Iraq

passout

GavH wrote:

passout wrote:

Disagree with the above - the military are not taken for granted in this country by politicians or the general population. There are few countries (especially outside of Europe and the Commonwealth) who remember their war dead like the Brits do. We take poppy day very seriosly in the UK.

I lived in a Japanese city for 3 years where there was no war memorial and no popular day of rememberance. With the exception of a handful of peace parks (Horoshima for example) the war dead not remebered. Ok, it's a different culture and it is more complicated than that BUT it does underline the fact that very few people remember the war dead like the Brits. I think it is linked to our national identity myself - quite unlike Japan.

That said some wars are remerbered more than others. How often do you hear about the dead from the Boer War - where the Brits invented the concentration camp...? Popular history is selective. I wander if the Iraq war dead will remebered in a hundreds years, when the Tommies and Harry Patch will still be remembered?

It's all very well saying lets support or lads and lassies but I think that is rather obvious and over jingoistic (very Daily Mail) and it doesn't help. My brother in law is in Afgahanistan now and he knows that they cannot win, and that lives are been wasted. My brother in law doesn't want your support - he's too busy! He would rather that political/popullar pressure had been even greater and that the government had listened in the first place. If you are against this action, and especially Iraq, then just say that you oppose - stop sitting on the fence by talking about our 'lads and lasses' (which sounds patronising anyway). Make a choice and stick to it. Just to clarify, I am not against the miltary (as people) - just miulitary intervention more generally. And I do wear a poppy - largely because of the loss of family members in previous generations.

Wear you poppy with pride (sure) but don't support or even lay off criticising a morally bankrupt military action.

Your post is highly contradictory. Support our troops who have died by wearing a poppy once a year, but don't support them if you don't agree with the war they are engaged in? That seems to be the thrust of your post. The soldiers themselves, even the VERY senior ones do not choose which wars we fight, the government does that for us. So, rather than worry about being patronising why not just support the people who are doing a job rather than throw that sacrifice in their face. As Jack Nicholsons character in A Few Good Men said, "I'd just rather you said thank you and went on your way."

Wasn't he nuts and guilty of manslaughter? I'd rather take Tom Cruises approach myself.

ride_whenever

On voting and consent, if you do not believe that any candidate is worth your vote, then you should take the time to spoil your ballot paper and vote in that fashion. That leaves it in no doubt that you do not believe that any candidate is suitable.

I think some system of negative voting would be best, ie you have three votes for parties and one negative. Then you can vote for some parties and actively vote against another. It would work well with only three main parties, but the issue would come from the smaller parties, like the greens and BNP.

On the rest of the thread:

The troops should be supported regardless once conflict begins, protestation is only relevant beforehand .

As for the totalitarian regime side of things, try searching wikipedia for Godwin's Law.

SpinningJenny

passout - I can't think of a single member of the military that doesn't want/need our support. Without it, all the charities that pick up the pieces afterwards wouldn't be able to do so and those left maimed, surviving families of dead soldiers etc would be in a lot worse a situation than they currently are. MoD support and aftercare has been reduced to almost non-existent levels in recent years.

I didn't agree with the Iraq campaign, I protested but I still wore and will continue to wear my poppy. The soldiers do not make the choice on where to go.

By the way, I've never read the Daily Mail in my life.

passout

You are talking about the minority of soldiers who get wounded or forgotten about in some way but I agree that they do need support regardless of the campaign. I certainly support any campaign that helps soldiers/old soldiers. The two people I know in the military, really don't need or crave such support. The military actually does a pretty good job of supporting them. I certainly don't claim that they represent the whole of the military by the way.

I guess what I mean is that support for our 'lads and lasses' often can mute protest against military action (especially by those who aren't very political) when it shouldn't. Clearly most of you guys are aware and probably well educated (or self educated) but generall support for the military can be counter productive in my view. For many (think Daily Mail readers) there is a thin line between support for the military and jingoism. Also are we talking unconditional support? What about Individaul Britisg soldiers beating up civilians in Iraq, war crimes, widespread use of torture by the US fit into ths?

Just to clarify, Iraq was and is wrong and some of the behaviour of a minority of allied soldiers was wrong too. I support the wounded and killed victims of this military campaign (including the british ones) but not the campaign itself.

finchy

teagar wrote:

Consent has, at least in the work I have read and written myself, has often been distinguished between tacit and active consent. Active consent would be something like voting in a refurendum, or attending a supporting rally. Tacit is not doing anything to stop the action.

