Parliamentary representatives are pretty much bound to vote in lockstep with their political party's platform, though they can try to change their colleagues' minds. The representatives know that platform in detail when they stand for election, and so does the electorate. If new policy is voted in the party room, the opportunity to dissent comes there. In the last analysis, if legislation offends the representative's conscience, they can "cross the floor" to vote against their own party. That's rare, though, and it would cause pretty much automatic expulsion from the party.
What keeps them from being yes-men? The fact that they represent a specific electorate, and it is the voters who elect, not the party. But more, it is that the party has - and must have - a coherent set of policies that it has been elected on. To elect that party to government is to select those policies over other policies, and the electorate knows that. Therefore, those are the policies that should be implemented. Representatives are entitled to their own opinions, but are not entitled to vote against the policies they were elected on.
Better that than to hope that those individuals who have been elected, each with his or her own set of opinions and policy preferences, can manage to reach some sort of compromise between them on the day. There might well be gridlock, or the result be self-contradictory or incoherent. Above all, without a party system and party solidarity, the voters never get to vote directly for or against known policy at all. They vote for a candidate with known attitudes, but also in the knowledge that those attitudes will be changed - they don't know by how much or in what direction - by the interaction of the representative and his peers. There is no knowing what bargains might be made, or policy result.
You find the idea of a party system, party solidarity and discipline creepy. I can't say I do, and I don't believe the alternative leads to good government or is more democratic.
Matt McIrvin #10: Our Constitution likewise makes no mention of political parties (nor, actually, of the office of Prime Minister). But are you telling me that Americans, in general, think that political parties shouldn't have clearly defined policies that are generally characteristic of them and different from each other's, policies that are known in advance, and that bind them in office? That this is 'partisanship', and that partisanship is bad? Do you really think that policy in a democracy should arise from the clash of individual views in government, unrestrained by party, which is to say, the need for predictability or even coherence?
God bless my soul. Better yet, may He bless your Union and your nation. Quite clearly He has, so far. I hate to think what would happen if He withdraws what is very plainly His very special favour to you.
I regret that I tried to read "The Algebraist" and find I cannot cope with reading another Banks this century.
I thought that the idea of democracy - as opposed to demagoguery - was that the people direct the policies of the State by their election of those who form the government. No one person elected to office, unless that office is "dictator", can alone direct the State, so it follows that the voters should be voting for the policies of an entire party, published in a single form that the party unites behind, and elaborates under pressure in the election campaign, leaving only nuance, emphasis and detailed interpretation as possible differences between them, plus responses to new issues that may arise.
So why on earth do you have this ridiculous business where the candidates of one political party spend months publicly scarifying each other, magnifying and embittering their differences at the very time when the party should be pulling together?
In many cases the process will exhaust the candidates and make it impossible for them to work together in the coming election, or, if elected, in government. If the election is won, they would be the leading lights of the party of government - if they were not, they shouldn't have been run in the primaries. So at the very least it puts the future chief executive who wishes to use the foremost talents of his party in an impossible position, trying to answer the obvious question, "You said your opponent in the primary was a poor candidate for election on thus-and-so grounds. Why are you now offering this person a senior post in the government?"
A better way to eliminate strong and useful cabinet colleagues I cannot imagine, which is to guarantee mediocrity and the placement of place-holders, wheel horses and yes-men.
And the process necessarily results in the voters gaming the system, as has been advocated here. You want a more liberal set of policies, so you register in the conservative primary and vote for the most revolting of the troglodytes, in the hope that you'll get to vote against him in the actual election.
You Americans are strange.
#100: Dan, you have just put into words my exact impression of Vellum, and I wish I'd said those things when I had to review it. It's one of those books where I greatly admire the writer's skills and the profundity of his discourse, without caring for the result in the slightest. I simply couldn't bring myself to care about any of these people, or be concerned with what happened to them.
Debbie #105 This (I hope this works) doesn't show the raptor forearm - which makes me suspect that it has disappeared into private hands - but it does show a number of others.
#78 Ajay, there were plenty of Australian dinosaurs, including a number of species unknown elsewhere. It's true that few were known until fairly recently, but in the 1990's there were many fossils found at Lightning Ridge and in central Queensland. They included two early dromeosaurs, a somewhat magnified Iguanodon now named Muttaburrasaurus, two smallish sauropods and a number of plesiosaurs and other marine dinosaurs. There's also what looks like a ceratopsian a bit downstream of Proceratops, but the specimen is very incomplete. A spectacular opalised forearm assembly from a large raptor was also recently displayed. The finds so far date mostly from the middle Cretaceous, some earlier.
