I have repeatedly put this in context for you. Homicide and Prison population rates are hundreds of % higher per capita in the US than in the UK, or indeed any other developed country in the world. I give you that differing systems and cultures can result in trends that are hard to match up, but not by hundreds percent in two major categories, across the entire developed world. That strains credulity, it’s a wonder you can swallow such nonsense yourself.

The heady mix of your hyper nationalism and these rather banal factoids, has generated a surprising blizzard of torturous reasoning, desperate refutation and twisted logic.

Entertaining, but all your blather on the subject doesn’t get you around the facts. It just highlights how completely your hyper nationalism has degraded your critical thinking. Sad really.

As BMC unintentionally stated, his point wasn’t about the UK but about how the crime rates are higher in America than other nations.

However you are still stuck with higher homicide rates and prison populations (compared to developed countries), regardless of how disingenously you spin it.

Thus the only refutation he can provide, is that the UK’s crime rates are lower, yet they are still higher than the US. As the statistics prove, or as much as BMC’s stats can prove, the UK trades daily terrorism through burglaries, assaults, and being an assault victim to the US trading in less daily terrorism for more people being murdered because they didn’t feel the need to learn self-defense. It is either that, or people are being killed because they can fight back, and killing them is the only way not to be killed yourselves. When places like Britain disarm their population, the criminals have no need to kill anyone body, because nobody will try and stop them and nobody will fight back. Thus the people of Britain become the terrorized slave population of a mob like organization where here in the US, it is more like the Wild West where people fight it out based upon individualism.

If people will recall, many people complain that the US is trading their civil rights for security. Disarming citizens so that the murders go down while the property rights of people and the safety of their citizens are violated, seems not to be noticed as an inconsistency. BMC said it himself, he’d rather be assaulted with a baseball bat or a hand to hand weapon, than to be killed by a firearm. The logic that it is the US willing to give up our civil rights for security, is an attempt to project the world’s lack of self-confidence and liberty upon the United States. It is an unfortunate byproduct of making the people of the West into sheep, they will always complain about animals with teeth.

As BMC’s behavior proves, they really can’t tolerate a position dynamically different from their own without throwing things like “disengenous lies, only friend in the world” into the mix to supplement their lack of reasoning and logic skills. They have to make things personal, because it is personal to them that they are the ones sacrificing their liberty for security while the US is not.

The difference is simple. While I talk about what people like BMC does and why they are wrong, BMC talks about who and what people like me are. They shift the subject to who you are, and not what you believe. They do it unconsciously, so they will always deny it. As BMC will deny it, because he truly cannot see the logic problems with his own arguments.

It is quite a lot more complex than “America has money therefore can do what it wants”. The most notable thing I was speaking of was psychology. The ability to visualize a scenario, and predict with accuracy what both sides would do and WHY they would do it.

As we can see, any attempts to steer it from being about “America and Americans” lands with a return about “disengenous” spinning.

As a last note, I just provided the statistics and their titles and how I interpreted them. BMC sees this as an attack on some statement of his about the UK’s crime rate lowering. In most cases, these statistics benefit other people than BMC, and knee jerk reactionary thinking is not a good idea.

I never, at any point in this thread denied that the UK had a marginally higher crime rate than the US. I disputed the contention that crime has not been falling in the UK.

However, I do dispute your recent efforts to massage the gap to make it appear so much larger than it actually is. Not a terribly fair way to treat your only real friend in the world:-)

That said, the UK is practically the only country in the developed world that comes even close to US overall crime rates.

You note that the US has more convictions and you keep people in prison longer. Jesus you’re a genuis.

Did imagine the prison population were asexually reproducing:-)? You truly have become the master of stating the bland and obvious.

Wood for the trees alert: It didn’t occur to you that higher convictions and longer prison sentences are bad things? Especially given the US still has higher homicide rates and crimes rates when compared to almost any developed country?

No doubt you can find some categories of crime the US does better in than … someone.

However you are still stuck with higher homicide rates and prison populations (compared to developed countries), regardless of how disingenously you spin it.

You silly, silly man.

US has 2.2 million. Britain has 2.7 million once you adjust for the cer capital rate, in assaults.

So that 6% bmc talks about is half a million more assault victims in terms of actual comparison between the US and Britain. And the US has far more big cities than Britain, so the US should statistically have more assaults than Britain. This is of course, not even including how many assaults go unreported in Britain because the police won’t do anything about them.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_ass_vic

2.8% of Britain is an assault victim.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_bel_in_pol_eff

Britain has 15% less people believing in police efficiency than the US, and the US leads the pack.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_car_the

US has 1.1 million car thefts.

