ever growing number of blatantly appropriating billionaires and entourage who in consequence are leaving behind hosts of deprived and frustrated fellow men.

A world with single individuals owning accumulation of the size of whole state budgets can´t work. Much less than a hypothetical world full of lazy could.
More even under todays technological options that are artifically restrained and sabotaged through capitalist strategies and sick competition threads.
Reigns that draw your attention away and to lazy pedestrians as the guilty.

How about actual issues like about 60% of national gross products drained through corruption?
So much more of a loss than miserable unemploment money for the proletarians who willingly withdraw themselves from the squeeze.

And elections?
Anyone really counting with untouched ones?
Ever asked yourself why they should remain untouched while they can be manipulated to desire? All that extreme recklessness and embezzlement only to then have a heart for democratic and pristine surveys?

Never wondered how the alleged percentage of dumb voters corresponds with your empirics with average men?
( Of the people I talk to an ever growing part seems to quite realize the phenomenon of false political theater, reign of mafia and firmly established corruption. The cognitive immune on the other hand appear to hardly represent a remaining 20% or so.)

Ruphus
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jan. 10 2014 12:09:31
 
guitarbuddha

 

Posts: 2970
Joined: Jan. 4 2007
 

RE: UK GOV CONFRONTS IMAGINARY PROBL... (in reply to hamia) 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics

An explanation and the result.


quote:

ORIGINAL: hamia

Some immigrant communities (by no means all of course) have shown themselves more than willing to use dishonest means in local elections. One of the UK's most senior legal officials recently spoke about the fraud that is endemic in the British Pakistani community. Since we're talking about the UK, anyone saying these types of things is instantly put under pressure to backtrack (no matter that the allegations are supported by documented facts). The UK along with many other European countries is slowly committing suicide with its open door immigration policy. And the crazy thing is that we don't need any immigrants - we just need to make the workshy get out of bed.

Apathy and tolerance - the last virtues of a dying society ...



I guess Hamia if you have the stomach for the Daily Mail all of those blanket statements seem compelling. Yet you show no concern for the threat to democracy which the proposals intend.

If people were more concerned with the deliberate creation of a market for higher education and less concerned with xenophobia then they might be more worried with the imminent expense of educating their children and less keen to rubber stamp any reactionary policy which tickles their prejudices. This is especially true for people who, having been educated at the taxpayers expense and with a grant ,feel themselves to have no responsibility to the class from which they emerged nor to future generations.

Here is the actual model which is the actual reason why our government actually want to do this.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24334999


I might suggest that some of the signs of a decaying political system have historically been the entrenshment of a ruling class and its detatchment from the interests of the greater population. This would seem to fit, for example, Russia in 1917 and the Soviet Union in 1989. In that example tolerance did not seem to be a defining feature. Neither was it in the French or American revolutions and it certainly wasn't a feature of the Pakistan Bangladesh conflict or the attitude of Saddam's Iraq to the curds. Nor pre war Japan.

A rare example of tolerance at the end of an empire might be, oddly enough on a flamenco forum, the Caliphate of Cordoba . Perhaps what we need is a good inquisition ?

Where I might agree with you is apathy. Solidarity is dying, as your post illustrates.

D.
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jan. 10 2014 12:39:29
 
hamia

 

Posts: 403
Joined: Jun. 25 2004
 

RE: UK GOV CONFRONTS IMAGINARY PROBL... (in reply to guitarbuddha) 
quote:

ORIGINAL: guitarbuddha


Where I might agree with you is apathy. Solidarity is dying, as your post illustrates.

D.


Solidarity is dying because it is becoming less homogeneous, more fragmented. 30 years ago in the UK I could look around and see others mostly just like me. If I do the same today the chances are that I'll see many people I won't identify closely with due to differences in culture, language, etc. And it is natural that because of this I will feel less kinship with these people. After all, what is the most cohesive social unit? The family obviously because they think and behave in similar ways. This is why socialism with high taxes used to work in Scandinavia - people were willing to pay out as they were part of a highly uniform society. Everyone behaved alike and believed in similar principles. Once this is broken - with immigration from completely different cultures - then everything starts to slowly collapse and it's every man for himself. Like in the US where they probably never had a cohesive society (hence the guns!).
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jan. 10 2014 13:44:09
 
guitarbuddha

 

Posts: 2970
Joined: Jan. 4 2007
 

RE: UK GOV CONFRONTS IMAGINARY PROBL... (in reply to hamia) 
Kinship is a strange one.