Since you went to anti-war rallies you'd be opposing the action.

I think it's safe to say that with governance, if there is little resistance to any particular, you can assume people don't mind/agree with it. Your mention of Vietnam conscription illustrates the point. People were particularly unhappy with conscription and so there were more people showing active opposition.

By not doing anything to oppose a policy or action you are letting it carry on regardless, which, in practice, amounts to consent.

You may personally object to it but that is pretty irrelevant unless that objection turns into an action in some form or another. What happens inside your head and what you say privately does not have an affect on society, untill it forms a public action, such as, say, voting, or attending a rally, rioting, or convincing others to support active resistance.

Hence the tacit support for Iraq.

What you're putting forward though is, no offence intended, an "ivory towers" argument. :roll: Can't believe I've said that. I'll be reading Tom Clancy novels next.
The idea that people don't actively oppose a policy because they agree with/don't mind it ignores other factors. I've met very, very few people that agree with the war in Iraq, but most of them didn't protest against it because they just feel that the government would completely ignore them, in favour of the interests of the oil companies. There is a big difference between people feeling disenfranchised and people giving tacit consent.

Today there is also the issue of the state taking an ever harder line against protest - for example, arresting peaceful demonstrators using anti-terrorist laws or beating innocent people, which may scare people away from demonstrations.

Sad but true - if you had children, would you risk being smashed over the head with a truncheon, however much you hate government policy?

teagar wrote:

You even said it yourself. When you were unsure about whether Iraq should stop you stopped resisting the policy, so thereby letting it continue...

I didn't stop resisting the policy. The policy I resisted was an invasion one, once the invasion had finished, my protests were no longer valid.

teagar wrote:

It's not practical for governance to have to find active consent. Nothing would get done.

They get things done in countries where referenda are often carried out, and any other form of democratic decision making (e.g workers' cooperativism). Like I've said, I'm a big believer in democracy, and extending it as far as possible. Assuming (tacit) consent is a great get-out because it allows governments to say that they don't need to do anything to try and represent the wishes of the people, because there isn't enough resistance.

That said, I do agree that the argument of tacit consent has some merit in certain contexts, I just don't think that it can be applied as a blanket rule.

teagar

I think you're too idealistic rather than me being in an ivory tower!

You may not like or agree with the way governance is, but that is how consent and power work together in a large scale democracy. It's not being academic. It's a solid analysis of how it works in practice.

What you think is of little interest to the government, despite what you believe. It's what you do, or what you at least might do that they're interested in. Saying you're opposed to the war to someone else means sweet f*ck all in a democracy. Doing something about it, like voting, or campaigning, or organising/participating in active protest does.


Your examples of constant referenda or other democratic participation don't work very efficiently on a scale as large as the UK.

It takes a lot of time, effort, and money, (which everybody moans about is wasted anyway), just to canvas an opinion. Working on policy rather than campaigning for a policy is likely to, in the long term, yield more effective and productive results.

Elections every 5 years work enough.

Labour managed to win the election post-invasion anyway.


By all means, you can think it's not the way it should be! But that's largely how I see it, and how I think most people who know about it see it.

I actually wrote a piece of work on the role of consent in 18th century republics, where many philosophers there argued similarly to you. Unfortunately (for you), the practical outcome is the system we by and large have today.

finchy

teagar wrote:

I think you're too idealistic rather than me being in an ivory tower!

I don't think that you live in an ivory tower. It's just the argument that if people really cared they'd do something about it - well, to be honest it's good for students and academics (that's not an insult BTW, I studied politics at uni), but in the "real world" it turns out to be a fairly simplistic argument.

teagar wrote:

You may not like or agree with the way governance is, but that is how consent and power work together in a large scale democracy. It's not being academic. It's a solid analysis of how it works in practice.

For now. But look how much the world has changed in the past. Neither you nor I know how the world will be run in 100 years or so.

teagar wrote:

What you think is of little interest to the government, despite what you believe. It's what you do, or what you at least might do that they're interested in. Saying you're opposed to the war to someone else means sweet f*ck all in a democracy. Doing something about it, like voting, or campaigning, or organising/participating in active protest does.