GB has 2.0 million once you multiply GB”s pop by 6, to equal the US’s.

The US has a lot more cars than GB, I notice. Yet the rate is higher in GB than it is in the US.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_con

#1 Egypt 3,576,010
#2 United Kingdom 1,398,270

That is how many are convicted. That is a lot of convictions, because the US would have to have 8 times 1.3 million to equal those convictions, which would put us AHEAD of Egypt, a police state.

Here is the perception of safety towards home invasion.

#4 United States 78%
#5 Denmark 75%
#6 Norway 68%
#7 Canada 66%
#8 Switzerland 64%
#9 Netherlands 62%
#10 United Kingdom 58%

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_per_of_saf_bur

Sentencing lengths.

#16 United States 29
#17 Portugal 26
#18 South Africa 26
#19 Lithuania 25
#20 Papua New Guinea 24
#21 Zimbabwe 24
#22 United Kingdom 15

could it be that the US has more people in jail because we keep them there in jail instead of releasing them?

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_sen_len

#1 Poland 1.8%
#2 Italy 1.3%
#3 Australia 1.2%
#4 United Kingdom 1.2%
#5 Slovenia 1.1%
#6 Portugal 1.1%
#7 France 1.1%
#8 Belgium 1%
#9 Canada 0.9%
#10 Sweden 0.9%
#11 Netherlands 0.8%
#12 New Zealand 0.7%
#13 Switzerland 0.7%
#14 Denmark 0.7%
#15 Saint Kitts and Nevis 0.7%
#16 Finland 0.6%
#17 United States 0.6%

Robbery victims up above.

These are the burglary victims below.

#1 United States 2,099,700
#2 United Kingdom 836,027

Adjusted by pop, UK is 5 million.

I’m a lot better at statistics because I can actually understand what they are telling me, instead of just finding in them what I want. The numbers don’t lie, but people do make mistakes when they interpret them.

France has a French problem because their gang problem is everywhere, even if lcoated in French slums, because of the French welfare and socialized system.

It is quite a lot more complex than “America has money therefore can do what it wants”. The most notable thing I was speaking of was psychology. The ability to visualize a scenario, and predict with accuracy what both sides would do and WHY they would do it.

My observations and predictions of what the US would do and the UN nations would do, is described by BMC as the US having money therefore they are allowed to do anything. Which is obviously not the point of my psychology based predictions and observations.

In terms of France, Europe, and the US. We have the curious story the statistics tell us, with all the qualifiers and addendums that everyone who has studied statistics knows about ahead of time without having it spelled out to them, and then we have the actual rioting and violence in Europe and France compared to the US.

So what the statistics purpotedly tell us, is somehow very different from the actual level of incitement and violence.

When people are willing to be terrorized in their homes, on a daily basis, rather than to risk being killed by a gun or using a gun to defend themselves, we start to see a decadent spiral into the Dark Ages basically where nobles protected the defenseless peasants and an aristocracy is thus created. That is a bad idea.

Just for you Ymar

If you keep people in grinding poverty it often pisses them off. Will that cover it? Sheese.” History kindergarten.

No it’s not that simple. History if full of many more periods of long term oppression of the underclass. Revolution is the exception, and in fact, often required outside intervention to pull it off (even ours- from Spain and the French no less). The problem here is that you see it as “black/white”, “History Kindergarten”, and I see it as complex and major events as being the result of a confluence of circumstances and causes…

This line you threw in was particularly interesting-
“heck even in the Confederacy.”
The poor and oppressed in the confederacy (black slaves) weren’t the ones doing the revolting, were they?

Have you been to Paris lately?

This is just black/white Good/Bad nonsense. History is full to overflowing with examples of what I’m talking about.

The French revolution, the Russian revolution, Slave rebellions in the Roman Empire, heck even in the Confederacy. Please, don’t be obtuse.

If you keep people in grinding poverty it often pisses them off. Will that cover it? Sheese. History kindergarten.

Ymarsakar, your entire post boils down to “we have more money, so we should do what we like”. I disagree with that basic position, so we have, I think an irreconcilable difference there:-(

you admit your quote on “defeat” was misplaced
No I do not. The Soviets where defeated but not by Allah and Co. Hence “defeat”.

A more lawful society puts their criminals in jail and keeps them there.

Sure, this is a problem if we are talking about the US and say, Colombia. However it is very hard to explain away when comparing the US to Germany, Ireland, Sweden or any other minority world country.

