Politics Outdated:

[insulin]

Yes I think I do... You see in the end government is just a big business. I think we can afford these experts because the country does have tax systems. See I want to replace the politician with intellectuals. Now the rest of the government system will basically remain the same. Each of these people can be given a salary of a few million a year. Why not? See corruption showed me one thing and that is money is not the problem. The system as it is does generate a lot of wealth. Money that disappears however does not benefit us. You know the odd 60 million here and 30 million there that cannot be explained. So government is costing us a lot and they are not fixing anything. Make no mistake this board of intellectuals will cost us a lot. But the problems they solve will create stability and will generate wealth so it will be an investment for the people.

[duncan drennan]

So who hires the board of engineers, professors and doctors?

I do. It's called Duncanocracy. Everyone does what I say and we all live peacefully.

My slogan is, "Do good things, and do things good" (whoever came up with "Don't be evil" needs to read a book on neurolinguistics).

[insulin]

The principal is law always. Secondly the intellectual board will solve problems. Thirdly statistics will point out what it is we need. We can afford the board of intellectuals... Right now we lose more money due to corruption than anything else. Yes the world is an evil horrible place I know... But right now we need solutions... not politicians. Give it some real thought... you will see that once you use only the best this world has to offer, you may be surprised at how many of them is humanitarians and really wants to do the right thing.

[insulin]

Duncan if i may, I wish to illustrate a point. I want to work as an engineer by you. I have no qualifications no experience no knowhow what-so-ever when it comes to engineering. I didn’t even finish school! You will tell me to run along with a few harsh words I am sure. You cannot allow me to be a part of your engineering team because I have no intellectual value to you at all. But now we get politicians to fix our problems and they are not qualified engineers, professors and Doctors. How can you justify them then! So why do we tolerate lack of skill when it comes to our country but we do not tolerate it in our own businesses?

[duncan drennan]

Insulin, don't worry about me - I'm just having my crazy five

Dave's breadcrumbs are going in an interesting direction though....

[insulin]

Duncan if I may : didn’t you ever drove past something and just thought: I can do it better? See when I get home I lay back plug in my IPod and just think how will an artificial heart look and work. Then I will Google it and see what is being used and just think but I can do it better? See I totally lost my mind and am legally insane but again if I see something broken I must try and fix it. So when I looked at government I saw something broken and thought if clever people had a go at it things might change? I don’t know...

[insulin]

I feel so alone now. I honestly had this thought that people will be thinking YES, YES Intellectual government that will work. Still no, we are still thinking that leaders are the answer to all. If anything history showed us how irresponsible government can be. Then there is the utter heartless factor that government really don’t care about anything other than its survival. So bring in world order take all our human rights and just simply call us slaves. That is what we are. And we have been slaves for so long now that if freedom is ever to come that we will not be able to recognise it. I just hope that Armageddon is within the next five years... Really... If look at what is happening now in this country just on statistics alone you can work out what the future will hold and it is not pretty.

[insulin]

Let me just point out why I dislike politicians. It starts with globalization this is when structural adjustment policies come in to play. Symptoms of this are currency devaluation. Thanks to this we see what we see now. Nearly all profitable systems like our gold mines is owned by outsiders and we are being paid nothing because it is cheap for them to keep our currency low thus they get more for less. Then you get corruption in all it’s from. Now I will only point out the two that matters to us as a people. Our police are powerless. Our free medical system cannot help people anymore because there is no money. Thanks to these two failing systems; we are not healthy, we are not safe and we are not able to stand up because we are to poor. Last thing to go is also known as trade liberalization. This system makes sure that our local famers and food producers can no longer compete thus we lose the ability to feed our selves.

Then the small business will lose their ability to compete against the cheap imports that is seen in almost every industry in South Africa. What did the politicians do for you? They made you a cheap money slave that must work in order to get proper security and a medical plan. Thus two of our rights that are stated in the constitution are being held ransom by politicians. Fact if free healthcare was good we would have no needs whatsoever for medical aid systems... You can argue with my madness but you cannot argue with my logic.

