Rob M said:
There is a fair bit of dogma and not a little zealotry in audio and I was picturing one of those southern US towns made notorious in films where instead of wearing dunce caps and burning crosses while formation dancing, they listen to music through NOS TDA154x dacs and chimp amps while crushing delta sigma dacs and burning copies of TAS and Stereophile. At least that way I'd know how to avoid these people.
That is a very interesting link.B.VDBOS said:
I don't know the view people around the world have about hitler, but many people I discussed with, had the wrong impression. if they think he was stupid, idiot... that ain't exactly true. he had really great speeches that mobilized the masses, he was on his own without a lot of stuff written on paper etc. he knew how to manipulate the people. he was kinda smart but evil. read this speech, you will see it.
B.VDBOS said:
Thats fantastic, did you feel utopia after reading that?
Not very original
Here's some more rambling’s you might like
You know you like it 😉
No utopia, I thought I explained my feelings about the article; I guess you would rather be a smart-*** then bother with any form of respectful comments.
Who is not being original, the author of the article? If so please point me to other similar articles that was written before this, I might be interested in them.
Consider the respect thing in the future, it's not that hard, and it might make it easier to understand others, if you actually care to understand.
True...but the father of Apartheid was born in the Netherlands...His ideas on the society he created were born out of his Calvinist roots.
This limiting of movement is still practised in the Netherlands for the lower social classes. You are not entitled to move to another town or city unless you have economic ties...I.e. a job.
I don't see the logic in that. Where does it say that Verwoerd was the perfect representative of calvinism? And why do you seem pinned on linking calvinism to apartheid?Bas Horneman said:
Say what? !
That is the biggest pile of ...nonsense... I've heard so far. Anyone can live anywhere in the Netherlands. As long as they can afford it! (duh...)
I never knew the Netherlands were a constitutional monarchy, at least that's what the CIA hear has them listed as, is this true? According to the same site which has all the stats on many governments they also have a thing for ecstasy, or at least making and distributing it. Learn something new every day, makes me wonder how many euro nation governments are truly controlled by the people.
Here is the site
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/nl.html
Here is the site
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/nl.html
It's true that the Netherlands is a constitutional monarchy, it is a parliamentary democracy as well. The CIA seems not too well informed in this ( no wmds here thank God ). I can't explain it well in english but the queen has reduced power compared to what it once was. We have a parliament with chosen members and parties that run the country. The queen has an advising role in some parts of it.
So I do not understand your last sentence. I am sure a monarchy can be as democratic as a republic despite controversial it may seem. I feel a lot of people here would call our system more "chosen by the people" than the government is in the US. We were well informed of the election counting last elections and had a good laugh about it.
I am sorry to have to admit about the drug thing with the Netherlands. Please do not think we're all producing synthetical drugs wearing our wooden shoes. Because of our liberal system and low punishment towards drugs gangs produce drugs here. It also invites foreign gangs to come over and import/produce here at lower risk. The new government has proposed more strict punishing drug related crime so things might change in the future. Our country is unfortunately misused as a medium for heroin/cocain transports from Surinam/Colombia to a lot of countries just as it is misused as a medium for transporting weaponry from the US to Israel. The drawbacks of being a distribution country in trade in general ( big harbours etc ) that we have to fight if you ask me.
We have a separation between pot and any heavier drugs as pot is more or less legalised. Harddrugs are a no no here according law. We wouldn't be dutch if there would not be a bent in the system. It is no problem to carry, smoke or buy pot in coffee shops as long as it is below a certain amount. Coffee shops can sell soft drugs too without problems. The flaw is that buying it in large amounts ( like coffee shops do ) is illegal. Twisted, I know.
Despite having been criticized by almost every country in the world ( especially France and the USA ) our policy works as we are the only country having a downgoing number of hard-drug addicts ( as opposed to, for instance, France ). Some of the neighbouring countries have learnt that and started to do the same albeit in a less liberal way.
So I do not understand your last sentence. I am sure a monarchy can be as democratic as a republic despite controversial it may seem. I feel a lot of people here would call our system more "chosen by the people" than the government is in the US. We were well informed of the election counting last elections and had a good laugh about it.
I am sorry to have to admit about the drug thing with the Netherlands. Please do not think we're all producing synthetical drugs wearing our wooden shoes. Because of our liberal system and low punishment towards drugs gangs produce drugs here. It also invites foreign gangs to come over and import/produce here at lower risk. The new government has proposed more strict punishing drug related crime so things might change in the future. Our country is unfortunately misused as a medium for heroin/cocain transports from Surinam/Colombia to a lot of countries just as it is misused as a medium for transporting weaponry from the US to Israel. The drawbacks of being a distribution country in trade in general ( big harbours etc ) that we have to fight if you ask me.
