Politics Pros and Cons of modern western civilisation

Do the pros of western civilisation outweigh the cons?

  • Yes

    Votes: 28 90.3%
  • No

    Votes: 3 9.7%

  • Total voters
    31

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Socrates2

Norm Smith Medallist
Aug 11, 2015
9,041
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Richmond
Where does the army get its money from again?
Leave it out mate, you're being Mr Pedantic.Kingdoms didn't invent welfare they invented taxes you're getting confused and I'm not sure what point your trying to make? Are you saying royal families invented welfare?
 
Oct 2, 2007
42,483
42,024
Perth
AFL Club
Carlton
They defeated the nationalists by creating a bunch of ethnic nation states from the ashes of supranational empires.

Please provide proof [West] Germany was an 'ethnic nation state' after WW2?

The Western Allies signed on to the forcible repatriation of Prussians and other German peoples east of what was to become East Germany granted.

How does this forced repatriation make West germany an 'Ethnic nation State'?
 

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it's free real estate
Jul 30, 2018
11,782
15,176
AFL Club
Fremantle
Please provide proof [West] Germany was an 'ethnic nation state' after WW2?

The Western Allies signed on to the forcible repatriation of Prussians and other German peoples east of what was to become East Germany granted.

How does this forced repatriation make West germany an 'Ethnic nation State'?
I’m not sure if you know your history, but Western Europe was not the trigger for either WW1 or WW2. Belligerence between Germans and Slavs was.

West Germany were never the belligerent part of Germany, never engaged in the ethnic tension of the four empires of the east until absorbed into the Prussian empire. It was always the Prussia that was the most warmongering in Eastern Europe. As I said, you should read more:

In 1955, he privately informed the British that while he was obliged to act in public as though he wished for reunification, he intended to devote his remaining years to blocking it. In 1961, he secretly proposed to the Americans that they offer the Russians a swap: they and he should, he said, give up West Berlin in return for Thuringia (the region containing Leipzig and Weimar). He wanted, in effect, to make the River Elbe the eastern border of Germany.
Why did Adenauer dislike the eastern Germans, think Berlin was expendable and consider the River Elbe to be the natural frontier? Simple: he knew that the Elbe was Germany’s Mason-Dixon line. Beyond it lay the flat, grim Prussian heartlands, which until 1945 stretched into present-day Russia. This vast region was known to Germans as “Ostelbien” – East Elbia. Adenauer viewed the “unification” of Germany in 1871 as East Elbia’s annexation of the west. That’s why in 1919, as mayor of Cologne, and again in 1923, he tried to get Britain and France to back a breakaway western German state. Having failed, he is said to have muttered, “Here we go, Asia again,” and closed the blinds every time his train crossed east over the Elbe.
Prussia was a different country. The victorious Allies agreed. On 25 February 1947, they declared: “The Prussian state, which from early days has been a bearer of militarism and reaction in Germany… together with its central government and all its agencies are abolished.” The name Prussia was eradicated. The Prussian hegemony of 1871-1945, an anomaly in the two millennia of German history, was over.​
https://www.newstatesman.com/world/...-about-profound-and-ancient-divisions-germany

There is more to history than the simple narratives you’ve taught yourself.

WW1 was caused by the four empires of Eastern Europe falling apart while plagued with ethnic tension (and the French and English eager to prevent Prussian/German expansion).

WW2 was caused by the failure of the post-WW1 settlement, most notably the ethnic Germans residing in Poland and Czechoslovakia, all the way through to Russia.

The settlement of WW1 and WW2 was not a liberal frontier in Eastern Europe. It was the formation of ethnic nation states which at once answered all of the vexing political questions of the 19th century, the German Question, the Ottoman Question, the Polish Question, the Thracian Question and sadly the Jewish Question.

(Ps for a handy helper you can look up all the above questions on Wikipedia).
 
