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Spin Doctor
Supreme tranceaddict

Registered: Jul 2001
Location: Outside Over There
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Re: United Kingdom - Big Issues
I’ll keep my comments brief to knock though them, though we can always take a more detailed approach if the mood takes anyone! 
1) That’s the result of playing second fiddle to US foreign policy for so long. We are no longer a sovereign, independent power, simply a US colony in Europe under a false self image.
2) That’s down to the way food is sold to us. We’ve all seen the kinds of adds they show during kids TV. They only advertise high sugar, high salt, high fat foods. Add to this that in general, the healthy choices are invariably the more expensive ones too.
3) Drinking is one of the few point on this list where I will actually admit that we as citizens are predominantly to blame. It’s all down to our culture. For centuries, British culture has been an alcohol culture. The only to change that is to try and change deeply ingrained norms and values, not an easy task.
4) The country IS NOT as over run with asylum seekers as it would first seem. Don’t believe a word the Daily Mail tells you. Every developed country which affluent has large numbers of asylum seekers, it’s just the media in this country which plays it up, trying to convince us its worse here than elsewhere.
5) Influence of American culture, a general trend to show things which are more violent images in the films/tv etc. without the proper context and insufficient controls on who can own a gun/punishment form breaking said rules.
6) That’s down to inefficient use of monies.
7) Oh well, what do you expect from years of underinvestment.
8) The reason why housing prices are sky rocketing is simply because not enough affordable houses are built. Nearly everywhere that gets developed is tuned into executive flats or some such unattainably expensive property for first time buyers. Then, because of a shortage in the market of cheap housing, their prices go up too. So, to push housing costs down, more affordable housing needs to be built.
9) I think that’s obscene. Yes, graduates will tend to earn more non-graduates, but they will also pay more take because of this! I think everyone agrees that universities, and education is underfunded in general. If the government wants to give them more money, how about a reduction in the number of tax breaks it gives to businesses.
10) That’s because loans are SO ridiculously easy to get (not to mention the horrific interest rates that come with them). Have you seen daytime TV on sky? It’s a personal finance add, followed by two personal claim adds, an trailer for a show later on the same channel then more personal finance adds.
11) Education, education education. I’ve not long been out of school, but even in my time Sex education was crap.
12) Not enough jobs to go around.
13) See 6), 8) and I guess 12) too.
14) See 14)
15) That’s because there are TOO MANY CARS ON THE ROAD. The answer to this is not to just build more roads, but to encourage use of public transport (which unquestionably had suffered from privatisation) and put in place carpool schemes, or incentives to walk/cycle to work (if possible)
16) Rant over. Good thread btw. 
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Apr-11-2004 05:22
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Streakfury
Angrily Running Naked

Registered: Mar 2002
Location: 11th Dimension
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| quote: | Originally posted by Diehard_clubber
Britain in reality is a very cosy place to live... |
Which is precisely why there are so many asylum seekers wanting to come over here. I'm not in any way racist, but the increase in the problems mentioned above can be greatly reduced if it was made much harder to be granted citizenship (term??).
If I were to implement a plan for reducing the number of asylum seekers, there are a few things that I would do. Each person wishing to live in the UK must have:
- An education equal to or above the national UK average for a person of their age.
- Already found a long term residence.
- Already be guarunteed long term employment.
- Been inoculated against every virus and disease that a person in the UK has.
- No previous criminal record, involving either petty crimes such as theft, or more serious crimes such as terrorism acts.
Only if these conditions have been met would they be allowed to live in Britain. That way, they wouldn't depend on government handouts, free council housing and doll money. I personally think that if the government doesn't have to give that amount of support to people, they could concentrate much more on solving the increasing problems in the UK such as crime, homelessness, drug use, and the state of the NHS.
There are obviously many arguments to actions such as those, but something really has to be done, because things won't get better on their own.
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Apr-13-2004 15:48
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Izzy
Virtue & Vice

Registered: Apr 2001
Location: TX TA #5
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| quote: | Originally posted by Vesa
Well, Finland used to have the Soviet Union as a neighbour, which makes our current situation understandable. For 50 years, kissing up to the big brother was the only lesson our politicians needed to learn.
Public education was intended to teach obedience and to appease special interest groups (church, minorities, Leftist culture establishment, etc). Everyone got the same brainwashing at school, and thereby learned to play nicely with other people. But kids' entrepreneur instincts were left undeveloped, thus bringing up successive generations who can't look at things from a business perspective. For them, it's hard to even imagine that some organizations could contemplate abusing the asylum system for business purposes.
During the Cold War, politicians were used to having big static rivals. Today they are helpless against small, dynamic, non-state actors such as special interest groups and criminal organizations.
Diplomacy, international laws and general empathy were sensible policies in the 1900's to keep peace with other countries. In the relatively static societies of last century, individual freedoms helped to keep ordinary people happy. But these policies are outdated in the current situation where the state needs to be able to quickly crack down on destructive organizations.
On paper, Social Democracy may look like nice and enticing politics. Just look at how well Scandinavia succeeded in the 1900's when the reality happened to partly match the premises of Social Democracy. In the first half of the 20th century, Finnish Social Democrats were tolerable, and made many improvements in our society. Unfortunately, 1970's changed Social Democrats completely. The post-Cold-War-era New Labour indeed seems to mix the high ideals of Leftist counterculture with some of the more dubious Tory policies, resulting in a toothless hybrid.
By its nature, Conservative Realism is more robust than Social Democracy. When kids are taught that competition and unfair advantage drive human behaviour, they grow up into adults who won't leave so many loopholes in the system.
Illegal guns, substance abuse, human trafficking and chaotic immigration are on the rise because some organizations financially benefit from them. If they were stopped at once with special countermeasures, society would keep healthy with only minor limitations to individual freedoms. A temporary halt of all flawed systems, thorough reviews and cautious restarts would enable fine-tuning the systems to a maintainable level. But Social Democrats are stubbornly pressing on with their outdated ideals, leading to increasingly flawed systems. |
i agree. at this day in age the world is so interconnected economically that those same effects you talk about would definetly take hold in places with little experience to combat them... luckly education (as you stated) is a great way to start and using the experiences of more successful nations could pave the way forward for finland.
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If God is the answer, it must have been a very stupid question.
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Apr-14-2004 00:36
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Yoepus
Neo-condimist

Registered: Jan 2002
Location: Ketchup fields, Texas
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| quote: | Originally posted by torontotrance
Join Canada in the Countries with NOT BRIGHT FUTURES....still better than the USA. |
Apparently someone hasn't been keeping in top of their annual UN Human Development reports
The US is very promising, aside from the growing debt (debt shmet), I likey
Cheap education, taxes you can evade.. err avoid, good roads, good health, good tv, low unemployment, healthy growing economy, I likey
I mess the old neo-con anaylst vesa! Somebody has converted him to an Finish politican
Keep it up Vesa... if you need a hawk in your government lemme know I'm sure your little special interest party can do the immigration papers for me, right?
___________________
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Apr-14-2004 00:38
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