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Old 05-2-2007, 02:03 PM   #21
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Default Re: [Essay]Should the United Nations have a standing army?

i say ya even though im from U.S.A i think they should
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Old 05-2-2007, 02:17 PM   #22
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Default Re: [Essay]Should the United Nations have a standing army?

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i say ya even though im from U.S.A i think they should
Why?
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Old 05-2-2007, 11:38 PM   #23
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Default Re: [Essay]Should the United Nations have a standing army?

but the UN is basically powerless.... I mean one of the major problems with the UN is the 5 permanant security council members.... if any one of them disagrees then nothing gets through even though the voting comes to 14-1. UN army is not going to happen unless all 5 members of the security council agree to have one....which will never happen. Just look at the US...when they wanted approval to get into Iraq... the UN said that is violating international law yet the US just moved into Iraq...and the UN did nothing about it...now if they have thier own army...? Would they dare to invade the US? Who spends over 600 billion dollars into military techonology...more than all of the worlds military spending combined? I think not.
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Old 05-2-2007, 11:59 PM   #24
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Default Re: [Essay]Should the United Nations have a standing army?

So...because the US is powerful enough to flout international convention, we should just never establish any international convention at all...what a wonderful plan.

Should we all just subjugate the international will to that of America? Let it dictate all world policy on all issues?

Just because the UN under either circumstance couldn't militarily stop -the US- doesn't necessarily mean they ought not to attempt to stop other people acting in violation of the rules they agreed to follow when they joined the UN.

I mean...just because my house wouldn't survive a rocket attack, I shouldn't maybe lock my door so the robbers can't get in?
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Old 05-3-2007, 01:32 AM   #25
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Default Re: [Essay]Should the United Nations have a standing army?

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Well...the tenability of a free market system is based entirely on the availability of options. Most people in politics today who want to "privatize" services using the same logic you have been for why that is better, seem to not notice that simply making a service private doesn't imply much of anything. Now a company owns it, charges you for it, and the intention is that they'll use that money to make the service more efficient, but if there's still no alternative, they're under no obligation to do so.
They're under no obligation, but they have strong incentive to take any measure which increases demand for their service because it increases profitability. This incentive does not exist in goverment. The sad truth that 9/10 of economists will gladly tell you is that "obligations" have little motivating effect, while money has profound motivating effects. Government has no incentive to provide better service, and their sense of obligation rarely compels them to very great lengths.

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My case example is the road system. Attempts to privatize roads have happened before. The logic goes "We sell some stretch of road to a company, who charges you a toll to drive on it. The revenue generated will mean that the company can maintain the road better and more efficiently"

But if they decide to just pocket the money, you still don't have much of a recourse, when there's only the one road between A and B.
This is a classic argument. Indeed, we see it manifest particularly clearly in the infrastructure of railroads two centuries ago. The cost of long routes cross country were kept very low by competition, but on shot hauls between cities, where only one route was available, the cost was much higher, often even higher than the total cost of taking the number of long routes a person might find neccessary to get across country.

What protects the consumer then? Well, first of all it's important to realize that even in monopoly positions like this, cost of services will only neccessarily rise to the maximum amount the consumer can tolerate. It may be very expensive, but in order for the operator of the road to continue to make money they have to offer their services at a price the customer will buy. In terms of "pocketing the money", there's a very obvious set of mechanisms in place to discourage this. Firstly, any failure to maintain the capital investment in forms of roads decreases the earning power brought about by holding those roads. It does so by diminishing customers as well as demand. Even when customers have no choice but to use that road system, they're still provided with stronger incentive to maximize on their investment by poor service. Carpooling, as well as greater utilization of the vehicle in general (fewer trips, carrying more cargo, etc.) will lead to maximization of the customers utility, while the money the person in charge of the roads earns will diminish. There are all sorts of mechanisms like these in place that function perfectly. In the larger picture, any company that behaves like this will inevitably lose out, leaving the door open for a company which produces superior services and thus makes more money to purchase this property and capitalize on it in a superior fashion.

