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Old 06-13-2007, 04:17 AM   #15 (permalink)
gunnut
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gdstark View Post
As you point out, democracy is a sliding scale, not an absolutism. That doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for it. The United States most likely qualifies since it satisfies many of the criteria (freedom of press, representation even if not direct, and so on. And the UK most likely qualifies as well. Old Iraq, clearly no.
And who will be the judge of who qualifies and who doesn't? We first will need an international organization that can pin down the definition of democracy before we can have an organization of democracies.

Quote:
Originally Posted by gdstark View Post
So those are my guesses. But it would be the charter of this new organization to make those determinations. If you can think of a better alternative, let everyone know. Of one thing we can probably agree...what we have now with the UN has been generally a failure...we still have nuclear proliferation, overpopulation, climate and environmental issues, and so on. These are issue that we can't afford to keep letting slide. I'm just throwing one idea into the mix, one that presumes that democracy is the best system available.

gary
We all agree that UN is a failure at policing the world.

My solution is to strip UN of the military power it has and turn it into a world forum and charity organization. All the politicians can still vent their hot air in New York. It still conducts disaster relief and fight diseases around the world. The UN is very effective at those things. Policing the world and enforcing peace it does not.

The like minded nations will still form their blocs like what we have not with NATO and ASEAN and Arab League and African National Congress and blah blah blah. These blocs will conduct trade and police their own regions, which is pretty much we have now. All we're doing is remove the UN from pretending to do anything useful and spend our money.
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