Have you ever been out of the US? We don’t have gangs roaming the streets here:-)

There may be some play in the system but not hundreds of %, that indicates at least some minor societal dysfunction.

Nonetheless here I am:-)

The stats you quote are from an article written in 2002.

Here is a link showing total incidents of crime in the UK since 1981 to 2005. These statistics are hot off the press direct from the people who produce them.

http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/page54.asp

As you can see, crime has been falling steadily since 1993, about 4 years before Blair took office.

So you appear to be wrong again, with regard to the increase in crime. Which rather puts your theory about EU human rights legislation to bed. But you were certainly correct about the higher incidents of crime in the UK, on that point I surrender.

Although, you might have saved yourself the trouble of looking up the article. It’s right there in the stats posted by moi from nation master:-)

#6 United Kingdom 85.5517 per 1,000 people
#7 Montserrat 80.3982 per 1,000 people
#8 United States 80.0645 per 1,000 people

More neck and neck though … 5 incidents of crime per 1000 in the difference? Plus there is the homicide rate.

So, sure in the UK its 6% more likely that I’ll get mugged, but in the US it’s 300% more likely that I’d be murdered. I know which I’d prefer:-) Plus, you’ve got that embarrasing prison population rate, strictly speaking the US should be a crime free paradise based on that alone:-)

Sorry, Mary. You loose this round comprehensivley.

Revolutions emerge from the middle class, not the poverty stricken.

All sorts of people participate in revolutions, for all kinds of reasons. The primary umbrella driver is injustice, perceived or real.

Regardless of who foments the revolution, if you have a seething underclass, they supply the muscle. C’mon lets not quibble over the obvious stuff.

So to summarise.

EU crimes are mostly lower than the US, although Finland and the UK are higher overall.

Homicides are roughly 300%, and Prison populations are roughly 600% higher in the US than in the EU.

Which brings me back to my point. The namby, pamby approach has it’s benefits. We don’t have to spend all that money on prisons for a start.

Yes, so a) you admit your quote on “defeat” was misplaced, and b) They think everything is due to Allah, one way or another, anyway- so what? When we defeat them, they’ll have to credit that to Allah as well, won’t that be nice. You’ll get it eventually, Inshallah.

“People who are sick, poverty stricken and downtrodden eventually turn on their masters, or whomever happens to be handy.”

Why then isn’t Bangladesh a writhing morass of violence and civil war? In the 70’s it was the better off Pakistani’s that were the antagonists… How do you explain that? Why don’t the desperately poor in Brazil or Mexico revolt against the governments that are corruptly holding power in the upper classes and maintaining a stratified society? How do tyrants maintain power when they oppress their people? Your statement is so patently false, yet you seem to actually believe it… sigh.

So even if you add up Japan, China, indian, Britain, and etc, it doesn’t even equal the USN in terms of tonnage. We’re not even talking about technology or experience yet. Which is probably 1 or 2 orders greater than other nations.

China would go bankrupt if they tried to match American defense spending. China has like what, somewhere between 1/10 or 1/5th the GDP of America?

So in order to match our 4% Defense spending, they would have to spend either 40% GDP per year or 20% GDP per year. For like how many years it takes to go par with us. This is as we are also spending, so if China wants to reach instant parity with the US, they would go bankrupt cause we’ve been spending 4 to 6% GDP for awhile now, while China has only begun. So there’s like a learning curve first.

There are two things I think bears focusing on. One, if the US simply opts out of the UN if nations in the UN expects too much out of the UN and doesn’t give it back. If it is supposed to be based upon consent and mutual benefit, then if the US gives out 100 billion in aid and gets like 500 million back, the US will go somewhere else.

Second, the scenario you brought up consists of the US benefiting from the UN and then not agreeing to abide by a vote or consensual agreement.

The way I see it, if the other nations do not “arm up” then the US is not going to acrue mutual benefit from the arrangement. If the other nations do not spend as much on Defense as the US does, then the US has no reason not to disobey UN votes. People obey the law because they fear violating the law, the cops are going to come after them and all that. Who is going to come after the US if the US violates the UN votes? Nobody, because everyone is too busy disarming and not contributing their fair share to the defense equation.

Those above reasons are why, if you want the US to obey UN votes and stay in the UN, other nations need to armup to an equal level to the US once you lump them together. Currently, the US Navy is larger than the “next” 7th largest navies. And this is only a per ton basis, not a technological compensated difference. The level of difference between the USAF and the US Army is even larger given the lack of quality and quantity in the rest of the world’s forces.