We have a separation between pot and any heavier drugs as pot is more or less legalised. Harddrugs are a no no here according law. We wouldn't be dutch if there would not be a bent in the system. It is no problem to carry, smoke or buy pot in coffee shops as long as it is below a certain amount. Coffee shops can sell soft drugs too without problems. The flaw is that buying it in large amounts ( like coffee shops do ) is illegal. Twisted, I know.
Despite having been criticized by almost every country in the world ( especially France and the USA ) our policy works as we are the only country having a downgoing number of hard-drug addicts ( as opposed to, for instance, France ). Some of the neighbouring countries have learnt that and started to do the same albeit in a less liberal way.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaner_Calvinism
http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/jul1986/v43-2-article5.htm
Exerpt from the above link
The outside world frequently has only one explanation for the Afrikaner's life- and world-view and the policy of racial discrimination, namely, Calvinism. It is because they were Calvinists, so the argument goes, that Afrikaners, ever since the founding of a Dutch colony at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652, have regarded themselves as a race apart, a specially chosen people, a latter-day Israel, sent by God to subdue Africa's original inhabitants and to transform the wilderness into a garden. They were, to quote the title of a well-known popular book on the subject, The Puritans in Africa.1 Dutch and French Calvinists, so the theory has it, emigrated to South Africa before the major Calvinist tradition in Europe had relapsed into scholasticism or had begun to adjust to the changing intellectual and social world of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. The "primitive Calvinism" of the early Dutch settlers at the Cape was transmitted essentially unchanged
and
The first person to have suggested that Calvinism was the key to understanding the Afrikaner was, significantly, not somebody from. within their own ranks but the famous missionary-traveller David. Livingstone.3 From 1849 onwards, he was putting forward, in ever clearer terms, the theory that it was the Afrikaners' Calvinism that had. shaped their thinking and policies, particularly toward Blacks. He attacked the Dutch Reformed Church as the ideological fountainhead of.' persistent injustice to Blacks throughout the entire course of Afrikaner history. Since Livingstone, this hypothesis became almost universally accepted as the explanation of the Afrikaner's mentality and actions, first in English liberal circles and subsequently by virtually all non Afrikaner students of Afrikanerdom.
It is one of the ironies of history that, from the late nineteenth century, Afrikaners themselves began to propound the so-called "Calvinist paradigm" as the key to the understanding of their history. But the Afrikaner version of the "Calvinist paradigm'' included an important modification. Whereas English liberal scholars regarded Calvinism as the ogre responsible for the Afrikaners' idea of racial superiority and their policy of subduing Black tribes and oppressing them, Afrikaner scholars of the late nineteenth and twentieth century understood their ancestors as having regarded themselves as God's chosen people who had the duty to subdue the Black tribes in order to civilize and uplift them. Thus, both friend and foe agreed that it was Calvinism that shaped Afrikanerdom; the one, however, wished to prove how bad Calvinism was, the other how good it was.
http://www.kalahari.net/BK/product.asp?sku=26404890&toolbar=mweb
Synopsis of a book on the Arikaner :
In a sense Giliomee’s greatest quarrel is with Hendrik Verwoerd and the radical Nationalist intellectuals who hijacked Afrikanerdom in the 1930s, giving it a new and more exclusive identity and gradually turning it into a cultural and electoral juggernaut. Afrikaner nationalists began to claim that they were the only true South Africans. Not only blacks but even mixed-race Coloureds (whom the Nationalists had earlier wooed) were now placed firmly in the outer darkness. In 1936, Verwoerd was one of a small group of demonstrators against Jewish refugees from Nazism being allowed to enter South Africa. The first issue of Die Transvaler that he edited carried a 4,000-word article by him on “the Jewish question”. This was not Nazi anti-semitism, just a rejection of any and every group that might form an obstacle to Afrikaners. In the same spirit, once the Nationalists came to power in 1948, they cut back hard on immigration by whites, such as southern European Catholics, who were unlikely to fuse easily into Afrikanerdom. The Nationalist intelligentsia devised its own version of Afrikaner history, emphasising Calvinism as a common cultural core and successfully imposing a stereotyped unity and purity. So successful, indeed, that not only was this version of history regurgitated by die volk (the people), but increasingly by foreigners who liked the neatness of the idea of the Afrikaners as a chosen people. Everyone conveniently forgot that even the Afrikaans language — the key, uniting cultural artefact — was actually a Coloured creation.
http://www.ijr.org.za/conference/Giliomee.PDF
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~nurelweb/papers/irving/apart.html
http://www.cumberlandcollege.edu/ac...story_poly_sci/upsilonian/BlakeWilliams91.htm
So in fact you are right in that Verwoerd was the NOT THE ULTIMATE champion of Calvinism...he was more of a Nationalist who mis-used the Calvinists stream....