I spent a short time living in Wokingham and didn't meet a single person whom I could enjoy a conversation with. Yet, in a 'global' world it is not so far from where I was born.
A fey years later I met a girl from Colombia and our views and outlook were so similar that we could have grown up in the same street.

She came to Britain to work on a subsistance stipend for a christian charity and after a year she left the country since she was unable to secure a visa.

Of course she was beige.

Here is the stupidest conversation I have been in in recent years (with regards to another 'dog whistle' policy announcement this time on minimum alcohol pricing)

IDIOT1 'Hopefully it will stop 'them' drinking too much'
IDIOT2 (ME) 'But you get drunk all the time'
IDIOT1 'But at least the alcohol I drink is more expensive'
IDIOT2 '..??????????????'



I would rather there were more like her and fewer drones.

It is the job of all good drones to define their peers in narrow terms such as colour, religion. This is what erodes solidarity the feeling of detachment. And the reward is a lazy specious sense of entitlement .
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jan. 10 2014 14:02:39
 
guitarbuddha

 

Posts: 2970
Joined: Jan. 4 2007
 

RE: UK GOV CONFRONTS IMAGINARY PROBL... (in reply to guitarbuddha) 
Here is George Orwell's essay on nationalism.

It is not an essay about solidarity, although given enough flexibility of intent in the use of the word it could be.....

In the title to this thread that is not what I mean by nationalism.


http://orwell.ru/library/essays/nationalism/english/e_nat
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jan. 10 2014 14:14:24
 
Ruphus

Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
 

RE: UK GOV CONFRONTS IMAGINARY PROBL... (in reply to guitarbuddha) 
quote:

ORIGINAL: guitarbuddha



IDIOT1 'Hopefully it will stop 'them' drinking too much'
IDIOT2 (ME) 'But you get drunk all the time'
IDIOT1 'But at least the alcohol I drink is more expensive'
IDIOT2 '..??????????????'


Hehehehe


Hamia,

Interesting clue there about lacking indentification and consequential loss of solidarity.
It must only be part of a whole ( containing capitalist principle of selfishness and educational methods that produce autist attitude), but interesting to me as I hadn´t viewed decreasing solidarity under immigration effects, yet.

Ruphus
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jan. 10 2014 14:28:52
 
Graham_B

Posts: 283
Joined: Jul. 10 2007
From: Leigh, Lancashire, UK

RE: UK GOV CONFRONTS IMAGINARY PROBL... (in reply to guitarbuddha) 
quote:

This is of course the IMAGINARY PROBLEM of ballot fraud, a phenomena almost completely absent from recent UK electoral history (please don't cite the irrelevant one off postal ballot fiasco of a few years ago I am depressed enough already about this).


Why is this irrelevant?
How do you know it was a one off?
Are you omniscient?
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jan. 10 2014 18:06:35
 
guitarbuddha

 

Posts: 2970
Joined: Jan. 4 2007
 

RE: UK GOV CONFRONTS IMAGINARY PROBL... (in reply to Graham_B) 
quote:

ORIGINAL: Graham_B

quote:

This is of course the IMAGINARY PROBLEM of ballot fraud, a phenomena almost completely absent from recent UK electoral history (please don't cite the irrelevant one off postal ballot fiasco of a few years ago I am depressed enough already about this).


Why is this irrelevant?
How do you know it was a one off?
Are you omniscient?



Hi Graham, charmed to make your acquaintance.

In reverse order. I am not omniscient, as far as I know. However I have a serviceable memory.

I remain as unaware of unreported crime as anyone. Furthermore I suspect it is as difficult to disprove an unsubstantiated positive as it is prove a negative.

It is irrelevant as the photo ID would be presented at a polling station. This is irrelevant in a postal ballot as it is made, by definition, remotely.

Further to your enquiries I note for all Hamia has views and a postition which I disagree with on pretty much every level he has been honest and open about what his position is and why. I think that I have been similarly honest and that my position may be similarly unpalatable to many.

The announcement which I heard did not invoke either my proposed excuse nor those presented by Hamia. By doing so it gave those with a predeliction to postulate unobserved phenomena carte blanche to use their imagination and choose their own scapegoats and imaginary scenarios.