Leave it out mate, you're being Mr Pedantic.Kingdoms didn't invent welfare they invented taxes you're getting confused and I'm not sure what point your trying to make? Are you saying royal families invented welfare?

You must be confused.
Welfare is both direct and indirect.
Direct = payment to you personally.
Indirect = the benefit you get from somebody (govt/king/ruler/despot/dictator) spending money in furtherance of the greater good.
What better way to further the greater good than by (1) staving off the invaders with an army or (2) becoming an invader.

Yes, we can argue what the greater good is and whether or not it aligns with the interests of the king/ruler/govt/despot/dictator.
Welfare is paid by all, in the form of taxes.
Welfare is a redistribution of wealth.
Yes, we can argue whether a redistribution of wealth to the army is really for the greater good, but it is inarguable that it is welfare.

Welfare has been around since day 1.
The number of things western civilization has actually invented/created/started that is either a pro or con is next to nothing.
Every invention is derative.
 

Socrates2

Norm Smith Medallist
Aug 11, 2015
9,041
9,787
AFL Club
Richmond
You must be confused.
Welfare is both direct and indirect.
Direct = payment to you personally.
Indirect = the benefit you get from somebody (govt/king/ruler/despot/dictator) spending money in furtherance of the greater good.
What better way to further the greater good than by (1) staving off the invaders with an army or (2) becoming an invader.

Yes, we can argue what the greater good is and whether or not it aligns with the interests of the king/ruler/govt/despot/dictator.
Welfare is paid by all, in the form of taxes.
Welfare is a redistribution of wealth.
Yes, we can argue whether a redistribution of wealth to the army is really for the greater good, but it is inarguable that it is welfare.

Welfare has been around since day 1.
The number of things western civilization has actually invented/created/started that is either a pro or con is next to nothing.
Every invention is derative.
Well I'm referring to the narrower definition of welfare which is providing sustenance to those who need it.
 
Well I'm referring to the narrower definition of welfare which is providing sustenance to those who need it.

Still doesn't help your case.

How do you think the Churches became so rich?
The King, out of the taxes he collected, paid the church to among other things, provide sustenance to the poor.
That the Churches took a healthy cut for themselves still does not alter the substance of the endowment, which was welfare.

Go back through history and you will find some middle man whose job it was to pretend to help the poor....in every culture, in every civilization...from the beginning of time.
 
Oct 2, 2007
42,483
42,024
Perth
AFL Club
Carlton
I’m not sure if you know your history, but Western Europe was not the trigger for either WW1 or WW2. Belligerence between Germans and Slavs was.

West Germany were never the belligerent part of Germany, never engaged in the ethnic tension of the four empires of the east until absorbed into the Prussian empire. It was always the Prussia that was the most warmongering in Eastern Europe. As I said, you should read more:

In 1955, he privately informed the British that while he was obliged to act in public as though he wished for reunification, he intended to devote his remaining years to blocking it. In 1961, he secretly proposed to the Americans that they offer the Russians a swap: they and he should, he said, give up West Berlin in return for Thuringia (the region containing Leipzig and Weimar). He wanted, in effect, to make the River Elbe the eastern border of Germany.
Why did Adenauer dislike the eastern Germans, think Berlin was expendable and consider the River Elbe to be the natural frontier? Simple: he knew that the Elbe was Germany’s Mason-Dixon line. Beyond it lay the flat, grim Prussian heartlands, which until 1945 stretched into present-day Russia. This vast region was known to Germans as “Ostelbien” – East Elbia. Adenauer viewed the “unification” of Germany in 1871 as East Elbia’s annexation of the west. That’s why in 1919, as mayor of Cologne, and again in 1923, he tried to get Britain and France to back a breakaway western German state. Having failed, he is said to have muttered, “Here we go, Asia again,” and closed the blinds every time his train crossed east over the Elbe.
Prussia was a different country. The victorious Allies agreed. On 25 February 1947, they declared: “The Prussian state, which from early days has been a bearer of militarism and reaction in Germany… together with its central government and all its agencies are abolished.” The name Prussia was eradicated. The Prussian hegemony of 1871-1945, an anomaly in the two millennia of German history, was over.​
https://www.newstatesman.com/world/...-about-profound-and-ancient-divisions-germany

There is more to history than the simple narratives you’ve taught yourself.

