Elections Canada's uneven playing field

[M.Dancer]

If you will, illustrate which ideas have been forcibly destroyed by another power.

How are the US Confederate States holding out?

How is the divine Right of Kings doing?

Where is the Second Estate of France?

Where is aparteid these days?

[nicky10013]

How are the US Confederate States holding out?

How is the divine Right of Kings doing?

Where is the Second Estate of France?

Where is aparteid these days?

You make the simplistic mistkae in thinking that if a political system dies the idea dies along with it. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Ideas are given power by people. They didn't stand up when challenged. The primary thing here is that those ideas were never forcibly imposed or destroyed by outsiders and that's what we're talking about here. Even then, the ideas that kept things like the divine right or apartheid in place never completely went away. There's still widespread racism in South Africa.

Ditto for "The Confederat States of America." That idea sure did die, even though you can buy a confederate flag almost anywhere and there was racial segregation until the 60s. Ideas have the ability to evolve, devolve and even die out, but you can't just shoot a bunch of those people and have the rest change their mind.

Edited February 9, 2010 by nicky10013

[M.Dancer]

Ideas are given power by people. They didn't stand up when challenged. The primary thing here is that those ideas were never forcibly imposed or destroyed by outsiders and that's what we're talking about here.

Goal posts can't be moved. We are talking abouyt the myth of the immortality of ideas. I have allowed the previous caveat that you offered, forcibly destroyed, only because it makes no difference in the end.

Even then, the ideas that kept things like the divine right or apartheid in place never completely went away. There's still widespread racism in South Africa.

So what? Do the Afrikaners have power to impose thweir will?

No....the afrikan idea of their supremacy is dead.

Ditto for "The Confederat States of America." That idea sure did die, even though you can buy a confederate flag almost anywhere and there was racial segregation until the 60s.

And you have the gall to say I'm being simplistic?

Please show me some credible eveidence that the successionist movement in the former CSA has any life...you know....political life.

Ideas have the ability to evolve, devolve and even die out, but you can't just shoot a bunch of those people and have the rest change their mind.

But you can, you can. who Longs for the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere anymore?

[nicky10013]

Goal posts can't be moved. We are talking abouyt the myth of the immortality of ideas. I have allowed the previous caveat that you offered, forcibly destroyed, only because it makes no difference in the end.

The goal posts were never static to begin with. Everything changes. That's the entire problem you simply can't understand.

So what? Do the Afrikaners have power to impose thweir will?

No....the afrikan idea of their supremacy is dead.

It may be dying out but it isn't dead and it sure isn't dying out because the black Africans in South Africa went to war.

And you have the gall to say I'm being simplistic?

Please show me some credible eveidence that the successionist movement in the former CSA has any life...you know....political life.

So you're saying that in the former south, especially in the poorer deep south there ISN'T deep seeded racism and hatred left over from the defeat of the civil war? What if anything has changed? Economics. The richer the south gets the more it leaves the more ugly things in its past behind.

Edited February 9, 2010 by nicky10013

[M.Dancer]

The goal posts were never static to begin with. Everything changes. That's the entire problem you simply can't understand.

I understand that when you make an argument and the argument is X, you can't turn around and say because X doesn't hold, that the argument is X2.

It may be dying out but it isn't dead and it sure isn't dying out because the black Africans in South Africa went to war.

It was politics by other means...and the bush war was part of it. They the afrikaners capitulated and agreed to terms. Their idea, even if clingling to isolated outposts is dead and will not return.

So you're saying that in the former south, especially in the poorer deep south there ISN'T deep seeded racism and hatred left over from the defeat of the civil war?

I'm saying the racism is irrelevant as you should no the Civil war wasn't fought simply over slavery. The notion of the CSA is dead.

[nicky10013]

I understand that when you make an argument and the argument is X, you can't turn around and say because X doesn't hold, that the argument is X2.

It was politics by other means...and the bush war was part of it. They the afrikaners capitulated and agreed to terms. Their idea, even if clingling to isolated outposts is dead and will not return.

I'm saying the racism is irrelevant as you should no the Civil war wasn't fought simply over slavery. The notion of the CSA is dead.

No, you it seems that you never grasped the definition of X to begin with. My definition has never changed. Ideas are never static. Over time with different conditions they can change, evolve and become less powerful, but they've never simply gone away. Every action has consequences and there is overwhelming proof that going to war with ideas only serves to strengthen both sides personal definition of things such as political ideals. Things didn't really change in the south after the war. Things didn't really change until the 60s in the south. Development out of an agricultural economy to something more advanced spurred that. Things were changing and people didn't like it. People thought they were being threatened and they fought against it.

South Africa is the perfect example of the way we need to move forward in the future. No war changed people's ideas. Also, lest we forget that for whites, South Africa was actually a democracy. They had a chance to choose who their government was. Sanctions mainly from the commonwealth is what spurred change because the base of white population had their wealth threatened.

We can take this example, reverse it and move it forward to places like Afghanistan. People don't have wealth so they cling to conservative religious ideology. Build up a prosperous middle class and problem solved. You can't build a middle class by destroying everything. The further you destroy the potential for economic development, which can be the only outcome of warfare, the further you radicalize the population.

As I've been saying. Bullets don't change governments.