Western democracies vs. One-party capitalist governments

Could it be that the Vietnamese people are more concerned with where their next meal is coming from than politics?
You see here in the west we're living in the land of plenty. Nobody goes hungry. The supermarkets are all chock full of food available at unbelievable prices... literally. The price of food is ridiculously low.

You'd probably have to go back to the 1940's to when the world was at war and everything was in short supply as our last time of real austerity and hardship.
Which means that there are few people alive here today who have ever experienced real hunger.

So food isn't a problem here. And don't worry, cause you don't even have to earn it. No job? No problem, the state will provide all you need.
And the state will even provide for the other peoples of the world too, so come on in and enjoy the party of plenty. Need a house? Sure thing.
Need education, need medical? Absolutely, whatever you want and it's all free.

Except....it's a totally unsustainable model.
We're spending around 18 billion a year more than we're taking in... opps!
So at some stage western civilization is going to crash and burn.
And how are we going to survive if the safety blanket of the state is taken away?
Most won't. People in general have lost the ability to do anything for themselves, and that includes most who work as well.
Being creative in Excel is going to be of little use in putting food on the table, nor is selling insurance, selling flat screens or hiding in a civil service office. A recent survey found that 30% of 18-35yo males couldn't change a light bulb!

We're on borrowed time here in our little western utopia, but people are too busy wondering which colour car would look best in their driveway, or where to find a safe space because someone displayed micro-aggression by disagreeing with their opinion.
Western civilization is reeling on the ropes right now...we just don't know it yet!

The Wild Goose wrote: »

Could it be that the Vietnamese people are more concerned with where their next meal is coming from than politics?
You see here in the west we're living in the land of plenty. Nobody goes hungry. The supermarkets are all chock full of food available at unbelievable prices... literally. The price of food is ridiculously low.

You'd probably have to go back to the 1940's to when the world was at war and everything was in short supply as our last time of real austerity and hardship.
Which means that there are few people alive here today who have ever experienced real hunger.

So food isn't a problem here. And don't worry, cause you don't even have to earn it. No job? No problem, the state will provide all you need.
And the state will even provide for the other peoples of the world too, so come on in and enjoy the party of plenty. Need a house? Sure thing.
Need education, need medical? Absolutely, whatever you want and it's all free.

Except....it's a totally unsustainable model.
We're spending around 18 billion a year more than we're taking in... opps!
So at some stage western civilization is going to crash and burn.
And how are we going to survive if the safety blanket of the state is taken away?
Most won't. People in general have lost the ability to do anything for themselves, and that includes most who work as well.
Being creative in Excel is going to be of little use in putting food on the table, nor is selling insurance, selling flat screens or hiding in a civil service office. A recent survey found that 30% of 18-35yo males couldn't change a light bulb!

We're on borrowed time here in our little western utopia, but people are too busy wondering which colour car would look best in their driveway, or where to find a safe space because someone displayed micro-aggression by disagreeing with their opinion.
Western civilization is reeling on the ropes right now...we just don't know it yet!

Who is? Ireland's Budget defecit was €630 Million euro this year.

Unless your "opps" refers to your own mistaken info?

Amirani wrote: »

That figure is completely irrelevant without netting off assets. Even at that, it's still an abstract figure that doesn't really mean much.

Well we've no oil, coal or gas reserves, no gold or diamond mines and no crown jewels to sell off, so what assets are we talking about?
We could sell off the land but then we'd all be tenants...been there, done that.

Personally if I owe some dude in China €800,000 I wouldn't consider it irrelevant, but then that's just me. And I certainly wouldn't pin my hopes on a chart that claims it can predict 5 years into the future?

All civilizations end, and ours is passed it's sell-by date IMO.
Virtually no-one can do anything tangible anymore. We've lost the ability to look after ourselves, and presume someone will step in and do it for us.
We've also lost the ability to think logically and solve problems.

Think about it, what major inventions have we as a civilization come up with in the last 50 years? Enhancements yes, with Japan leading the way (who last time I checked had a national debt of 240% of GDP..Wow)

It won't take much for it to tip over the edge either.
A few inches of snow in March and people were virtually stabbing each other over a loaf of bread.
Imagine how quickly it would deteriorate if there was a real problem?