China is trying to, but they can barely get one carrier working.

The people to target are the ones breaking the agreed laws, not millions of innocent people.

That is just the thing though. People in the US won’t give up Constitutional protections over US citizens, including the President. The people will themselves not cooperate because they don’t want the UN deciding their politician’s fate, since the people prefer to do that themselves. If the people don’t cooperate, then you are going to run into resistance if you try to enforce grabbing politicians and leaders. The UN might not declare war on the US, but the US most definitely will declare war on the US for grabbing US citizens when it becomes inconsistent with American law. This is the argument behind the World Court for example.

By the way Ymarsakar, thanks for introducing me to “The Futurists” Blog.

Your welcome, I myself only came across it recently because of a chance commentator.

In conclusion, i can’t agree on the premise that the principles are correct. The principles do not take into account the role of the military and the interest of human beings. For example, I do believe you can get people and nations to disarm. But you have to give them guarantees, that if someone should attack them, that they will be protected. It is about trust. Do they trust the UN to always vote their way if they are attacked? No, that is as you say, not how it will work. So people will not give up their armies either because the UN will have no army or will never be guaranteed to use it if they did have an army.

The way the world is set up right now, the US has eseveral mutual defense deals with nations like Poland, Japan, NATO, Taiwan, and etc. The US guarantees that if these nations are attacked or invaded, that the US will respond with the penultimate in military force, which outmatches any other nation as well as the next 7th largest nations combined together. Even for little nations like Kuwaitt that didn’t have such an agreement because they either could not trust us or thought it wasn’t needed, benefited from American protection when Saddam invaded.

People and nations have weapons and armies for two reasons. To use it to conquer others and take what is not theirs. Or to protect themselves from people who conquer others and take what is not theirs. Most people are the latter, but the former pops up every now and again. People will not disarm if they feel threatened and isn’t given a trusted guarantee of protection.

The UN, as you described, would not be capable of giving that guarantee of protection. To translate the UN into some kind of US federal system, requires a federal army and a federal law which supercedes ALL local laws. Otherwise there is NO guarantee that the federal government will uniformly and consistently enforce mutually agreed upon rules and laws.

By actual orders of magnitude, stop a moment and think about that.

I’ve responded to this from other people in past. Basically, a more lawful and consistent society can have more crime statistics because the more chaotic and crime based societies don’t actually have people willing to trust in the police and report the crimes. Cause basically either the police is corrupt or they won’t do anything, therefore the crime statistics for chaotic countries may actually be LESS than more orderly societies that record everything.

This is noticed in Britain, which has many many times the home breakins and assault crimes than the US. And not only that, but the people in Britain don’t report their crimes because the police don’t do anything to arrest the criminals (so long as they don’t kill anyone or use a gun that is). So you have more assaults and breaks in in Britain, yet more people are unwilling to report crime.

The argument for why the US has more criminals in jail is easy to explain, related to the above xplanation. A more lawful society puts their criminals in jail and keeps them there. A more chaotic environment, like Russian, can have people bribed to get out of jail. Another reason why the US has more criminals in jail compared to say Britain, is because the US has a lot of very large urban cities. Crime in urban cities are grossly greater than an equal number of populated small towns. A 5 million city population produces more crime than 500,000 towns with 10 people in each of those towns. Why? Because when people know each other, criminals know that they will get caught and be shamed. There’s nowhere to hide out, unlike the criminal enclaves in big cities.

Besides, the stats are missing Britain, and that is a big problem if you are using it to compare US to Europe crime problems.

Good example is.

#95 France 95 per 100,000 people

With the French riots going on, do you perhaps think that the lack of big arrests actually contribute to more crime instead of decreasing it?

The strategy in a nutshell in Iraq, is better characterized as “getting them to fight their own wars themselves”. Meaning, terroism is an Arab problem and Arabs should be best suited to solve it. But taht means Arabs have to kill Arabs, and so we give them something to fight for (liberty) and the terroists a reason to kill other Arabs (liberty equals no shariah).

Thus we offer the Iraqis American power, support, and money in return for the Iraqis fighting a proxy warfare against both their enemies and ours. It is a mutual benefit deal, that the UN you would create BMC, would have many such deals like this.

No they don’t. People were sick, poverty stricken and downtrodden for hundreds of years under the guidance of monarchies and the Catholic Church, and they did squat to change things. Revolutions emerge from the middle class, not the poverty stricken.

Criminals prey on the weak. If no one protects people, and if they’re not allowed to protect themselves, crime increases, as is has in Britain and all over Europe. Via the Telegraph:

England has worst crime rate in world

England and Wales have the highest crime rate among the world’s leading economies, according to a new report by the United Nations.

