Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83 (MC840302); site erix.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!mcvax!enea!erix!mike From: mike@erix.UUCP (Mike Williams) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Re: Euromissiles in Belgium Message-ID: <731@erix.UUCP> Date: Fri, 1-Feb-85 08:20:48 EST Article-I.D.: erix.731 Posted: Fri Feb 1 08:20:48 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 9-Feb-85 06:00:58 EST References: <229@usl.UUCP> <511@fisher.UUCP> <435@mcvax.UUCP> Reply-To: mike@erix.UUCP (Mike Williams) Distribution: net Organization: L M Ericsson, Stockholm, Sweden Lines: 30 Summary: In article <435@mcvax.UUCP> piet@mcvax.UUCP (Piet Beertema) writes: >And who is going to decide whether or not something is morally wrong >or patently stupid. Fortunately we don't have a dictator here to decide >that for us. Is abortion morally wrong? A majority of people here don't >think so. Is deploying cruise missiles in Europa patently stupid? Lots >of people think so, yes, because it can threaten our very existence. > >So what is "national interest"? That's the interest of the *people*, not >of those that happen to "rule" a country. I agree. When the man on the feels that his views are taken into consideration by the people in power, he will start thinking realistically about important issues. When he knows that his views are largly disregarded by the politians in power, is it small wonder that he is liable to have extremist opinions (eg "nuke Iran" or "shoot all drug addicts" etc etc). Nor is it very suprising that many people - especially the really disregarded such as the unemployed - don't bother to vote. Perhaps the worse voting figures are in the countries with really undemocratic electoral systems, such as in the USA or Britain. I suspect that the situation is better in countries with proportional representation. (Proportional representation means that if a party gets X% of the TOTAL electoral vote in a national parliament (or whatever it is called) then it get X% of the seats) Mike Williams