[Skybird]

I have not voted for this government, I will not vote for any of the parties in the parliament now, becasue none of them is worth thr trust. People voting for a party often give me the strong impression that they take their program as literal as fundamentlaist take the bible literal. A politicans gets voted, he gets a certain rank or title or iffice and thus he has authority and reputation from thart, acoridng to the military saiyng "you do not greet the man but his rank". But I see this pltical system as deeply rotten and corrupted, torn apart by reckless selfishness and lobbying efforts that try to work around the vote of the electorate and claim legislative powers althoiugh these lobbies (their masters) have no democratic legitimation by the electorate to do so. That is what makes lobbyism a ursurping (?), a corruption of powers without needing to face being held responsibility by the only one sovereign there is in a democracy: the people. The office, the title does not enooble the man - the man must enoble his title and office. But mostly, politicians today do not act like that. They abuse the powers given to them, powers that they have obtained by fraud during election procedures when they used manipulative words to lull the voters and get their votes through promises, catch phrases and desirable words.

So, rejecting loyalty to such a poltical system, to such politicians, is no moral or reasonable failure - to me it is a moral imperative, else you become guilty yourself.

That the military usually is extremely concervative in orientation, both politically and relgiously, is not for no reason; I think this too is a symptom of what I described earlier as man's need to gain self-assurance about his motives when dealing with the existential doubt his profession of handling with life and death invitably brings. Somewhere I called it an armoud that should protect against this doubt. When it is in your power, as a soldier, to bring tremendous destruction and death upon others, then you need to put your trust into something that assures you that you are doing the right thing. And all too often, this trust becomes symbolised by the government. The president. and in extreme situation: the Führer.

Blind loyalty never is a good thing. Trust must be earned, it should not be given for free. After all, both in Germany now and America, if I recall it correctly, soldiers do their oath not on the goivernment, a president or any given name, but the people. And the people thus is the most superior soverieg there is, not a givernment. A government can, but most not act in representation of the people. and most time today, it does not, but serves lobby interest, plitcal power interests, party interest - often in explicit ignorration of the will or the legitimate interest of the people, the higher being of the nation, the community.

In Germany, the coalition government has messed up so extremely that it has no majority in the population to support it. Germans are sick and tired of it - after just 9 months. Nothing works in this coalition, both partners are fighting bitterly against each other, so do their official frontline figures. 8 key figures of the conservatie party have turned their back on Merkel in anger and frustration over her, leaving the party without any strong leading character. If there would be lections this week, the opposition would be able to form a government by strong absolute majority immediately. One coalition partner possibly would not even make it into parliament anymore, having dropped from 17 to 5%. This government is not representative for a majorty of voting people anymore. It has no majority, seen that way. Even the majority in the Bundesrat has been lost. A mere bureaucratic formality, a timing factor, is all that saves it from falling apart immediately. Now, it does not matter whether I agree with the political goals of the coalition or the opposition (I don't agree with any of them, btw). But this puts a bit into perspective what you said about "government representing the people", and the link between both. Elections do not establish a cuasal link between the will of the people and a government's policies, because election campaigns are pure propaganda stunts - and everyone who takes the show serious, cannot be helped. In an ideal world, in an ideal democracy, there should be such a causal link between a nations policy and the people's will, it should be like that. In such an ideal world people also would be noble and would form reasonable, altruistic decisions (only on this basis the idea of deo9icracy can function - egoism only inevitably leads to it's erosion and corrpution, turning it into a hidden oligarchy). but neither is the world like that, nor is man. Man is greedy, selfish and highly irrational, easy to be manipulated if you press the correct buttons in him. this is what made the idea of communism failing, and this is what makes the conception of democracy just an utopia as well. Both fail over massively wrong assumptions about the nature of man.

I'm a fan of Machiavelli. Not because he was like they say about him, that he was evil, unscrupoulous, underhanded, but becasue he was a preicse observer of masses and indovidual'S behaviour - and he did not allow his observations by sentimental daydreams about how it better should be and by emotions. He said if you want the crowd to do nthis or that for you, you treat them this and that way, you do this or that thing yourself. machiavelli was extremely precise in identifying the correct procedures in order to secure political power. but that does not make him an evil man or a tyrant. He was not, inf act he was a very sensible, modest man - he just did not close his eyes before man's nature. and he identified this nature to be anything but reasonable and logical. his recommendations do not reflect any will to be evil for the sake of being evil. They are just the logical consequence of how crowds and people behave. He was brilliant. And he is possibly the most misunderstood and misinterpreted political theoretician in western history.