Epacis #71: Nor did I. Probably both mountains command beautiful vistas, which is probably why people keep recommending to me that I should go there.
Oh, and Carol McDonald #193: Mr Fletcher's little enterprise isn't going to do anything with your manuscript anyway. Being as I am not a lawyer, (nor even a US resident) and I don't know what's in that contract you signed, I can't absolutely guarantee that you can't continue to treat your manuscript as your own property, and simply ignore your unfortunate contact with this fraudster. You may need to consult a lawyer to be certain. Mr Macdonald, a man of much more experience than me, may know more.
Dan M. #197: Nope. This is because "Sherry" doesn't exist. Robert Fletcher now knows that you're on to him, but it doesn't matter a hoot to him. The woods are full of marks, and he's out there, shaking the trees so that they'll fall out.
I have often thought that a registry of Australian place-names would be of use to a writer of science fiction. Not that there's any of them around here, of course.
Good heavens, I come from the land of Yarlarweelor and Grong Grong, from the nation of place names like Widgeemooltha, Borraloola and Coonabarabran. Do you think to impress me with your Woonsocket or your Chepinawoxet? Pfui! I have even heard that the name of the lovely city of Ballarat has occasioned mirth amongst Americans. What cheese, say I.
heresiarch, I accept the apology.
You have already accepted giving advocacy, verbal support, for the more enlightened possible regimes. I agree. I believe more can be done, however.
How about sponsoring education, especially women's education? Scholarships, bursaries, endowment of schools, teaching materials, textbooks in Urdu - and by that I do not mean political tracts, but mathematics and science texts. Classic literature, too, not only translations from English, but texts from other cultures, including those critical of Europe or America. Islam requires that everyone - specifically including women - should get the best education possible, and learning is much respected. Recruit and employ local teachers. Provide something better than the madrassa extremism and rote assimilation of the Koran, and include respectable, but less harsh, less misogynistic, interpretations of Islam. This certainly can be done without offending local custom or religion. Most Pakistanis are not radical, and many - I think a majority - do not despise the west.
A bank with a small-loans speciality that does not infringe on the Islamic prohibition on charging interest - for instance, by acting as a sleeping partner in the businesses it loans money to, with the provision that the loan is redeemable at any time at its original value, and can be paid off in installments, each reducing the bank's share. Western banks aren't used to that, but it can work, and it has been shown to be almost cost-neutral. (Do not make loans conditional on purchasing western goods or services. Do use the status of partner to militate against abhorrent work practices.)
Much could be done with very modest means with travelling health clinics, using locals. Inoculation programs - poliomyelitis is still a killer. Trachoma. Bilharzia.
Do these and similar things, and reach as many people as possible with them, bypassing the government where possible. Making western contact useful and profitable gives everyone a stake in retaining it.
As to the government, anyone who might form it should be aware (I'm sure this is the case already) that the US and other western powers can work with any regime that can provide civil order without wholesale brutality, and acknowledge that those who comprise the government of Pakistan is up to Pakistan alone. Nevertheless, the west cannot be expected to aid regimes whose foreign policy largely consists of making war upon it, or fostering terrorism against it. To the contrary, in fact.
Yes, the first requirement is civil order. Without it, nothing can succeed. The radicals, of course, have every reason to cause as much chaos as possible, but they are still in a minority. It's a dangerous minority, as I remarked above, so the object of policy must be to have them seen as the adversaries of peace and progress - which they are, in all truth. The whole point should be to detach them from most people's interests.
If this is interfering in the domestic affairs of the country, well, so be it.
heresiarch, "pick a winner" means pick a winner. It doesn't mean "pick someone and make them into a winner". To read that meaning into even a single phrase, you needed to distort it and also ignore "(t)here's not much anyone can do about true liberal democracy in Pakistan, especially anyone outside the country" and "hedge your bets by vigilance, being polite to the others, and shifting as necessary". The passage simply doesn't bear the meaning you impute to it. You misrepresent me, and you do it in crudely sarcastic terms that I believe you mean to be insulting. I have nothing further to say to you on the subject.