WW1 was caused by the four empires of Eastern Europe falling apart while plagued with ethnic tension (and the French and English eager to prevent Prussian/German expansion).

WW2 was caused by the failure of the post-WW1 settlement, most notably the ethnic Germans residing in Poland and Czechoslovakia, all the way through to Russia.

The settlement of WW1 and WW2 was not a liberal frontier in Eastern Europe. It was the formation of ethnic nation states which at once answered all of the vexing political questions of the 19th century, the German Question, the Ottoman Question, the Polish Question, the Thracian Question and sadly the Jewish Question.

(Ps for a handy helper you can look up all the above questions on Wikipedia).

None of this answers the question I asked.

Just so you're aware.
 

its free real estate

it's free real estate
Jul 30, 2018
11,782
15,176
AFL Club
Fremantle
None of this answers the question I asked.

Just so you're aware.
The west of Germany was never the trigger for the violence in Europe in the 20th century. It was already fairly ethnically homogenous. The east of Germany, the entirety of Eastern Europe in general, was ethnically mixed, and the tensions there is what caused both world wars. The Balkans in 1914 and the Prussian and Bohemian hinterlands in 1938-39.

The Balkans were a further flashpoint 50 years later, which again resulted in mass ethnic cleansing and the creation of ethnic nation states (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Northern Macedonia) from a former supranational state (Yugoslavia).

You were saying?
 

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Oct 2, 2007
42,483
42,024
Perth
AFL Club
Carlton
The west of Germany was never the trigger for the violence in Europe in the 20th century. It was already fairly ethnically homogenous. The east of Germany, the entirety of Eastern Europe in general, was ethnically mixed, and the tensions there is what caused both world wars. The Balkans in 1914 and the Prussian and Bohemian hinterlands in 1938-39.

The Balkans were a further flashpoint 50 years later, which again resulted in mass ethnic cleansing and the creation of ethnic nation states (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Northern Macedonia) from a former supranational state (Yugoslavia).

You were saying?

No, my question was directed at west Germany being 'a non liberal ethically pure nation state' post WW2

Go back and read.
 
Oct 2, 2007
42,483
42,024
Perth
AFL Club
Carlton
I read it and thought it was irrelevant. The east of Europe was the trigger for the world wars, not the west. When you figure out why, get back to me.

Hang on.

Now you're talking about the 'trigger' of the wars?

Wasnt your point some drivel about 'how the wars ended' and the liberals not being on the winning side?

You're pulling your usual smoke and mirrors in an effort to praise your Volk overlords.

It's rather hilarious.
 

its free real estate

it's free real estate
Jul 30, 2018
11,782
15,176
AFL Club
Fremantle
Hang on.

Now you're talking about the 'trigger' of the wars?

Wasnt your point some drivel about 'how the wars ended' and the liberals not being on the winning side?

You're pulling your usual smoke and mirrors in an effort to praise your Volk overlords.

It's rather hilarious.
No. I think you’re seriously illiterate, probably why Wikipedia is your go to source.

My point was in rebuttal to yours that liberalism prevented further wars in Europe. It never did, and that was never the settlement of the war. The settlement of the war was the largest ethnic cleansing in history (expulsion of the Germans from the east) and the formation of ethnic nation states. Nowhere have you disproven this thesis, except claiming that Churchill was more liberal than the Nazis.

So is Tony Abbott, big deal.
 
Last edited:
Oct 2, 2007
42,483
42,024
Perth
AFL Club
Carlton
No. I think you’re seriously illiterate, probably why Wikipedia is your go to source.

