Quote:
Originally Posted by August
If things are half as bad as Skybird claims I just don't see how you guys have a choice.
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People in Europe and Germany are as much or as little "represented" by their voted politicians as in America. In other words: American politicians are as corrupted and disconnected as are European ones. In both systems you cannot get rid of the career guys, you can vote them out of office - and they keep popping up somewhere else instead, being pushed by their party's network. In both systems casreer politicians tell people they are from the people and for the people, and try to lure people into deeper dependencies from their party, by corrupting them with promises and so getting them used to benefits they gain from them - and so getting their votes. In both systems - is it really two different systems? - state and individuals live beyond their means and carelessly contribute to increasing the debt bubble. In both systems, political decision makers are mined by private lobbyists, and politics is in bed with business and banks. In both system this is a state of things that is not according to what the founding documents of nations or their constitutions want them to be. The discrepancy between what Germany is, and what is described in the Basic Law, is immense, and widening. The difference between what is in the American constitution and later attached documents, and the reality of politics and power in the US of the present time, is immense and is widening. By idea, the US is not any more free or more democratic, than many European nations like modern Germany, France, or Britain.
I never saw any justification in the way August makes it appear as if the Us were more free or democratic than many European states. On paper, the one is not more or less worse or good than the other. You will fail to demonstrate the superiority of the American constitution over the German one, or of the American
pursuit of happiness over the German
human dignity being inviolable, or over the French
liberté, egalité, fraternité. And any such debate would be pointless today anyway, because our nations alltogether are no longer representing and living the principles they have been founded upon, once, a more or less longer time ago.
What politicians in America and Europe really live by, is the ruleset analytically examined and cold-bloodedly described by Machiavelli in his most profound book, the
Discorsi. I highly recommend it. If you believe in political ideals, it will make short process of your ideals however. Power is not idealistic, nor is it moral. It is opportunistic, and pragmatic. In Europe.
And in America. The rest of those noble ideas about today's politics is just good enough for the museums. - Mind you: Machiavelli did not advise what he thought was a good idea -
he described what he observed. His approach was analytical, where as all others before him where idealistically when writing on the principles of politics. Others wrote what it
should be like , ideally, Machiavellig wrote what in reality
really happened. It is this misunderstandment that makes him so often and so massively misunderstood.