Date : Sun, 21 Nov 2010 02:23:00 +0000
From : jgh@... (J.G.Harston)
Subject: [OT] Who'da thought...
Rick Murray wrote:
>> Why should white kids born in this country automatically get rights
>> that brown people born overseas have to study and work hard for?
>
> Because everybody needs to "belong" to a place. This is what citizenship
> *is*.
You can belong to a place without being a citizen. My exwife was a
Hong Konger without ever being a citizen of Hong Kong.
> Out of interest - should the degree of melanin in a person's skin have
> any bearing on their ability to become a citizen? I find it interesting
> that you mention skin colour, while an Asian or American (or anybody
> outside of the obligations of the EU) could have equal difficulties.
Of course not, I follow an adapted Roman Empire ethos - if you make this
your home, I don't care where you were born, you *are* an X-ian.
I just plucked it out of the air, probably because of all my rants in
council meetings when the agenda says "underperforming ethnic minorities"
and I say: "have you *seen* how many subIndian doctors, accountants,
dentists, architects... etc. etc. there are?" Most ethnic minorities in
this country outperform nonminorities.
> There's a sweet
> poster apparently for a college in Tokyo that says "learn English to
> pick up cute gaijin!". While... why do we learn French at school?
Why do you think I learned Japanese at university? ;)
> If enough respectable decent people can't be bothered to get up off
> their fat asses and tick a piece of paper, then the future of the
> country will be decided by lunatics.
People get the government they deserve. I'm glad I'm out of it.
> Yeah, go on, bring your own subtext. It's 2am and I'm watching
> "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni" so it's no surprise my mind is a bit out there.
Shh! The butler did it! ^v^
>> I say my good chap, check that the oil is all ok, won't you.
> ... tell me you're making an example. You *do* know how to do
> lights'n'levels don't you?
errr....
> I guess, in addition, a country would be insane to take citizenship away
> from its own civilians.
Have you ever read Starship Troopers? Citizenship is earned by service to
the state. If you want power over the state and have the state to do
something for you, you have to do something for the state. I can't remember
if it can be taken away after gaining it.
Another of Heinlein's lines was along the line of: never trust a
government when the only qualification to vote is being able to breath.
He once proposed that that potential voters should have to answer an
intelligence testing question before being allowed to vote. "Something like
solving a simple quadratic equation, a high school level test."
Not sure how many UK equivalents of "high schoolers" would pass such a test :)
>> And I wish people would realise that 99.5% of the population can't vote
>> for Tony Blair/David Cameroon/Whoever.
> I wish we *could* vote for the guy leading the country. And I wish a
The parties campaign as though it's a presidential election, the winner
runs the country as though it's a presidential election, why don't they
just admit the truth and actually *have* a presidential election.
> change of leadership (Blair->Brown) would trigger an automatic general
> election.
Why should a change in the Chief Executive mean a backbencher gets
chucked out of his seat? Oh yes, because, contrary to what the election
leaflets imply, we actually have a Parliamentary Executive, not a
Presidential Executive.
> duration, but really we ought to have a vote every two years to
> determine the balance of power in Westminster.
Oh good god, no! Do you know how *exhausting* annual elections are?
3rd May, the count's finished, everybody knows who's been elected.
Right, get out there and start campaigning for next year's election.
> 1. My father and my father's father voted Labour, therefore...
"I have abdicated my right to think for myself...."
Surely the best reason to deny them the vote?
> ... but the point still holds. Local elections are
> completely different.
There's so much brainwashing by political parties to make voters use
non-Parliamentary elections as a referendum on the government it means
you end up with crackpot d*heads running your local council because the
locals say "I don't like the guvviment party, so I'm going to keep
voting against them at every possible opportunity as hard as I can!!!!"
> Democracy? Britain? Where... I though ten years of Labour did a pretty
> good job of killing that ...
<G>
--
J.G.Harston - jgh@...