The survey, which is likely to prove embarrassing to David Blunkett, the Home Secretary. shows that people are more likely to be mugged, burgled, robbed or assaulted here than in America, Germany, Russia, South Africa or any other of the world’s 20 largest nations. Only the Dominican Republic, New Zealand and Finland have higher crime rates than England and Wales.

During the period 1998-2000, Britain went from fifth to fourth worst in the world league table.

More at Reason and the American Spectator

Most blame the crime wave, not on the lack of available guns (New York has strict gun control laws, low crime), but on the EU inpired Human Rights legislation.

This sounds just like the idea you’re proposing. I don’t know how many times I have to say this, but it doesn’t work.

It never did work. Really. Don’t they teach pragmatism over there?

However, this is a distraction. The justification for going to war in Iraq was not about saving Iraqi lives. It was about sacrificing Iraqi lives to save American lives. Fight them over there etc.

No, the justification for going to war in Iraq was the Carter Doctrine, which basically states that America is reponsible for maintaining ’stability’ in the Middle East (yes, because of the oil) The government believed that Saddam and his real or potential WMDs threatened that stability.

If your main goal is to prevent another such war, you’re in luck, the majority of Americans don’t support it either. The majority of Americans will approve of a war for self-defense, but very few Americans want to die for the cause of realpolitik games. There is groupthink in the government, on the right and the left, but not among the wide variety of Americans out there. You know, the Mexican Americans, Black Americans, Asian-Americans, Irish Americans, Italian-Americans and all those other people you view as one white, stupid, fat, bloated mass.

If Bush proposes another such war, support in America will be nonexistent. So you’re going through a lot of trouble for nothing.

Addressing the root causes of terrorism and crime has never worked in the past and it will never work in the future.

This does not mean “free houses for all and no police!”. It means addressing root causes. People who are sick, poverty stricken and downtrodden eventually turn on their masters, or whomever happens to be handy.

Every revolutionary since Spartacus and before him no doubt, has placed this very issue at the heart of their recruitment drives. There can be no doubt that it resonates. As evidenced by your own revolution.

Feed, clothe, employ and if possible bejewel people, and they will be less willing to blow themselves (and you) up. This is not political; it’s basic common sense.

it’s doing in Britain now, as it’s doing all over Europe and especially Sweden now.

Crime is always in flux, it goes up and it goes down. My recollection of the stats is that crime has fallen in Britain since Labour came to power, and has introduced the kinds of social support that would make an American social conservative clutch their ample chests in shock. Sweden I’ve no idea, I hadn’t heard it was going up, and I live here.

As regards comparing these countries to the US, this is a fatal own goal. I relish the fun of setting you straight. I take it you know what per capita means?

The US has per capita homicide rates 3 to 4 times the European average, and incarceration rates 5 – 8 times the European average. Given that we are the namby, pampy, huggy, terrorist french kissing surrender monkeys you portray, it suggests that this model does in fact, work better. By actual orders of magnitude, stop a moment and think about that.

Unlike you, I will supply the source of these statistics. Knock yourself out.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_mur_percap
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_pri_per_cap

It must strike even you as very, very odd that the US not only has more murders per capita, but 5 – 8 times as many prisoners! Surely given the high incarceration rates, there could hardly be anyone left that would have criminal leanings.

Even taking total crimes per capita, the US doesn’t do terribly well.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_tot_cri_percap

Still though, even the countries that are worse (and there aren’t many) imprison so much fewer of their citizens, that it’s hardly surprising they have higher overall crime rates. The true wonder is that the US doesn’t have the lowest crimes rates of all. O.K., I think I’ve milked that open goal past respectability, but you do beg for it:-)

The problem with pacifists is that they’re willing to peacefully watch others die in the cases of genocide and terrorism, rather than effectively intervening because they think all violence is abhorrent.

I’m not sure that’s true, even about pacifists. Plus given that I have tabled, albeit in the context of a democratized UN, sanctioned assassination, international swat teams and in some limited cases actual war as solutions, I think you need to check up the definition of the word pacifisim. I don’t qualify.

However, this is a distraction. The justification for going to war in Iraq was not about saving Iraqi lives. It was about sacrificing Iraqi lives to save American lives. Fight them over there etc.

I find that idea pretty abhorrent in isolation, but the cowardly, brutal, calculation of it pales into insignificance when coupled with the fact that the basic premise was and is wrong. As can be seen every day as the next lot of 20, or 30 step into the grinder.