My point was in rebuttal to yours that liberalism prevented further wars in Europe. It never did, and that was never the settlement of the war. The settlement of the war was the largest ethnic cleansing in history (expulsion of the Germans from the east) and the formation of ethnic nation states. Nowhere have you disproven this thesis, except claiming that Churchill was more liberal than the Nazis.

So is Tony Abbott, big deal.

Wut?

Europe has been far from independent 'ethnically homogeneous' Nation States since the end of WW2. They've had limited freedom of movement since 1951 (Treaty of Paris) expanded in 1957 (Treaty of Rome) and then further expanded in 1992 (Maastricht treaty).

Your argument seems to be that Europe has only been peaceful post WW2 due to 'ethnic nationalism' of its member States. I wholly refute that argument, and no sane person could argue it.

Europe has been peaceful post WW2 due to increased liberalism, a decline in ethnic nationalism, open borders and increased trade. Not due to 'increased ethnic nationalism':

Pax Europaea
(English: the European peace – after the historical Pax Romana), is the period of relative peace experienced by Europe in the period following World War II—often associated above all with the creation of the European Union (EU) and its predecessors.[1] After the Cold War this peace was even more evident because of the fall in political tensions, with the major exception of the Yugoslav Wars and various tensions with and within Russia.

European integration was designed to maintain the fragile peace that was created in Europe. With the continent consistently falling into war over the past centuries the creation of the European Communities in the 1950s set to integrate its members to such an extent that war between them would be impossible. These Communities, and other organisations including NATO expanded to cover most of Western Europe, Northern Europe and Southern Europe.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Europaea

It's genuinely hilarious that you're attributing 70 years of European peace to 'ethnic nationalism.' The root cause has been increased integration, trade liberalization, replacing hard borders with open borders, replacement of despots with liberal governments, and a decline in ethnic nationalism.

Every time a European nation sate starts banging on about ethnic nationalism/ ultra nationalism (Nazis, Franco, Salazar, Mussolini, Napoleon, all the sides in the Yugoslav conflict) Europe goes to war.

Quite literally the only war we've seen in Europe in the past 70 years (Yugoslav conflict) was directly due to ethnic nationalism!
 
Last edited:
Oct 2, 2007
42,483
42,024
Perth
AFL Club
Carlton
And what was the solution to the Yugoslav conflict?

Genocide and ethnic cleansing. Where every ******* ethnic nationalist war invariably leads to.

Are you genuinely arguing for the creation of ethnically nationalist nation States as a mechanism for peace?

If Europe has been the example of anything over the past century or two, it's that increased liberalism, open borders, open trade, trade liberalization and a reduction in ethnic nationalism leads to peace, and that closed borders, protectionism, and ethnic nationalism leads to war.

How you can interpret the past 200 years of European history in any other way baffles the s**t out of me.

The only other conflicts I can think of in Europe involve ethnic nationalism as well (Ireland and Basque peoples). Indeed the Irish thing is all but poised to kick off again due to the erection of a hard border and a reduction in integration!
 

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it's free real estate
Jul 30, 2018
11,782
15,176
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Fremantle
Are you genuinely arguing for the creation of ethnically nationalist nation States as a mechanism for peace?
Yes, because that is what happened as the result of both world wars and why there has been subsequent peace. Europe in 1900 was primarily comprised of multi ethnic empires. By 2000 almost every single ethnicity of Europe had their own nation state.

Peoples who had never before had a nation, like Estonians, suddenly had their very own country.
 
Oct 2, 2007
42,483
42,024
Perth
AFL Club
Carlton
Yes, because that is what happened as the result of both world wars and why there has been subsequent peace.

Utter bullshit. Europe has not been a conglomeration of ethnically nationalist nation States since the end of WW2. In fact it's been the least nationalist, most liberal and had the most open borders of its history in the past 70 years! Borders have been eroded, starting in 1951 via the Treaty of Rome, and continuing through to the treaty of '92, and via incorporation as the EU.

