So first community addon for A3 will be changing the name on the maps and signs back to Lemnos

And why should I have respect for someone who was "elected" by god to rule over me?

I understand the traditions and all that, but seriously, we're in the XXI Century.

Why should anyone have respect for someone who's been elected by fools? Say what you will about the Church, your average cult leader usually has a good few more braincells than your average voter

Democracy is pretty much the definition of irony when you look at it objectively. It's based on the erroneous belief held by the majority of people that if the majority of people believe something, it's automatically correct.

Exactly. These monarchies often manage to survive for several centuries while the average political "monarch" in the Netherlands lasts something like 2,5 years before they get thrown out of office. The queen has a 75% approval rating, elected officials a 75% dissapproval rating the day after they've been elected with a tiny margin over their rivals. From hero to zero in a few days. And then the forming of a government begins in which all parties throw away the promises they made in the campaign and their principles and come up with some wishywashy middleway that no one wanted. And in two years time the cycle simply repeats. People more suited to govern themselves than a monarch could? I don't think so. No compromises, no promises that can't be kept, no bargaining, no need for politically correct or public relations statements etc. Making a decision and sticking with it. Many European countries did just fine for centuries, and simple people with good ideas that don't mind putting some effort into something have always made a fortune here. The only vote that should be carried out is a referendum to restore absolute monarchies.

Modern society isn't a democracy, but rather an idiocracy.

This post has been edited by JdB: Feb 4 2013, 17:45

Nyet, it has been downgrading itself more and more AND more, specially with some leader the whole word had, but what you prefer, an autocracy?

That's a good point - and to be honest I often tell my British friends when they're whinging about the "undemocratic EU" that they didn't even get to elect their queen.
However, most monarchs don't have a significant power anymore, in fact I believe in the Western hemisphere it is only the Prince of Liechtenstein who's still worthy of the title "ruler".
In my country the head of state has a largely ceremonial role and I don't get to elect it either (he or she is indirectly voted for by the parliament).
Had I the ability to vote for this office, I'd consider it a gain but me doing not I don't consider a loss. Anti-monarchism has become an anachronism. You're right, we're in the XXI. Century - so at least in Europe no one relies on the disempowerment of royals anymore to secure their basic rights.
If you asked me I'd say the funds needed to maintain a royal household are a better argument against a monarchic republic than the fact that queens and kings don't get voted for.

I consider myself a convinced democrat; but even I can't get around Schiller's famous saying "Votes should be weighed, not counted for sooner or later the nation will be destroyed when majorities win and ignorance gets to rule".

Well, no.

Rite! I propose this: he who gets the anti-Nobel shall rule over the world for a year.

When our queen or crown prince visit a country they along with the group of businessmen traveling with them meet the president, monarch, prime minister and CEOs of major corporations of the visited country. When a prime minister or regular minister visits, they only get to see low level officials and smaller business partners. Our queen is one of the most profitable assets that we have. The costs of the monarchy are around 300 million a year, the export deals that are possible through her influence over 3 billion (630 million of income taxes). That's 210% of pure profit and more through employment opportunities.

Take the Sultan of Brunei for example. Some might call him a despot, others one of the richest men in the world. A dictator that takes 25% of all of his nation's oil revenues for his own. The largest palace in the world, thousands of luxury cars. No democratic principle known to the man, zero freedom of press, speech or thought. On the other hand there is free health care, low unemployment and decent free education. But to us he is uncle Hassanal, who generally lets us (Royal Dutch Shell) exploit his huge oil fields. What a great guy!

This post has been edited by JdB: Feb 5 2013, 00:35

I knew that monarchs had little influence in affairs (at least, directly), it's more about "why do you get all these fancy toys and money? Because you're "royalty"?" I go to something more or less between those lines, although the same applies to most, if not all, businessman who made their fortunes by the works of others.


I understand it, and I'd like to think the same, but shouldn't be better to avoid the ignorance part altogether and educate people instead of giving wighted votes, because in the system we all are now, isn't fair for everyone, I mean, you didn't have the same choises that the son of your PM, nor the same as a guy who grew up in a slum. So, it isn't fair to say that an engineer is "better", because his vote is more "important", than the poor mate's vote, who couldn't finnish high school because he had to take care of his family or since he grew up in a sh*tty place, he didn't want to study.

That's not a maxim Benoist - who'd get to decide who's opinion is more worth than another one's? - only a reminder of democracy's greatest dilemma for humans are herd animals after all. In the words of another great man: "democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

So don't let a person decide who's up to the task, that's why we have statistics.

Who statistics the statisticians?

In other news, a satirical newspaper released the next article about the Malvinas (I'm never going to call them with the "F" word!):

The chancellor Héctor Timerman had a harsh talk with the kelpers after saying that the islands “will be back to Argentina soveringâ€�. After stating that the country has more chances to plant the flag in the Moon than in Malvinas, the islanders reafirmed the idea with a definitive "f*ck off". Nevertheless, Timerman tried to calm the affair and stated that the "idea is to improvee islanders' quality of life". He explained that: "They are f*cking boring, it's f*cking freezing, nothing ever happens there; instead, when the islands are back under our control, they will be able to feel the adrenalin of repression, the traffic chaos, inflation, football violence, programed lootings, ambiental pollution, corruption, exasperation, power cuts, natural gas shortage... Well, everything that makes our country unique. But the kelpers lashed out against the chancellor in Twitter with a strong “suck it, peladoâ€�.

With more or less sums my stand on the subjec: "we can't seduce two little islands, okey, done, let's see why, oh, right! We've little kids starving in the North and we're starving the Qom (indigenous inhabitants of the Chaco province) so we can take the lands from them, and since that it's not enough, we hunt them or we just run over with our cars".
And I'm not f*cking with that last part, in Chaco there is a massacre going on, in a fact, the police kidnaped a Qom leader and forced her sister to pay for his freedom. With sexual favors. For the whole police station.

This post has been edited by Benoist: Feb 6 2013, 23:51

Compudahs!

And who compute the computers?

[We can be all night for me]

That's the plan! I'd wait until you'd say "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?", then I'd say something along the lines of "you probably don't even know how said that", and you'd be all "Well of course I know, Dave, it was Aristotle!", and then I'd be all "Why would Aristotle say it... IN LATIN!". And then you'd recoil with a shocked look on your face, and the camera would zoom in, my theme music would play, and that'll be the lynchpin which leads to my inevitable victory. It'll be great, just you wait.

So, yeah, the watchmen obviously compute the computers!

Having had Latin in school I'm pretty sure it was Juvenal who said that... oh and the pronoun must be "who", not "how"...

This sounds familiar, what would it be...

I'm going to be honest, I just copied it off wikipedia. I was originally going to just try and wing it and say "que custard custidius?", but the wikipedia one had more words, so must be right!

"There has been an error processing your query. Please try again later."

When the heck is "later"? Huh?!
How I hate that when it happens. I loathe it so cordially I have even used Comic Sans to let you know.