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Ah - offtopic Thursday - what a good time for a political discussion.

”Lenin famously said the masses must believe the system they are living in is one that has evolved - they must never be aware of the thousands of other directions and options open for society to develop in”

So far, most large-scale attempts to engineer a system from scratch (e.g. Communism) have ended in failure. Because the current system has been created by evolution, it's full of many subtleties that we don't fully understand yet somehow work.

@Enzyme re taking name off electoral roll: Back in the early 1990s when people refused to pay the poll-tax, their names were taken off the electoral roll, and they couldn't vote in the 1992 election, which brought in 5 more years of Tory government. Bah!

Re elitist democracy: I think there should be an intelligence test you must pass in order to vote. The trouble is the debate on where to draw the line would go on forever. However, it would in theory still give everyone the opportunity to vote as long as they’re willing to improve themselves. As for what would be in it, the only good question I’ve been able to come up with would be “Describe the difference between foresight and hindsight”. Also, anyone who writes in txt-spk automatically fails.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Thu 29 May 2008, 11:57, Reply)