I have restricted my explanation to the three links which I posted.

If your objection is based on some knowledge then please share it. If you simply object to me personally then that is regrettable.

You will be neither the first nor the last and, as always, I am prepared to shoulder a fair proportion of the blame.

D.
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jan. 10 2014 18:45:51
 
BarkellWH

Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC

RE: UK GOV CONFRONTS IMAGINARY PROBL... (in reply to guitarbuddha) 
This debate has been ongoing in the United States for some time. In my opinion, both sides--Republicans who support requiring a photo ID to vote, and Democrats who object to the requirement--are exploiting the issue to cynically advance their own agendas. While there is no evidence of widespread, fraudulent voting in any of the states, there are documented instances where it has occurred. Nevertheless, I think most of the Republican establishment supports the requirement because they think there will be some who will not (or in some cases, for various reasons, cannot) obtain such IDs, and those will be primarily supporters of the Democratic party.

On the other hand, most Democrats object to requiring photo IDs, not because they have a heartfelt empathy for the individual who cannot vote because he lacks an ID; rather, they see potential Democratic votes that will not materialize because of the perception that great numbers will not, or cannot, obtain photo IDs. Both sides are exploiting this issue because they perceive that, depending on which side one supports, if the other side wins, one's own side loses come election time.

My own thoughts on the subject (and I am neither a Republican nor a Democrat) tend toward requiring a photo ID in order to vote, at least in Federal elections. It is not asking too much to require a photo ID. It is required to drive a car or motorcycle; it is required to enter any Federal building in all states and cities; and I see no reason why it should not be required to vote. Voting is a distinct and precious privilege and right, and it seems to me that the small effort it takes to take one's birth certificate, baptismal certificate, or some other form of documentation to a proper authority in order to obtain a photo ID is little enough to do in order to exercise the privilege and right of voting. There are facilities to assist invalids and the elderly to do so. And if one is just too lazy to expend the minimal amount of effort required, perhaps one is simply too lazy to vote.

Cheers,

Bill

_____________________________

And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."

--Rudyard Kipling
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jan. 10 2014 19:05:14
 
Graham_B

Posts: 283
Joined: Jul. 10 2007
From: Leigh, Lancashire, UK

RE: UK GOV CONFRONTS IMAGINARY PROBL... (in reply to guitarbuddha) 
Hi David I'm equally charmed.

I certainly don't object to your strongly held views on this subject and would find it personally objectionable to have to provide ID to vote.

The UK Electoral Commission, which has highlighted geographical areas of concern and recommended this course of action, is independent of the UK Government. I suspect their investigations have been somewhat more substantive than a work of imagination that you have decided it is.

I suggest would be wrong of any UK government not to consider the findings of such a watchdog.

I also note that Nick Clegg, leader of the UK Liberal Democrats, has dismissed the recommendation - he's on your side
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jan. 10 2014 20:25:16
 
guitarbuddha

 

Posts: 2970
Joined: Jan. 4 2007
 

RE: UK GOV CONFRONTS IMAGINARY PROBL... (in reply to Graham_B) 
quote:

ORIGINAL: Graham_B

Hi David I'm equally charmed.

I certainly don't object to your strongly held views on this subject and would find it personally objectionable to have to provide ID to vote.




The UK Electoral Commission, which has highlighted geographical areas of concern and recommended this course of action, is independent of the UK Government. I suspect their investigations have been somewhat more substantive than a work of imagination that you have decided it is.




I suggest would be wrong of any UK government not to consider the findings of such a watchdog.



I also note that Nick Clegg, leader of the UK Liberal Democrats, has dismissed the recommendation - he's on your side




1. Of course.

2. It is independent ? So who pays ? If not funded by the government then that must be a cause for concern. (my favourite body is 'The Bettersleep Foundation of America'

3. I would welcome a breakdown of the statistics which justify a change in approach in particular with regard to the tradeoff between a change in voter demographics and the scale of fraud postulated.

4. I have not been as clear in my definition of solidarity as I had hoped. I am not on the side of any group or individual or political body whatever. I hope to follow any policy with regard to it's outcome which will effect everyone equally inasmuch as they believe in democracy.

I am glad that you have suspicions as to the potential motivation of a group the funding of which is unknown to you. Finding you unsympathetic to my humble concerns I hope that here at least we find a common cause for concern.


