h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Otto
Of course a State must have a monoply responsibility to be able to exercise those terrible powers which are vested in it.. But that is why the English people always kept the central State functions to an irreducible minimum..

For the World's most successful modern democracy, the land of the "Mother of Parliaments" that spawned the current era of representative democracy, was developed and evolved within England, and operated as a democracy before the full dawning of this Parliamentary Age which handed power over to the "Middle Class"- the owners of Material and Intellectual Capital. The whole idea of representative democracy based upon sweeping programmes and philosophies has allowed such people to appropriate the awesome powers of the State and applied them to its own concepts of a world either really in, or potentially in, a state of Catastrophe- the kind of situation that can only be tackled by killing, oppression, compulsion, coercion and indoctrination.

Within England before this there was a centuries old tradition of "The Sovereignty of the People" by which the awesome powers of the State were kept harnessed and subservient to the will of the people. Acts of Parliament, for example, were sought to authorise and permit actions of individuals who wanted legal sanction for things that they wished to do, not the right to stop other people doing things that they wanted to or to force them to do things that they did not wish to do.

The old English Constitution, that inspired the Constitutional revolution in Prussia managed by Barthold in response to the Napoleonic Era, actually involved the people of England in the direct Executive, Legislative, and Judicial affairs of their Commonweal, with most problems that directly involved the common people being dealt with by Grass Roots democracy, run by the involvement of ordinary people. A crucial change came c1817 when voting in Parish vestry meetings, the most important level for the concerns of the common people was amended to give the rich more votes per increment of property. It presaged the changes of the Great Reform Act of 1834.

Unfortunately the Enlightenment that informed the views of this "Middle Class", featured especially two great "powerhouses" that were centres of "power without responsibility".

Paris and Edinburgh were two once proud Capital cities but were now divorced from the real exercise of power and responsibility. Here great intellectuals could peer over their books and study "Life" with detachment and objectivity, in that best of all Scientific Form- the post-mortem analysis: and they could fertilise and cross-fertilise their ideas in nice salons appearing to be very wise- after the event, and thus seemingly very good ideas about what they would do if they ruled the world. And they could if they could seize control of the State. The step would make possible "The Triumph of Will".

This appeared to have become possible when by 1763 Britain emerged from the Seven Years War as a real global power with immense military potential. Europe could use that military and coercive potential to establish a Eurocentric World enriching the people of Europe through Europe's military superiority- much as Ancient Rome was enriched by spreading its own military might and the "pax Romana" Triumph of its Will.

As long as the rest of the world could be made subject to European/Western statism then it seemed that those in charge of the developed World could indeed deliver on at least some of the material objectives that they promised the people.

But the main secret of England and then Britain's success in war, compared to its European rivals, was the fact that the success of English democracy had ensured that England could always finance its own wars because of the new enterpise and opportunities that people had made sure came out of a Victory. So England/ Britain financed its own wars, and those of its allies, through borrowing money and building up the National Debt..And as Britain and then Europe/America came to own more and more of the wealth of the world, the economic growth and the Income generated made this appear to be a "way of life"..

But it was just a locust storm exhausting the potential of the land and people for its selfish and self-centred growth. The electorate could be bribed while States could still deliver. But now it is pay back time in the system, and there is a real danger that States will just crash because the common people can no longer be "satisficed".
The people do not control the State in this Statist era that is the fiction that "the Establishment" likes to perpetuate..(a) the people are given a very limited choice every few years, and the people that they vote for are not even obliged to carry out the pledges and promises that they made.

Cass

>>Twin Towers those about to die phoned their loved ones while they could in order to leave them with Love<<

Yes it was awful. But perspective tells us it was a few guys with boxcutters. US America has never had a "war" on US soil. Of course there was the genocide of the native americans, and the "genocide" associated with industrial scale transportation and slavery of africans, the "war" for black civil rights, and I suppose we should add the civil war (converting slavery into segregation, the KKK and lynching). The twin towers on US soil wasn't a war just a massive and iconic terrorist incident associated with men with boxcutters. Compare that with the multibillion dollar military offensive in Iraq and elsewhere.

Thinking further about (a)my locust image and the process of "Western Civilization" asset-stripping the Earth, and (b)this idea of Freedom and individual rights.

It seemed to people at the time that the accession of George III brought a whole new influence of "North Britons", Scots and Scottish ideas to the way that English people were governed.. And perhaps most crucial of all of these elements was the career of Lord Chief Justice Mansfield who extended the right of "Chattel Ownership" that had applied to disposable property for centuries, to all forms of ownership that could be passed down by "Will". This now applied to Adam Smith's "Land"- the Earth and all it contained. Gone were ancient ideas of "God's Creation" and a responsibility for the Stewardship of the Earth. The Creator had supplied this bounty so that people who saw the opportunities could reap a harvest of wealth and prosperity.. First come first serve. The exploitation of this potential, either as private property or public property became the major drive in Industrialization and the creation of a Human way of life based upon mechanisms and inhumanity.

Cass

<>

Big of you.

Correction: "Barthold Niebuhr" that should have been.

Cass

>>US America has never had a "war" on US soil<<

Well, apart from when the British nearly razed their lovely new capital on the Potomac. And the attack on Pearl Harbour. And the Japanese attack on the Aleutians.

America also suffers majorly from domestic terrorism/warfare. September 11th didn't cause the events that followed because the US was outraged as it'd never been attacked before, those events were facilitated by the government of the time.