Thousands have died, and are continuing to die, because of what can be perhaps be generously categorised as incompetence and group think. Some check or balance should have prevented that, and a comprehensive and democratic Security Council in the UN has a shot at being that check.

No it won’t. We treated the first World Trade Tower attack as a policing matter. Europe has always treated terrorism as a policing matter. That’s why terrorist paramilitary armies call Europeans cities ‘home’..

Addressing the root causes of terrorism and crime has never worked in the past and it will never work in the future. When a government ‘addresses root causes’, crime goes up, as it did in New York City during the 1970’s, as it’s doing in Britain now, as it’s doing all over Europe and especially Sweden now. If we follow your plan, you’re right, terrorism will never be eliminated. It will increase exponentially.

Of course, you don’t need proof to present your unworkable ideas as workable. You don’t need proof because your faith is absolute.

You present your arguments very well (are you a salesman in real life? A lawyer? Marketing? ) but your ideals aren’t based on research, facts, or workable political theory. Your pacifist transnationalism is based on faith. Pacifism doesn’t work as a political system - ask the Tibetans.

[I know, you’ll deny that you’re a pacifist, but if it walks like a duck..Why are pacifists afraid to admit that they’re pacifists lately? ]

The problem with pacifists is that they’re willing to peacefully watch others die in the cases of genocide and terrorism, rather than effectively intervening because they think all violence is abhorrent. Although you’re presenting your ideas as a sort of democratic global management system,. your only real goal is to eliminate violence, and (although you don’t wan to admit it) self defense. Because to you, all violence is bad.

I think I already told you about neo-neocon’s discussion of pacifism as a faith. You really should read it. She said:

Pacifism sometimes seems illogical and naive to those who don’t espouse it. But the key to the logic of pacifism–and it definitely has its own logic–is that it is a belief system. As such, it’s based on certain premises which are accepted as articles of faith and that, to pacifists, can stand outside the realm of proof.

You’re using the “logic” of pacifism here.

I consider myself a “still to be convinced” transhumanist, this guy raises a lot of fascinating points.

No I have explained that. Sharia law, while objectionable to you and I is not grounds for a war. That would be considered a matter for local regulation.

That doesn’t stop us highlighting the basic injustice of it, and working to change peoples mind on the subject of course.

I am NOT proposing a set of homogenised laws governing every aspect of human activity. That is completely nuts.

I am suggesting laws aggressively regulating the use of the military. To such a degree that eventually having a massive military would be considered foolish.

Such changes will take decades perhaps centuries, binding global law is simply the start.

Subsidiarity is the principle which states that matters ought to be handled by the smallest (or, the lowest) competent authority.

It is found in several constitutions around the world (see for example the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution).

It is presently best known as a fundamental principle of European Union law. According to this principle, the EU may only act (i.e. make laws) where member states agree that action of individual countries is insufficient.

No this backwards, and indicative of the US militant, down in the bunker mentality.

No one is going to force anyone to signup to these arrangements, at least not in my scenario. The compelling “force” of the argument is what should win the day. The very act of getting agreement on these structures would begin to reduce military spending.

It is true that the US, could do what they liked. However, if having signed up to clear cut structures the US then reneged on them, that would generate a lot of deserved negative attention.

Plus the president who allowed such a thing to happen should be liable for arrest and trial anywhere outside of the US for the rest of his or her life.

Force against entire nation states would become the absolute utter last resort, but not against indivduals. In the case of the US it would be crazy to even suggest force. The people to target are the ones breaking the agreed laws, not millions of innocent people.

Remember, we are talking only about the right to wage war without it passing a revamped security council vote.

The big hurdle is hammering out the details, and getting agreement. However, the principle is completely sound, and vastly superior to the train wreck that currently passes for “Global Governance”.

Now, either you actually believe this- which would mean you deal in rumor not fact- or you know it’s not true

I except that there was hyperbole in my comment. There is plenty of blame to go around as regards the creation and funding of Ossama and Co. However, the US played an enormous role in creating this asshole, and setting the stage for this kind of terrorism. That cannot possibly be denied, and it would be deeply disingenous to do so.

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html

What exactly did you mean with the “defeated” bit?

These people, if you read the literature, consider that “Allah” is the one responsible for ensuring the defeat of the Soviets. You and I, and lets face it, probably Mr. O. himself, know that it was primarily American support, and especially those handy stingers that defeated the Soviets. It had little or nothing to do with Allah.