I agree. I never claimed that what I think is of any interest to the government, did I? I know that for the people to gain any more power in the system will mean standing up to fight for it. I also know that at this point, this won't happen in the UK. The vast majority of people have a very comfortable life here (thanks very much, Chinese workers!), and won't want to make any changes. Whether this will stay the case in the future, when we are faced with rising oil, food, transport and commodity prices is something we will have to wait to see.

teagar wrote:

Your examples of constant referenda or other democratic participation don't work very efficiently on a scale as large as the UK.

It takes a lot of time, effort, and money, (which everybody moans about is wasted anyway), just to canvas an opinion. Working on policy rather than campaigning for a policy is likely to, in the long term, yield more effective and productive results.

If the people had voted on the Iraq war, how much time, effort and money (and lives) would have been saved? Enough to cover a decade worth of referenda, I'd bet.

I'd also argue that if policies were properly debated in public, a well-informed demos could evolve, whereas costly vested interests more than outweigh any potential losses from referenda.

teagar wrote:

Elections every 5 years work enough.

Labour managed to win the election post-invasion anyway.

Both main parties supported the war, the first-past-the-post system helps to prevent smaller parties being able to muscle in and grab votes - people are too scared of "wasting their vote", so will plump for what they see as the lesser of two evils. They will also vote for the (big) party nearest to their own general philosophy. I knew Labour members who demonstrated against the war, but remained members of the party, and voted Labour, not because they consented to the war, but because they believe in an organised working class party. :?

teagar wrote:

By all means, you can think it's not the way it should be! But that's largely how I see it, and how I think most people who know about it see it.

I actually wrote a piece of work on the role of consent in 18th century republics, where many philosophers there argued similarly to you. Unfortunately (for you), the practical outcome is the system we by and large have today.

I think that the system we have now is infinitely preferable to the ones we've had in the past, but to say that we have arrived at a certain point today, therefore that is how the world must necessarily remain could have been said at any point in the past. So, we might go back to the 15th century and say that because we have feudalism now, that's the only practical way of doing things.

Let's come back to this in a few centuries time, then we'll know who was right and who was wrong. Or maybe we'll both be right, and the world will have different types of democracies - some delegative, some direct, some representative. For now, though, I'm happy to agree to disagree. Mainly because I agree with you that talking means f**k all, and I'm going to go and do something constructive now. It's a long time since I've taken part in an Amnesty International campaign, and maybe that would be a better use of my time than taking part in a lengthy discussion of politics on a cycling forum!

Just out of interest, are you politically involved in any causes?

teagar

I'm not involved in any political causes.

I tacitly support everything the government does .


I have (as you might have gathered elsewhere) quite extreme views on; dealing with Africa, both politically, and in the way the West writes and conceptualises it (and to a lesser extent anything non-Western), and on Immigration.

I would be tempted support an open boarders immigration pressure group if I found one that didn't use illegal or aggrovating means to demonstrate their view.

finchy

teagar wrote:

I'm not involved in any political causes.

I tacitly support everything the government does .


I have (as you might have gathered elsewhere) quite extreme views on; dealing with Africa, both politically, and in the way the West writes and conceptualises it (and to a lesser extent anything non-Western), and on Immigration.

I would be tempted support an open boarders immigration pressure group if I found one that didn't use illegal or aggrovating means to demonstrate their view.

No, sorry, haven't seen your views on Africa, have only seen your views on not making unfair judgements on Muslims.

So how do you see how the West writes and conceptualises Africa?

teagar

Err, best discuss that elsewhere.

Have a look at the Duffield put out to pasture thread for an idea... And why I won't be discussing it here...

Edit: I did get pretty carried away there... I'd only just got to grips with a head expanding concept which really affected the way I view the world and politics...

I've since written a dissertation using the theory... And can explain it more simply...

In fact, I've changed my opinions a bit since then! But you'll understand at least why I won't be discussing it!

finchy

teagar wrote:

Err, best discuss that elsewhere.

Have a look at the Duffield put out to pasture thread for an idea... And why I won't be discussing it here...

Edit: I did get pretty carried away there... I'd only just got to grips with a head expanding concept which really affected the way I view the world and politics...

I've since written a dissertation using the theory... And can explain it more simply...

In fact, I've changed my opinions a bit since then! But you'll understand at least why I won't be discussing it!

OK, having looked at the thread I can understand why you don't want to get into this. I'm with you on the problems of "us and them" mentality. Completely destructive and lacking in any sort of logic, but then I guess that's not the point when these sorts of ideas are being fostered.