Xopher, Pakistan's nukes bother me - I can't imagine anyone not being bothered by them - but they're not the only thing that does. The jihadis promise war. Given the history, I take them at their word, and with the further resources of a nation-state like Pakistan they become much more capable of waging it.
Certainly there are other threats. But the accession of an extreme militant regime in Pakistan would be a first-class disaster, and not only for the west. We may not be able to do much about it, but that doesn't mean we should do nothing.
"You're still attached to the idea that we can and should help nudge Pakistan in the direction that best suits us."
Why, yes. Yes I am. And I remain certain that this is an unexceptionable aim of foreign policy, if by "the direction that best suits us" you mean a direction away from a jihadist regime. If you would do me the courtesy of reading what I wrote, you would see that I never advocated anything more than that.
This is my point, since you ask: the foreign policies of any nation are the rightful concern of all nations affected by them. Those of a nuclear power are rightly the concern of the whole world. The jihadis have foreign policies that we do not have the option of ignoring. To put it in your own terms, we can't fuck off. There's nowhere to fuck off to.
And what on earth makes you think that the US government does not interfere in the domestic policies of many nations, including my own?
I said: "There's not much anyone can do about true liberal democracy in Pakistan, especially anyone outside the country."
I was, of course, assuming that most people here would agree that a true liberal democracy would be much the best outcome. That doesn't appear a real possibility, but the same statement applies to any government in Pakistan: there's not much that anyone outside the country can do about it.
I was therefore not in any way implying that we, or anyone outside the country, can "make the decision" for them. But it is one thing to accept this, and quite another to decline to do anything whatsoever to influence the result. The options are narrow, but there is good reason to attempt to realise the best of them, or at least to do what can lawfully and peacefully be done to prevent the worst, which is specifically that the jihadists control Pakistan and Pakistan's nuclear weapons.
The foreign policy of all nations consists entirely and necessarily of trying to influence the decisions of other nations, and there is nothing in the slightest illegitimate about this, so long as the means are legitimate. I am not advocating anything else. And possession of a nuclear arsenal means precisely that Pakistani domestic politics are not only "their" politics, that is, their concern only. They're everyone's concern.
And if their decision (it won't be "their" decision for any reasonable value of "their", but let that pass) is to allow to come to power a leadership that is bound and determined to wipe you and me and anyone else who thinks like us off the face of the planet? Recalling that this leadership would have effective control of a nuclear arsenal?
You don't think we have some right to a say in this? I regret to say that I do not agree with you.
Could someone who served two terms as President of the US later serve as Vice-President?
Just askin'
Benazir Bhutto has already entered Heaven wearing the red martyr's crown. And if you believe that, I have here the title deeds to Karachi, and I can let them go cheap.
She was murdered. Lots of people had motive. Her father was judicially murdered, and there's no doubt who done that. Her husband (Mr Ten Percent) is a crook, but probably no worse a crook than any of the other crooks. Their party, like all the other "democratic" parties in Pakistan, is at best a manifestation of a landowning feudalist oligarchy. It is riotously corrupt, but there are worse things.
Musharref is a slimeball, but it comes with the job. He's a pretty standard military dictator, no worse than the other possibilities, maybe better than some. There are worse outcomes than military dictatorship, too.
The wild card is the jihadis, who are (without sharing their policies) somewhat in the position of the Nazis in the 1933 Reichstag or the Bolsheviks in Kerensky's republic. That is, in a minority, but utterly contemptuous of the institutions they observe, and only waiting their chance to destroy them. That chance may come, if chaos ensues or continues. They can at least guarantee public order. Boy, can they guarantee public order.
There's not much anyone can do about true liberal democracy in Pakistan, especially anyone outside the country. I know it's a cliche, but politics is the art of the possible. Really the only object of Western policy is to prevent the Taliban or equivalent from taking over. Doing nothing only (a) resigns any control over the situation whatsoever and (b) ensures that the eventual winner resents not being supported.
So it comes down to this: pick a winner out of what's available, support that one, and hedge your bets by vigilance, being polite to the others, and shifting as necessary. This, of course, will bring accusations of "supporting dictatorship", no matter which alternative is chosen. Yes. So it will.
I am open to suggestions as to what other courses are available.
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| 2008 | 26 |
| 2007 | 417 |
| 2006 | 348 |
| 2005 | 286 |
| 2004 | 15 |
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