However, this is a useful example with which to galavanise the moronic “I want my 72 virgins too” masses. Superpower (0) vs neolithic sheep herders + Allah (1)!!! Hot Damn!!! Lets do that again!!!

Blowback is a bitch.

Which is why all such “go it alone” efforts should be illegal, and should be channelled through a democratic UN.

The vetoes, any vetoes, always paralyzes a democratic body. However, even if you are able to remove the UN Security Council, if the UN depends upon “temporary” authority, then if the UN has more votes against America why wouldn’t America secede from the UN when the UN can’t make us do what they voted on?

In essence, America will always have a veto on UN action, even if you can convince France, Britain, China, and Russia to give up their veto powers (which is a hard enough hurdle itself). America will have that veto because the authority the UN has is not permanent, it does not have a permanent army and relies upon the consent of the governed. Therefore, if the US chooses not to obey a vote, nobody else in the UN can enforce it. Even if every nation in the globe pooled their military and economic resources fully into the UN, they still couldn’t make America do what America does not want to do.

Therefore enforcement does not work until such a time as the rest of the world builds up their military to equal America’s. In this scenario, the UN does not act to decrease warfare, but actually increases it by accelerating global power competition and conflict.

I’m doing 3 filters right now, reading the things you’ve quoted, your response, and your real translated response. 2 would be better.

Douglas … I don’t know what to tell you. My most recent post, was long, detailed and fairly modest in scope.

If you can’t “get” how a world bound by laws surcumscribing war would be beneficial, there is very little more I can say on the subject.

Rational people know they must be subject to law, because it protects as well as restricts them. Laws are required at all tiers of society from your local town to the entire planet.

Parking meters and zoning are administered locally. Wars that could result in thousands of deaths, continent spanning pollution or in the worst case scenario, complete planetary destruction, strike me as requiring regulation at the global level.

If you don’t get it, well I’m all tapped out, and repeating myself:-)

And you want a one world govt? That’ll work…

“The USA had an enormous amount of support aross parts of the muslim world in the wake of 9/11 which in blew in invading Iraq.”

Right. Enormous amounts of support across parts of the muslim world. It’s a self contradictory statement. I’ll keep an open mind though- please point me to the survey that demonstrates this. Thanks.

“If one lives in a feudal system where 20% of the population have all the rights and 80% of the wealth, it’s hardly surprising if they get much of the blame for societal problems. Is it?”

I suppose not, but that doesn’t make the ones leveling blame correct, does it. We worked hard to get where we are, and as any immigrant can tell you, we are happy to see others do the same. We can’t help it if others settle for the governments they have, or have philosophies or cultures that lead them into a morass. We’ve provided an example of success, what more do you want? You can’t ‘give’ success away.

“Well for a start, if the US had not funded him to the tune of billions of dollars in Afghanistan, allowing them to “defeat” the Soviets and harbour delusions of grandeur and global conquest. We’d certainly be better off.”

Now, either you actually believe this- which would mean you deal in rumor not fact- or you know it’s not true, but say it to bolster your argument- which would mean your a propagandist and a liar. I hope it’s not the latter. We did not fund the group of Jihadists that Osama was affiliated with- we funded what was esentially the Northern Alliance- a different group of fighters altogether. Osama and his compatriots were funded by Arabs. And were the Soviets NOT defeated? What exactly did you mean with the “defeated” bit? And how exactly did helping them expell an invader give them the idea that they should rule the world by defeating us? Interesting logic.

“Osama and his ilk will find a steady stream of desperate and impressionable people to do there bidding, as long as the world remains as gut wrenchingly injust as it is.”

but as soon as we acheive a one world governed utopia, that’ll be all over…no more desperate, impressionable people. whew, what a relief.

“This is simple fact. Now that Ireland has the 2nd highest GDP in the world, and is dragging the North along in it’s economic wake, the IRA are struggling to fund recruits. This isn’t a mystery, or particularly hard to grasp.”

No, though you are implying that the cause was prosperity and the dividend was peace- as opposed to the opposite, which is not only far more likely, but true.

“You should read some of the sermons transcribed at Memri,
Why? What is he saying that hasn’t been said by every rabble rousing holy war idiot before him?”

Perhaps because he actually killed 3000 odd folks going to work one day because of it, as opposed to Fred Phelps, who is impotent and unimportant because almost no one follows him. Your casual dismissal of a source of information that might not help your argument speaks volumes.

Huan- keep it up.

Let me try and see what I can do to explain how each could be addressed.

