Comments on The Devil's Kitchen: A sinner repenteth?

@jon, The EU is not 'more' functional tha...

2012-01-08T21:56:35.055Z

@jon,

The EU is not 'more' functional than the other supranational organisations you name. What it may be is slightly less dysfunctional than they are. That is they are all wildly dysfunctional and need rapidly shutting down.

NATO has though, worked quite well.

Trying to fix national government by having a supr...

2012-01-06T14:31:17.278Z

Trying to fix national government by having a supranational government is like buying a torch because your lightbulb is broken.

Re local units of government. How about devolving ...

2012-01-06T13:47:22.325Z

Re local units of government. How about devolving power to counties? People still identify themselves with counties (esp. if you regard London as an exceptionally large de-facto county). This in spite of decades of effort of the part of the political elites to stamp them out.

I think that trying to cure the government problem...

2012-01-03T18:33:46.018Z

I think that trying to cure the government problem by varying the degree of democracy in local/national/supranational bodies is doomed to failure. As the problem is too much government, then where it is applied, and how many people agree to it, do not fundamentally affect the outcome. There is a strong argument for distant government, with a reduced ability to project their power to the local level and interfere with our lives. Busybodies are a pain in the ass at all levels.

Also, democracy causes a vicious circle where increased socialism causes more interference, causing more nanny propaganda, corrupting the the media, causing ignorance among the voters, causing more stupid leaders to be elected.

The only answer is to limit what the government is allowed to do.

I'm not very optimistic. Things will just get ...

2012-01-03T11:37:59.875Z

I'm not very optimistic. Things will just get worse until we have one world government by lizards or something.

@Jon The EU more functional than NATO?? The othe...

2012-01-03T10:43:08.184Z

@Jon

The EU more functional than NATO??

The others, fair enough, but NATO is probably the single most important post war organisation, and until recently had a solid reputation.

A very fair post DK, and - broadly - on decentrali...

2012-01-03T09:23:42.174Z

A very fair post DK, and - broadly - on decentralisation I agree with you. I am most definitely not of one entrenched view as to what power needs to be wielded at whichever level.

There is one issue I have with your post though - while I may bemoan many of the EU's failings, in comparison to any other international organisation (OECD, NATO, UN, G20 - take your pick) it's actually quite functional. The fact its decisions are legally binding means some things get done, and majority voting means it doesn't go at the speed of the slowest. That's vastly preferable to the intergovernmental solutions you sketch out.