Literally the only cause of conflict in Europe in the past 70 years has been due to ethnic nationalism/ nationalism. Yugolsavia, Ireland, Basque, Catalonia.

You're the only person I know who has attempted to argue that 'ethnically nationalist insular nation States' are an enabler for peace. Particularly when you cite Europe as an example.

Europe is a glaring example of the exact opposite!

Europe in 1900 was primarily comprised of multi ethnic empires.

Did I miss something? Did the Prussians, Commonwealth or Ottomans go to war with themselves? Were these internal conflicts or external ones? Did race and/or ethnicity play any kind of core part in the conflict?

WW1 had nothing to do with ethnic nationalism. Nationalism however for sure played its part. It was largely down to the French and the British trying to put checks on the growth of an emerging Germany/ Prussia as a rival European power (post unification through Bismark). The 'great powers' of Europe opposing the rise of the Germans/ Prussians as a new 'great power'.

I'm simplifying it, but thats largely what it was about.

WW2 on the other hand was largely a continuation of WW1 but with the added problems of rising ethnic nationalism attached to the conflict (via Germany) and ideological conflict fanned by ultra nationalist ideals (Communists vs Fascists vs Liberals). Left wing vs Right wing, Communists/ Liberals vs Fascists/ Nazis, Volk vs Slavs/ Jews/ Untermensch etc.
 
Oct 2, 2007
42,483
42,024
Perth
AFL Club
Carlton
Germany is the second most popular migration destination in the world, after the United States. Of all the 27 European Union states, Germany has the second highest percentage of immigrants in its population after the United Kingdom. By UN estimates, as of 2017, 12,165,083 people living in Germany are immigrants, or about 14.8% of the German population. The German Government has been keen to encourage immigration over the past 50 years, to address the low birth rate in the country.

Towards the end of World War II, and in its aftermath, up to 12 million refugees of ethnic Germans, were forced to migrate from the former German areas, to the new formed States of post-war Germany because of changing borderlines in Europe. A big wave of immigration to Germany started in the 1960s. Due to a shortage of laborers during the Wirtschaftswunder ("economic miracle") in the 1950s and 1960s, the West German government signed bilateral recruitment agreements with Italy in 1955, Greece in 1960, Turkey in 1961, Morocco in 1963, Portugal in 1964, Tunisia in 1965 and Yugoslavia in 1968. These agreements allowed the recruitment of so-called Gastarbeiter to work in the industrial sector in jobs that required few qualifications.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Germany

Seriously dude:

Population background
Total population (Germany)
82 million

Germany 65,000,000
Russia 3,500,000 (estimate, 2013)[1]
Poland 2,850,000[2]
Turkey 2,797,000(including Turkish Kurds)[3]
Romania
1,130,789 (includingRomanian Germans)[4]
Italy 969,000 [5]
Syria 600,000 (2016)[6]
Greece 443,000[7]
Croatia 441,000[8]
Netherlands 350,000[9]
Austria 345,620[10]
United States 324,000(2016)[11][12][13]
Serbia 308,000[14]
Albania 300,000 (including Kosovo)[15]
Ukraine 272,000[16]
Bulgaria 263,000[17]
Afghanistan 260,000[18]
China 212,000(2016)[11][12][13]
Portugal 188,000[19]
France 168,000[20]
Vietnam 167,000[21]
India 161,000(2016)[11][12][13]
Bosnia and Herzegovina 158,158
Hungary 156,812[22]
Iraq 150,000[23]
Spain 146,846[24]
Morocco 140,000[25]
United Kingdom 136,000[26]
Brazil 113,716[27]
Macedonia 95,976[18]
Nigeria 80,000[28]
Iran 72,581[18]
Japan 70,000[29]
Montenegro 30,000[30]

Does that look like an 'Ethnically nationalist' Nation State to you?

Compared to what preceded it (the Nazis!!!!)?
 
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