Well, I've just been campaigning over the 'Net. To be honest, I probably wouldn't have got onto that if I hadn't been spurred on by your posts (that and watching a film called "Fateless" last night.

Anyway, off to bed. Good night all.

markwalker

teagar wrote:

Abuse towards anyone shouldn't be tolerated.

Why not extend the thoughts to everyone involved? Not just soldiers from the same Island you live on? Or at the very least, UK soldiers and the people they killed/hurt?

I doubt they were particularly happy about being involved in a war in Iraq either...

teagar, am i to believe from that statement that you put some blame for civilian or military iraqui casualties at the hands of the UK Soldiers? Yes they might have pulled the trigger but they were put there to do it by politicans.

No person in their right mind would welcome war but thats what it was and that means harming people and in that sense once a decisions been made its not only toerated, its activley encouraged (albeit in a targetted way and pref not involving non combatants).
Given they try very hard and are good at what they do id rather kill a million of them than one of me.


Help For Heros is one of the few charities i support but its a travesty that its needed. As for Selly Oak a disgrace.

teagar

markwalker wrote:

teagar wrote:

Abuse towards anyone shouldn't be tolerated.

Why not extend the thoughts to everyone involved? Not just soldiers from the same Island you live on? Or at the very least, UK soldiers and the people they killed/hurt?

I doubt they were particularly happy about being involved in a war in Iraq either...

teagar, am i to believe from that statement that you put some blame for civilian or military iraqui casualties at the hands of the UK Soldiers?
.

I never said anything of the sort!

If they (the locals) died in the conflict too they should also be remembered no? I doubt they were particularly keen on fighting in Iraq or being involved in a war either! I wasn't making a judgement on who is responsible and who wasn't. Presumably if you're a soldier in war you inevitably might have to kill or hurt someone. It serves the same purpose to remember those too, as well as the UK soldiers who were hurt or killed. They're people too!

Starwasp

A very interesting set of posts, particularly the concept of 'passive consent' versus ignorance.

I am in the camp that says if someone can't be arsed enough to vote, then they are too stupid for their views to be important anyway!

Put another way, I have always voted, even when I knew my vote was wasted because I always felt that I would be constrained in bitterly complaining about things after the event if I hadn't participated!

guilliano

And if you don't agree with any of the parties? Why validate one that you believe won't win by wasting a vote on them? If there was an option of "none of the above" I'm sure there would be less voter apathy.

The government are there to represent the people and they don't do that. They see themselves as infallible and refuse to answer any straight question put to them...... today's PM question time was a case in point

Starwasp

A poster earlier suggesting spoiling your ballot paper, which has the benefit of 'registering' a lack of support or 'a plague on both their houses'. Effectively it is the 'none of the above' option.

The smart-arse answer is that if none of the parties represent your views, start your own party. If you do not get any support, then you have to accept that your views are minority ones. Look at George Galloway, or UKIP.

I also despair of the way politicians refuse to give straight answers, but I do have sympathy for their hesitancy to do so given the ridiculously hysterical response by the media to anything that looks like a straight answer.

Interestingly, you will note that very few senior business people allow themselves to be interviewed by the media, because they don't have to, and it is nearly always destructive. Politicians don't have this luxury.

teagar

guilliano wrote:

And if you don't agree with any of the parties? Why validate one that you believe won't win by wasting a vote on them? If there was an option of "none of the above" I'm sure there would be less voter apathy.

The government are there to represent the people and they don't do that. They see themselves as infallible and refuse to answer any straight question put to them...... today's PM question time was a case in point

Voter apathy is just as much of a problem in countries with proportional representation, which is a system which makes it quite easy for a lot of parties to exist succesfully.

passout

I think that voter apathy is understandable because there is such little difference between the major parties - in England anyway. I think that party politics is just reflecting changes in society - we are all moving to the centre (or slightly left of centre) as we merge into the 'muddle classes'.

I do vote but only because I feel I should, not because that I think for a minute that it will change anything. Surely that's the problem, rather than the 'aren't non-voters stupid' argument?

Anonymous

I went to Iraq, wasn't very nice. Bring back the troops from Afghanistan now and use the money to step up border control and observation. No-one has ever won in Afghanistan in recent times, they are hard Bastards, let them to their own country and us to ours.