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anonymous

Funding for your news web site idea -Worldwide - 0 views

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    This is interesting... Without this group's bookmark sharing, I'd have never come across this news. Thanks for sharing. Any good idea for Open Democracy and/or Diigo :-) Best, Maggie
tony curzon price

Chicago Reader | Defending Strauss: University of Chicago philosophy prof Leo Strauss h... - 0 views

  • “Strauss’s interpretation of Plato is wrong from beginning to end,” Burnyeat argued. “There is much talk in Straussian writings about the nature of ‘the philosopher’ but no sign of any knowledge, from the inside, of what it is to be actively involved in philosophy.”
    • tony curzon price
       
      Burenat's view of Strauss
  • Strauss said, political philosophy is good for something: “If for no other purpose, at least in order to defend a reasonable policy against overgenerous or utopian thought, we would need a genuine political philosophy reminding us of the limits set to all human hopes and wishes.”
    • tony curzon price
       
      Strauss in a good light on politics
  • “I was certainly struck by how very skeptical he was for the prospects of establishing democracy in Germany,” Tarcov says. In “Re-education,” Strauss doubted that a just government in Germany could be constructed after the war, at least not if the effort were left to the Allies. “A form of government which is merely imposed by a victorious enemy will not last,” Strauss predicted. “Only Germans, only Germans who remained in Germany and shared all the misery of Nazi rule and of defeat, can do it. Only they will be able to speak a language understandable to post-Hitlerian Germany.”
tony curzon price

Britain's future: Labour candidates respond | openDemocracy - 0 views

  • Britain’s future: Labour candidates’s view
    • tony curzon price
       
      Anthony - nice to see this was picked up by the observer - see: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/constitution/story/0,,2099735,00.html
    • Anthony Barnett
       
      Yes, they wanted exclusive first right and I gave it them. What you can see in the paper edition but not on the web, it that they put the story at the top of the page on the right hand column. Positioning is much more than half the story in a newspaper. Its layout tells people what to read. Is it the same onthe web?
  • I am agnostic on the need for a written constitution, because of the power it hands to the judges.
  • so I let's have a national debate.
    • tony curzon price
       
      "let's have a national debate" ... this seems to be a today-program, motherhood-apple-pie mantra. what is this national debate? where is it to be had? on radio4?
    • tony curzon price
       
      see Cruddas below - getting a bit more specific on what a "national debate" might mean
    • Anthony Barnett
       
      Benn's remark is rhetoric. Harmann above has thought about the need for mechanisms for ensuring public respect. The issue is a defining one. A wonderful constitution produced from Brown's inside pocket will be scorned as the gimmick of a 'Scot'. A less well worded one that emerges from a South African style process which people feel they 'own' could initiate a democratic process. What matters is not that it is written but how it is written!
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • It needs to be relevant to the man or woman in the street as a way of restoring trust in politics.
    • tony curzon price
       
      is the constitution being asked to do too much. the mistrust of politics has many sources; the real powerlessness of national governments over many of the areas they pretend to rule is one. there is a whole process of resetting expectations that a consittuional convention is unlikely to do. in fact, there is the risk that a constitution will raise hopes that _it_ cannot fulfill, and contribute to the mistrust.
  • Gordon Brown has spoken of the need to empower communities at a local level. Should the decentralization of power and money to local authorities form part of any new ‘constitutional settlement’?
    • tony curzon price
       
      not one of the candidates raises the BIG RED FLAG of localism: how do you continue to operate redistributive policies when income, wealth and opportunity differences are geographical?
  • evise but not block
    • tony curzon price
       
      I wonder what "revise but not block" actually means ... if you can revise a piece of legislation out of all shape, that is tantamount to blocking, no? and once the body is elected, does equal legitimacy not entail equal power?
  • We need a public debate
    • tony curzon price
       
      another public debate ... see above. again - who with? how? and what is the outcome of a "public debate" worth looking at this article: http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-edemocracy/idcard_2537.jsp by sara forsstrom, about the Swedish database ... that goes back to the 17th century. Trustworthy states can have databases; so how do we make the state trustworthy? maybe exchanging access to our personal information with access to its private information?
Dripa B

Civil Disobedience | Henry David Thoreau (1849) - 0 views

  • "I am too high-born to be propertied, To be a secondary at control, Or useful serving-man and instrument To any sovereign state throughout the world." [William Shakespeare King John]
  • All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.
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    This text is sometimes presented under the title On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. Its original title is Resistance to Civil Government.
James Camry

The Lesser of Two Evils & Mid Term Elections - 0 views

  • Here’s the real question we need to ask these people. We live in America, so why do we have to vote for evil, period? Why is evil the only option on the ballot? What’s the point of democracy if it means rule by the people, represented by evil. The reason evil is the only option is because somewhere in our country’s history, the political elite decided that the masses are holistically retarded, and all voting issues should be limited to a color-coded choice between red and blue.
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    This article really rang true with me
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