I would not find it objectionable to provide ID to vote, I would merely find it invonvenient. If my finances were even more fragile then I might indeed find it unsupportable. Although that may not be the case at this moment I (in spite of all apparent arrogance) will respectfully reserve the right to find the possibility that another in a more precarious position may be more inhibited than, for example, Bill.


D.
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jan. 10 2014 21:21:17
 
withinity

 

Posts: 180
Joined: Sep. 17 2013
 

RE: UK GOV CONFRONTS IMAGINARY PROBL... (in reply to guitarbuddha) 
Don't forget that the Government always has our best interests at heart even though it might not seem like it at times.
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jan. 11 2014 0:33:08
 
guitarbuddha

 

Posts: 2970
Joined: Jan. 4 2007
 

RE: UK GOV CONFRONTS IMAGINARY PROBL... (in reply to withinity) 
quote:

ORIGINAL: withinity

Don't forget that the Government always has our best interests at heart even though it might not seem like it at times.


If you truly believe that then I envy you.

If not then welcome aboard.

D.
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jan. 11 2014 0:42:24
 
Ruphus

Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
 

RE: UK GOV CONFRONTS IMAGINARY PROBL... (in reply to guitarbuddha) 
Ought to have been a typo.
Think he was saying that common kind of governments are organizing their private funds on the Caymans, while pretending to have peoples´ interests at heart.

In German such principle is described as `making gardener of the he-goat´.

In Berlin around the Reichstag we have the domiciles of 5000 lobbyists who frequent the parliament like their personal living room. They even have their own rooms in there.

Anyone thinking it was different in London, Washington or Paris?
Anyone think a democrat society could leave coherence between empoverishment and unlimited profiteering blank? Introduce contradicting measures like parliamental immunity; or openly shelter corruption and trade of offices?
Anyone believing that sincere legislature could be leaving social concerns at tough penny pinching as is, yet unconditionally raise trillions of $ / € in a heartbeat when about filling financial gaps from white collar crime, yet pampering the off creamers?

In fact a true democrat reign would not even allow profit from thirds´ labour and life.
Well aware that money equals efforts, time and rights of the people / does not grow on trees.

Ruphus
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jan. 11 2014 9:36:29
 
Richard Jernigan

Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA

RE: UK GOV CONFRONTS IMAGINARY PROBL... (in reply to BarkellWH) 
quote:

ORIGINAL: BarkellWH

My own thoughts on the subject (and I am neither a Republican nor a Democrat) tend toward requiring a photo ID in order to vote, at least in Federal elections. It is not asking too much to require a photo ID.

Cheers,

Bill


Last time I was in Costa Rica you were required to have voted in the last federal election in order to receive government benefits such as health care, pension, etc. I don't know whether you had to have an ID.

The first time I visited Costa Rica in the early 1990s, the cab driver asked me whether the Marshall Islands was still part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific, or was it now an independent country? I told him he was the only person I had encountered on that vacation, outside of Hawaii, who had ever heard of the Marshall Islands.

The cab driver replied, "Well, we are required to attend school. I believe the literacy rate here is higher than in your country."

Sitting in the portales of the Gran Hotel in San Jose, drinking my second cup of coffee, reading the newspaper, I ran across an article about politics. For some time now, the elections have put the two main parties into office for alternating terms. The party in power was forced to economize, due to declining revenues in a recession. One of the measures was closing some children's museums instituted by the opposition party during their previous term. The paper was critical of the party in power for not discussing the closings with the opposition.

"Is this any way to run a democracy?" the paper asked.

I nearly fell out of my chair.

RNJ
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jan. 11 2014 20:43:47
 
Ruphus

Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
 

RE: UK GOV CONFRONTS IMAGINARY PROBL... (in reply to guitarbuddha) 
They have jailed two former presidents of theirs and have a third one on the run.
Could be one of the most authentic democracies, eventhough the autocrat conditions of their wealthy at the coast who reign their lots like autonomous ( and collect illegal shark fins for Chinese pickup vessels ) make for Costa Rica´s contrast.

I like that place.
Yet, the top dogs of nights shadows seemed kinda like men of honour in the way they behaved when I passed them by as stranger.
And even wildlife showed largely fearless and trusting among a people that will usually not hassle anyone.

They got some things right there in Ticos´ land. :O)

Ruphus
  REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |  Date Jan. 12 2014 0:04:24
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