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I say such a system is untenable because the way it -would- work would require say...10 roads, owned by 10 companies in parallel between every destination, so they could actively compete and so you would have actual options if you don't like how the road is being maintained.
Not at all, for the reasons described above. However in a free market there would be a tendency for as many roads as could be sustained by demand to pop up.

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There are just some infrastructural systems like that for which it is incredibly unrealistic or problematic to imagine a dozen companies all competeing with one another for your services. Further, I'm still not seeing what is to stop this free market system making like it already does today, and mergers, takeovers and conglomeration leaving us all with just the one big monopoly option anyway.
I believe I've already responded to the first criticisms. In terms of the latter part, there isn't anything guarenteeing no monopoly arises, but there is a fundamental difference between our current government monopoly on services and a monopoly which arises as a result of a free market. The second comes about as a direct result of consumer demand, not as a result of force and threat of force. In the end though, even if the monopoly ultimately ends up behaving poorly, we're left in much the same place as we are now with our government monopoly. The incentives government has to refrain from completely screwing us over now will continue to exist even if anarcho-capitalism leads us back to government again.

This is all largely a moot point, however, as a free market monopoly would be absurdly difficult to accomplish, almost to the point of impossibility.

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Well, Shadowrun is a table-top rpg not a video game, and as such has had dozens of sourcebooks, fiction novels and so on to build and develop the system in a way that even though being fictional is under no obligation to be especially -cited- is nevertheless a lot more well-thought out and internally consistant than most/all video game style worlds.
It might be. I don't do much classic pen and paper RPG-ing, so I'm really in no position to question this. Christianity (as with most theology) is largely well thought out and internally consistent though, but it doesn't make it truthful in any measure. Logic has to play second chair to empiricism.

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Also, I never said "This is how it will go" I said "Here's an interesting possible future where they went that direction, and it ended up bad" I wasn't aware you could research and properly cite the future :P
Well no, but anticipating the future is a projection of an alternate model based on the assumptions of the current model. Understanding how the current model works is a neccessary prerequisite here, at least if we want our fiction to maintain maximum probability of becoming fact.
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Old 05-3-2007, 01:39 AM   #26
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Default Re: [Essay]Should the United Nations have a standing army?

Fair enough indeed. Well said and well put.
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Old 05-3-2007, 10:15 PM   #27
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Default Re: [Essay]Should the United Nations have a standing army?

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Originally Posted by devonin View Post
So...because the US is powerful enough to flout international convention, we should just never establish any international convention at all...what a wonderful plan.

Should we all just subjugate the international will to that of America? Let it dictate all world policy on all issues?

Just because the UN under either circumstance couldn't militarily stop -the US- doesn't necessarily mean they ought not to attempt to stop other people acting in violation of the rules they agreed to follow when they joined the UN.

I mean...just because my house wouldn't survive a rocket attack, I shouldn't maybe lock my door so the robbers can't get in?
um yeah it was the US who created the UN.... so basically they have the control....such as the world bank of the UN....the president ALWAYS has to be American...dosen't that tell you something?
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Old 05-3-2007, 10:36 PM   #28
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Default Re: [Essay]Should the United Nations have a standing army?

That is stupid if they do.
The whole reason for the UN is to keep the peace not wage war
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Old 05-3-2007, 10:55 PM   #29
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Default Re: [Essay]Should the United Nations have a standing army?

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um yeah it was the US who created the UN
It was the US who created the UN like it was the US who won world war 2.
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Old 05-3-2007, 11:23 PM   #30
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Default Re: [Essay]Should the United Nations have a standing army?

I don't think most people will appreciate the analogy, sadly.
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Old 05-4-2007, 12:44 AM   #31
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Default Re: [Essay]Should the United Nations have a standing army?

Well, we can't win them all. Like America...it always wins.

(Fun fact: The united states has never lost a war in which mules were used)
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Old 05-4-2007, 10:33 AM   #32
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Default Re: [Essay]Should the United Nations have a standing army?

It was Woodro Wilson who thought of the "league of nations" the government rejected this idea at first...but when his term was up they revised his plans in the US governments favor which created the UN....

look back at 1950....Rene Pleven wanted a united europe army.... but the US denied this action so the united european army was never formed. We are in a unipolar world....just deal with it....till 2020 when China becomes #1.
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