There's an old saying which is very apt for all civilisations:

Strong men make good times
Good times make weak men
Weak men make bad times
Bad times make strong men

In case you were wondering...we're at line three

Just back from China and the air quality issue especially in Beijing is getting worse not better from the last time I was there.

Ads by Google wrote: »

After a prolonged discussion this evening with a friend, we jointly came to a conclusion that one-party control over a capitalist system is, while less than ideal, the best way for a country to excel.

Doesn't surprise me to read this. You're not the only one:

In 2016 a survey found that more than half of young Americans no longer support capitalism.

Only a third of Americans under 35 say that it is vital they live in a democracy; the share who would welcome military government grew from 7% in 1995 to 18% last year.

I don't think you're American but I expect you'd see similar trends here.

1. Instead of parties fullfilling short-term politcal goals, the party needs to aim towards long-term goals, or risk revolt.

That's very charitable towards single party states. Looking at history, they certainly tend to be wary of revolt, but sensible and steady, long term planning isn't something you generally associate with them. It generally starts with silencing dissent and gets worse from there when that doesn't work.

2. Societal issues that split a country are way more severe for the populace than are usually accounted for. Neither of us thought Trump or Brexit were worth the damage done.
/
5. Unity. People aren't split in Vietnam. Some are oppressed because this is how this type of government has to operate nowadays, but overall, it's a country together.

It's hard to be split on things when you're not allowed have a different opinion. I'm thankful we haven't had much Irexit bull**** here but I'd still much rather have that than live somewhere talking out of turn results in a knock on the door.

3. Stuff gets done. Things that may take a generation happen because there isn't a revolving door of politicians.

4. Environmental impact. The Chinese government owns its awful air quality. Who fixes it? They are actively doing that (they're 1/4 of the US per/capita in emissions). Who fixes California's drought and fires? No one.

Given the most prosperous countries on the planet are still countries with pluralistic democracies, I think this is false (3). I don't know much about China's emissions but I'd imagine being able to bypass large parts of the industrial revolution by being late to the party helps.

I'll get a lot of hate for this post. But what we talked about made sense. We're surrounded by the consequences of Brexit etc. and stressed out, while our Vietnamese friends don't give a toss about anything political. Our cost of democracy is angst.

Angst is a pretty tiny cost to pay I would have thought.

My made up solution this evening was for TDs to have longer terms. Long enough that the end result of decisions they make are visible. Stop short-term goals and make them accountable. Or have one political party and referndums on all social issues.

Referendums are incredibly divisive. You yourself said Brexit wasn't worth it. Personally, I think referendums are a bad idea and should be avoided wherever possible.

I've not formed an opinion on TD terms. Anyone?

I just like living in a society where pretty much everyone is on the same page.

Sounds kind of bleak to me.

Matt Barrett wrote: »

We in the west prefer the illusion of democracy, (the lesser or more popular of two evils) and the subtle wave of being owned by international financial cartels, (owning a home is 'entitlement' for example) washing over us as we give out about minorities.

Left wing populism is dangerous as well.

I think authoritarian regimes only work in developing countries because they have a road map to follow. They are following a well beaten path of economic development trough trade liberalisation and investment in education and infrastructure. The problems with authoritarian regimes will become apparent when they are at a high level of development and there are no easy paths to growth. The regime will lose legitimacy and will inevitably turn to repression in order to maintain power, this will further damage growth. Only countries that manage to transition from authoritarianism to democracy will maintain the upwards trend and join the top level of development.

I clicked the BBC online news service a month or so ago.
I don't remember the exact headline but it was along the lines of "White House staff disobey Trump", the gist of it being that staff thought Trump's policies so bad they weren't obeying them.
Bear in mind that this was the main headline on the BBC news service!

When I delved into the small print, it turned out that it was in fact taken from an editorial in the New York Times, which quoted an 'unknown source'.
The headline wasn't even in quotation marks.

So this is the depths to which mainstream media has fallen, this BBC headline news story was based on someone's opinion quoting an unsubstantiated source?
But there's more...

I decided to make a complaint to the BBC on the grounds that this was not in fact documented news even though it was presented as such, but merely one persons opinion, then proceeded to jump through all the hoops required to make a complaint.
And guess what?
When I got to the end and clicked 'report', it disappeared, and I was returned to the beginning of the process.