[insulin]

Be gone little insulin!!! Sadly this might be my last posting for a while. Some may find relieve in that. But my contract is not being renewed this year. Reasons are economical in nature.... “Believe that? Because I don’t” anyway. Good luck and hope to see you in Utopia one day.

PS

Spare a thought for you local IT dude they are human too.

[Dave A]

Well, we don't seem to have the best crop of politicians running government just at the moment. And you left out education - I reckon they stuffed up there too. Overall, no surprise people are disappointed.

But I wouldn't give up on things yet. We've had amazing things happen in our country before and there is no reason why they can't happen again.

Getting back on topic:
So far it doesn't seem we've cleared up how to appoint this board of experts, although there are some suggestions:

I do. It's called Duncanocracy. Everyone does what I say and we all live peacefully.

My slogan is, "Do good things, and do things good" (whoever came up with "Don't be evil" needs to read a book on neurolinguistics).

That would be a dictatorship...

Duncan if I may : didn’t you ever drove past something and just thought: I can do it better?

... So when I looked at government I saw something broken and thought if clever people had a go at it things might change?

...and I'm sure many dictators start out with the best of intentions.

Yup. This is the crux. How do we appoint the people that make these decisions? There needs to be a process and we happen to use a process called democracy. Insulin, what you propose is something akin to a meritocracy, a process of selection by testing and selecting the person who demonstrates the best ability for the particular set of skills required for the job.

But let's leave democracy and meritocracy out of this for a moment because it might get confused with politics.

Basically there needs to be some kind of selection process. For anyone involved in making those selections, they need information to help them make up their mind. And this is where the politics start.

Whether it is done by "advertising" your position on issues or done by submitting a CV, the candidate is trying to influence people to their way of thinking - quite simply the core ingredient of politics.

Even if we went with a meritocracy, we'd still have to agree the rules and that would probably involve a lot of politics too

ps. sorry to hear about the "end of contract" position. But it could open the door to better opportunities.
Don't be a stranger. You have a different point of view and I welcome the way that challenges my (and hopefully others here too) thinking on things that so easily can be taken for granted.

[insulin]

Perhaps if a smarter individual explained to you what I was on about. Do you know of “The Venus Project” Have a look at it at www.thevenusproject.com Perhaps it will explain it better. I am sure it will.

[Dave A]

That looks pretty cool.

[insulin]

Functional equilibrium exists when something benefits everyone at the same time. Thus the need to take a good long hard look at what needs to change in politics. Right now Politics face two main aspects financial maximisation and economic stability. Fact is that we have other more pressing problems like energy shortage, crime, and job creation. Now all of these things cost money. In politics money is the start all and end all of everything. Yet I want to point out that if energy and job creation becomes priority we will be a more financially sound country.

For argument sake let us say our government build a canned food factory driven by sun power close to a farming community. That community will generate canned food products indefinitely... Technology can provide purified water to be pumped from the sea to dry land and irrigation becomes stable. Now look at the jobs you have created and you are producing food abundantly and cheaply AND you can do this indefinitely. You will soon have generations of intelligent farmers and schools dedicated to teach generations of children how to sustain the sun power-plant, the pumping and irrigation systems then there is the factory that will need technicians and workers. Multiply this model by a 100 and all the canned products that it will be able to generate can and will feed millions cheaply. This will improve health and lower living cost. Thus crime will go down and a functional system will take over.

Forget supply and demand. Just supply and turn these farm products into green fuel that can also be exported and used. Fact is we can grow everything we need if we don’t have to worry about water and energy. So why are we living the way we are now? “No matter how you look at it you know that I am right about this.”

In the end I know that South Africa has the capacity to do this because we are still dynamic unlike bigger countries we can implement these systems and sustain them. Imagine our economic stability if we can provide renewable oil products, food products and fuel products. Imagine the technology we will be developing! Our children will live in a clean new world a brave world but in the end a sustainable world.

I invite you to think with me