1) The prevention, prosecution and eventual elimination of terrorism and genocide is what I am keen on

We are on the same page here. One difference. Terrorism will never be eliminated. One nut job and a grievance flowers very readily into terrorism. In this respect, I am the realist, and you are the utopian.

The key is to address all the root causes, not exacerbate them, and treat each event as it occurs as a policing matter all the way back to source. Like crime, this will be never ending, but if the root causes are addressed, much of the worst of it will dissipate.

2) A global government must of necessity have global power to be effective. Do we really want to invest ONE body with that kind of power?

Depends on the power. If you are suggesting that we place the worlds military under the single control of the UN, then we are in agreement that this is lunacy.

What I am about is, giving the UN the legitimacy to issue warrants of arrest, subpoenas and the judicial infrastructure to try and convict or acquit the accused.

Now. It is true that there is a fundamental problem if an entire nation state harbours a particular person, or group of individuals. Then the option of sanctioned assassination drifts onto the table, up to and including war.

At the moment we have sanctions, and the war option, but few other useful instruments. In addition, the Security Council has a mere 15 members, 5 of whom are not elected and all of whom can derail any process with a single veto. These 5 members account for less than 25% of the global population, and 2 major landmasses are completely unrepresented.

At a minimum, a larger security council, where no vetoes exist, and a sliding scale of majority votes sliding up the scale depending on the gravity of the action brought to bear on the issues, would go a long way to solving the log jam.

3) In this instance, world government cannot acquire power without the powerful nations on this world giving them power.

Sure, but this power is “given” on a case, by case basis, not as a permanent feature, and only sufficient to address the issue of the moment. That is in effect how the system currently “works”, but the guaranteed paralysis of the Security Council constantly interferes.

The nub of the problem is
a) The decision making process is terrible.
b) The instruments that can be brought to bear are crude.
c) They can only be brought to bear on entire nation states, not individuals.

We replace this with the entire judicial armoury of
1) Warrants of arrest issued across the entire world
2) Subpoenas to appear in court, either virtually or physically.
3) Trials, convictions and acquitals.
4) Asset freezing of a suspect, and any individuals in government openly supporting them.
5) Limited military action to capture or kill suspects who will not present themselves to the court. Requiring say, a 2/3 (population based) majority to pass.
6) Broader war, where genocide or war crimes are currently in progress, requiring a 2/3 (population based) majority to pass, and countries voting in favour, contribute troops on a population-based scheme.

So why has this not been done? It seems fairly obvious, and it is a modest expansion of the current UN system.

The answer to that question lies with the countries, most especially the large and/or rich countries, and the biggest responsibility lies with the 5 permanent Security Council members. There is a very strong cynical, vested interest in keeping things as the are.

Changing the UN to a fairer system means actions these countries absolutely oppose may pass. Or worse still, actions they champion may not pass. As things are practically nothing can pass anyway, but this is still worse, because an improved UN, with fairer structures would give such a “thumbs down” greater legitimacy.

At the end of the day, that will be such a systems greatest strength. Any country can still do anything it likes, and it’s leaders or military may be indicted, subpoenaed and yelled at ad nauseam, and it won’t achieve a thing.

Still though, there are very few countries that could consistently get away with that, and the opprobrium, in the face of a genuinely representative UN, would be overwhelming and deserved.

If we already had Pinochet getting arrested in London, and Yugoslavian war criminals unable to move from their home provinces for fear of arrest and ICC warrants issued for that whack job in Uganda, we are already on the right track. We need to expand that, give it more teeth, ensure that everyone is subject and get the hell on with it!!!

For the US, the way out of this paradox, in the Civil War, was to kill each other until one side won and enforced the federal will and demonstrated, by force, why the federal government can be trusted.

If you do it peacefully, it has far less chance of working simply because if the UN can’t even win a war against the United States, why does the United States or other countries like Russia, China, and India trust the UN to protect us? In addition to the logical paradox, there is also the problem of trusting someone to protect you that is actually weaker than you are militarily and economically.

Protectors are supposed to be wiser, superior, and stronger than the protected. In this instance, world government cannot acquire power without the powerful nations on this world giving them power. Thus, even if it happens, it just turns into a world dictatorship based upon a cabal type leadership between the world’s most populous and powerful nations, RUssia+US+China+India. All the little countries would get squashed. (This has actually been written about before in SM Stirling’s The Prince, called the coDominium an alternative solution to Soviet-US cold warism)

Your goals are different then. The prevention, prosecution and eventual elimination of terrorism and genocide is what I am keen on.

Oh, and if we could find some way of eliminating whifty utopianism in the process, that would be a bonus.