So I don't know where you're getting your news sources from, but if you're expecting true news from either the BBC or our leftie friends in RTE, well good luck with that.

When Trump got elected, presenters and reporters on CNN and MSNBC were crying ... literally crying!
This demonstrated two things, firstly where their loyalties lay, and secondly how infantile they are that they can't even conduct themselves properly in front of the camera.
Every single day for the two years since his election, both these 'news channels' run derogatory reports and commentary about Trump, and they'll clutch at anything at all no matter how insane or ludicrous it may be to try and undermine him.

Recently they had an "expert" in the studio trying to show that Trump 'could be' in the early stages of dementia because of the way he was holding a water bottle at a news conference? I mean, come on? This is news reporting?

It's been two years of this drivel, surely after two years it's time to move on and report some actual real news? Trump calls them fake news for good reason.

CNN have been caught out multiple times, and not just in relation to him but generally. Like when the two reporters were reporting from different locations, except they were really standing in the same parking lot because the same cars were passing by in the backgrounds of both. Or when the reporter was shoulder deep in the floodwater...until two people walked by in the background showing that he was really on his knees. Some would call this "Fake News".

I checked out your tagged report regarding free election airtime.
Firstly, this relates to free coverage.
So if CNN featured a 3 hour report on Trump for example, attempting to demonstrate he was a male chauvinist pig, that would show as 3 hours of free airtime for Trump.

So it relates to all free coverage, positive and negative.
Did you happen to notice that Trumps negative coverage was almost double that of Clinton?

It's also obvious that a 'personality' who was not previously a politician, shoots from the hip and doesn't use the same worn out political speak is going to get more media coverage, both positive and negative but mainly negative, than a lifetime politician.

Secondly, Trumps campaign was clever. He knew he was facing a leftist mainstream media and had to think of alternatives so he used Twitter, a platform available to everyone and not subject to the same political censorship as mainstream media (well not yet, but for how long?).
Also, I would hazard a guess that if you were to exclude Twitter from that report and concentrate solely on mainstream media, the negative portion of Trumps free publicity would jump to 80-90%.

Thirdly, that report emerged from a company in Portland and we know what that's famous for recently, so there's every possibility the figures could be 'massaged'.
Portland in case you're not aware is a leftist-controlled city where the police were ordered to stand down while masked Antifa rioted for three days.

Ah good old Portland and the rest of the west coast of America, bastions of democracy and supporters of the democratic party.
Except of course in places like San Francisco, where the left-wing governors of the city have instructed it's citizens NOT to uphold federal law?

Have you any idea how stupid some of these people really are?
The west coast universities are turning out a generation who know nothing, literally.
Check out Mark Dice on youtube if you don't believe me. He asks simple questions out on the street, questions like:

"What does the 4th July celebrate?" "Who was the city of Washington named after?"
"What was the last book you read?" "What year did we gain independence from China?"
The Obama educated generation literally haven't a clue.
They know nothing of their own history, they don't read books, but they can go to a rally and shout "Trump out". When asked why, the usual response is that "he's a racist" When asked for one racist thing he said, the response is "Aw, I donno..he just is!" They go through a university system and come out the other end with nothing except the ability to chant meaningless slogans.

This ideology and education system is coming to a school near you too.
We're already on that path ourselves. I have a friend who's a primary school teacher.
She can't spend enough time on the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic because over 90% of her class of infants can't speak English. There's no mention of Christmas allowed in the school, and all food must be halal. That's in a Dublin school.

It's only a matter of time before there are areas of Dublin under sharia law.
You think that's crazy right?
Well tell that to the people who live in or near these places in UK, France, Belgium, Sweden etc.. Tell it to the people who actually report on the ground from these places.

If I see footage of someone walking down a street in their own city being stopped by police and told "You can't go down there because you may offend someone, and if you attempt to we'll arrest you", then I believe them when they report that it's a no-go area for westerners.

Forget about mainstream media who are pushing their own agenda and investigate and observe yourself. Don't just accept government facts and figures. See if what they say actually conforms with your real world view.
If you see with your own eyes or through the lens of someone who's actually there, then give that more credence than someone sitting in a studio.
If you start off with the assumption that all news has been corrupted by the messengers ideology and then work backwards, you'll eventually get to the truth.