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Jun 08, 2009 12:10

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figg June 8 2009, 21:06:55 UTC
"We're in the process of a swing back towards conservative"

I dunno, with new labour polling for what policies get votes I assumed we lived under a rebranded conservative goverment.

That and clause 4.

I think it is naive to suggest there is a swing back as it implies some sort of left wing swing in the first place.

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wrong1 June 8 2009, 23:21:26 UTC
Conservative is the name of the opposing party just.
I don;t for one moment mean that we're about to get more right wing, just that we're effectively switching to the cool side of the pillow again.

Actually, that might just be the best mother-fucking analogy of the 2 party system ever.

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hughe June 9 2009, 00:37:52 UTC
agreed.

*turns over pillow*

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wrong1 June 8 2009, 23:27:02 UTC
Not as much as hype would have people think. Gaussian distribution will always ensure that society ends up stratified. Also, if everyone was well educated, who would do the menial jobs? I think going back to free university and grants would ensure that bright kids weren't deterred from pushing to go all the way. The government clearly has the money, as it proved by bailing out loads of squinnying companies who should have been left to go bust, leaving space for new businesses to spring up.

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wrong1 June 8 2009, 23:37:10 UTC
Also, you will always have inconsistent standards as people are not homogenous. The government tried to homogenise education with grid lined curriculum, but all that has done is to hobble good teachers by telling them what to teach, and enable poor teachers to be lazy.

It's a tricky issue.

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Get the pro-vote from me. anonymous June 8 2009, 21:36:27 UTC
*thumbs up*

Probably not the same article you're thinking of since it doesn't mention "gifts", but even on a basic salary + expenses they're laughing all the way to the bank: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8072031.stm

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Re: Get the pro-vote from me. anonymous June 8 2009, 21:37:16 UTC
(tcb/yaz/etc via deathbwoi)

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Re: Get the pro-vote from me. wrong1 June 8 2009, 23:32:09 UTC
Hmmm.
As a scientist, I'm trained to spot biasing of results and that graph is horribly biased.
The limit of the x axis is just a little more than the top figure they plot for MP salary plus expenses. Might have been better to also have doctors or at least one other third party on there to drag the scope to the right a bit, as that makes it look like MPs get paid the most out of everyone.

To be honest, I'd rather MPs were paid well, as it would reduce the incentive for them to accept outside money from businesses.

Another law then would be that if you accept a job in government, you are paid well, but can not accept any other income, and of course monetary gifts must all be scrutinised and sources open to complete scrutiny.

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mechanicaljack June 9 2009, 03:10:48 UTC
Found you via Scott ( ... )

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p.s. mechanicaljack June 9 2009, 03:13:50 UTC
I think a way to sum it up is:

We don't live in a Democratic society, we live in a Capitalist society.

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Re: p.s. wrong1 June 9 2009, 12:03:38 UTC
Money is the invention which allowed control.
Without money, people only own their labour.
With money, you can concentrate the labour of others and accumulate the product for yourself.

The most humiliating thing about the system is that we all should be grateful that we're being allowed to do this, hence our obsession with keeping the economy ticking over.

In contrast, hunter gatherers work on average about 4 hours per day - the rest is spent on social activity, play, resting and teaching.

I'm not saying we should revert, just that the system kicked off by agriculture could use scaling back a bit, or better yet, modernising in a way that doesn't come riddled with the flaws of the feudal system as boom and bust has replaced the cycle of oppression/revolution - it's still a heaving pile of someone else's bad man manure.

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wrong1 June 9 2009, 12:04:38 UTC
Democracy gives a huge percentage of the vote to the Sun.
Ergo, it's not even democracy anyway.

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mechanicaljack June 9 2009, 19:20:07 UTC
He's 2 for 2 with analogies now:

The sun and pillows. It sounds so relaxing when you only mention the analogies and don't give any context for what they're an analogy of.

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