As you can read it was a Calvinist stream that borne out of Europe but was not "mended" by the growing intellectual influences that appeared in Europe.
jean-paul said:
this is a good example of how sometimes to support peace you have to support war.
By legalizing certain drugs you can effectively reduce durg abuse. Not many people understand that. By supporting war, you will help deter warmongers and in that process you have supported peace.
Officially our Queen is the Head of State, however in practise she only has influence when the government[]i allows her[/i] (this is key). Our Queen does have a keen interest in politics and frequently has meetings with the Prime Minister. Personally, I find it very reassuring that there is someone of a more thoughtful and steady nature with many years of experience as opposed to Prime Ministers with shortterm agenda's who come and go as year pass by. I do realize that this is only possible of this poerson has the skills. Happeily, our Queen is an extremely intelligent and professional lady. It is expected that her oldest son, who is viewed as a 'nice guy' first and for all, will be more of a cerimonial King. He seems to prefer that role as well.
That said, the Netherlands is a democratic country by anyone's standards with elected representatives from many parties.
That said, the Netherlands is a democratic country by anyone's standards with elected representatives from many parties.
jean-paul said:
Well truthfully I wouldn’t know enough about it to say anything confidently, I'll have to lean on your/others depiction of your government system, it's just the word "Monarchy" that paints a picture of a King or Queen, and by past historical accounts it doesn’t seem like a free government.
jean-paul said:
No disparaging remarks meant by my statement, we Americans surly have no right to talk about a drug problem, we have a major one here that seems to be encouraged by at least part of the government.
Now as far as our election count goes, I think many have the wrong idea about the election process hear, it is not the majority, we are a Constitutional Republic, not a true Democracy, although we have very strong Democratic roots and influences. The electoral vote system allows for the rural public to be heard just as loud as the populated cities, and IMO this is more fair then a staunch democracy that only cares about the majority.
Agreed...and though I would rather see the Netherlands with a president (elected by the people..not appointed by the government) I respect the opinion of the majority of people in the Netherland that actually prefer to have a monarchy. Around 60% at low points...and something like 80% currently because of the new elan created mainly by Maxima..
millwood said:
As in most things, there is more than one way to look at things. Looking at the virtually untouched Yugoslav Army pulling out Kosovo, one could conclude that NATO couldn't hit a barn door with a sawn-off from 5 feet. Looking at Iraq and the ongoing problems caused by a very small percentage of the population, one dare not contemplate what would happen if the entire country decided not to play ball.
Far from deterring warmongers one could conclude that the rash and impatient rush to force merely serves to highlight your limitations.
roibm said:
Yes he was a political master mind, after WW1 he worked as a spy for the government,
his job was to attend political meetings and to report on there activities. At those meetings
he would have been able to see what did and didn't work on a crowd and if it was a threat
or help to the government, it was also at these meetings he got his taste for politics and
public speaking
I think the impression that hitler was stupid comes mostly from the foolish military tactics
that cost him the war, he was still trying to psychology crush his enemies when the allies
were using hammer and anval tactics to physically crush the German war machine,
German infrastructure and German people
A V2 terror weapon over London vrs. a thousand heavy bombers over Dresden 😱
Lo and Behold! This is the first post I've seen from you that makes sense AND doesn't get ugly with others persons. I honestly didn't think that was going to happen, ever.millwood said:
Contrary to what you might think is my opinion, I agree with your statement of war to support peace. Still, in the case of Iraq, I feel this war is going to backfire... litteraly. Now, if the UN were on the frontlines from the start instead of the US (and UK), chances are that is would have turned out better than it did now.
Hans L said:
you can feel whatever you want, Handie. That doesn't make those people who disagree with you idiotic or wrong.
it is those, on the other hand, who cannot accept the reality that others can disagree with them and be right at the same time are the true idiots.
count yourself in, Handie.
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