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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
The situation in Syria is an example, Russia did everything it could to prevent the US from ding the same thing it did in Libya.
Same thing with China backing Myanmar and blocking UN resolutions against its abusive government.
Cooperation only works when the interest of doing so aren't against each other's.
Inter arma enim silent legesYeah making sure all of NATO thinks something is a good idea is a pretty good start, but there is still more then just that and the UN out there, regional organisations and important neutral countries exist, the Indians and Brazilians are being key examples.
Also even when someone blocks you being willing to let them in after can help. The Russians worked a lot against us in Bosnia and Kosovo, but they were still involved in the rebuilding after the NATO interventions (though we certainly didn't want them involved in Kosovo it was good that they were).
Bit of column A bit of column B, the veto was more then anything about keeping everyone important in the UN, it gave nations a reason to stay even if they were outnumbered by enemies, the League of Nations had massive problems with people just leaving.
Also I believe there is some way to get around a veto, I think it was used for Suez by the Russians and Americans to get around the French and British.
Edit: Yeah the General Assembly can override the Security Council if it's deadlocked. Also nations party to a conflict are meant to abstain for votes on it at the Security Council.
edited 18th Dec '15 6:55:01 AM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranPeggy Noonan in the Wallstreet Journal today, in part:
The Republicans are finally, fitfully fighting out real issues—ISIS, privacy. Mrs. Clinton is forced to fight no one, makes pronouncements and glides on.
The Republicans draw censure with their big, bodacious brawl. The Democrats should draw it for not struggling, grappling. The Republican Party was told to make Jeb king. No, they thundered. When the Democratic Party was asked to do a coronation, they pulled on their forelocks, bowed and said, “Yes, sire, may I do anything else?”
This is not like the Democratic Party! It was once a big brass band marching through the streets—loud, dissonant, there. “I’m not a member of any organized party,” Will Rogers famously said. “I’m a Democrat.” For generations Democrats repeated that line as a brag. They knew disorganized meant vital, creative, spontaneous, passionate—alive.
Now that party acts like this tidy, lifeless, fightless thing, a big, gray, dead-hearted, soul-killing blob. “I have the demographics,” it blobbily bellows, “I have the millennials.” Maybe it doesn’t have as much as it thinks. It is no honor to the Democratic Party that it is not fighting things through with a stage full of contenders this epochal year.
The Republicans are all chaos and incoherence, it’s true. But at least they’re alive. At least they’re fighting as if it matters.
edited 18th Dec '15 8:06:28 AM by Bense
Countered: the reason for the wild primary on the Republican side is that there are serious policy disagreements within the party. The nomination process is a testing ground for ideas within a massively fractured base.
The Democrats, by contrast, are startlingly unified in terms of their basic governing philosophy. They don't have a wing of crazies to contend with at the primary level — no candidate is espousing ecoterrorism or complete isolationism or the abolishing of religion or anything stupid like that.
So, while the GOP is busy tearing itself apart while it leaps as far to the right as possible, and providing ample fodder for attack ads during the Democratic campaign, the Democratic candidates are quietly building up their financial support, waiting for the general election season to begin. They gain no advantages by making a lot of sound and fury at this point.
Mainly, the Democratic primary is about whether Bernie Sanders can mount enough of an underdog campaign to unseat Hillary Clinton, and it's been interesting to observe, but I'm completely happy that the Republicans are providing all the popcorn-munching moments. Sensationalism may make for good TV ratings but it's terrible politics.
Do I believe that there is an organized movement among the Democratic establishment to coronate Hillary Clinton? Yes. However, that's not going to stop me from voting for her, because I agree with most of her positions anyway. If Sanders were to win the nomination, that would be gold, but silver is still pretty good, and I have some serious concerns about Sanders' viability; he's too much of a one-trick pony.
edited 18th Dec '15 7:56:35 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Here's a quoteblocked version.
The Republicans are finally, fitfully fighting out real issues—ISIS, privacy. Mrs. Clinton is forced to fight no one, makes pronouncements and glides on.
The Republicans draw censure with their big, bodacious brawl. The Democrats should draw it for not struggling, grappling. The Republican Party was told to make Jeb king. No, they thundered. When the Democratic Party was asked to do a coronation, they pulled on their forelocks, bowed and said, “Yes, sire, may I do anything else?”
This is not like the Democratic Party! It was once a big brass band marching through the streets—loud, dissonant, there. “I’m not a member of any organized party,” Will Rogers famously said. “I’m a Democrat.” For generations Democrats repeated that line as a brag. They knew disorganized meant vital, creative, spontaneous, passionate—alive.
Now that party acts like this tidy, lifeless, fightless thing, a big, gray, dead-hearted, soul-killing blob. “I have the demographics,” it blobbily bellows, “I have the millennials.” Maybe it doesn’t have as much as it thinks. It is no honor to the Democratic Party that it is not fighting things through with a stage full of contenders this epochal year.
The Republicans are all chaos and incoherence, it’s true. But at least they’re alive. At least they’re fighting as if it matters.
Considering all these new ideas involve WW3, genocide, and nuclear warfare in the Middle East I'd say the later.
Oh really when?Yeah, I'm not sure that "new ideas" is necessarily a desirable goal given some of the ones we've seen so far. Anyway, it's a bit weird that Bernie Sanders, the insurgent candidate among the Democrats with those "new ideas" (not really, but let's pretend so because we're the media and we thrive on acting dumb for our audience), is being baldly ignored.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Whether ideas are new or old is irrelevant. What's relevant is that they're good ideas.
Policy is not the technology sector. You don't rush policy on the basis of innovation for innovation's sake.
You can have a legitimate discussion about what policy actually is good, but when you start pegging the party that's got its shit together for not having "new ideas" you're basically just changing the topic of the conversation from a potentially meaningful one to one that's meaningless.
tl;dr version, "Same shit different day" is only a meaningful objection once one has already proven that something is shit.
edited 18th Dec '15 8:37:39 AM by TheyCallMeTomu
There haven't been much in the way of new ideas in the Republican debates, just a doubling down on trends that have been ongoing for the past 20 years. The only guys proposing anything different have been the ones that have been going nowhere, while everyone else is jockeying to be the one to say that they'll do what everyone says they're going to do hardest, fastest, and best. It's also been a frightful display of ignorance and flat out wrongness on everything from what terms mean, to facts, to any idea about what's going on outside the borders of the US.
The Democratic debates haven't been perfect by any stretch, there should have been more of them and everyone who isn't Bernie and Hilary have been slighted by the moderators, but at least there was variety to pick from among the candidates. A self described socialist arguing against the economic and social trends of the last 35+ years. An ex-Republican from the South who's a hard bitten ex-soldier, ex-Senator, and a high ranker in the joint chiefs. An ex-Republican from the Northeast who's a lifelong politician. A younger Democrat for the coast trying to out-liberal people. One of the most famous veteran Democrats in politics.
What I think the Democratic side reflects, sadly, is how Democratic politicians have thoroughly embraced the idea that seniority is everything, so anyone young and with something to say is encouraged to sit back in the wings and wait their turn while the old hands take all the plum assignments and influential committee seats. It leaves those young voices silenced on the sidelines and commits Democrats to continuing on the bad trends of the last several decades.
edited 18th Dec '15 8:42:10 AM by TheWanderer
| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |I'm going to chip in with the people saying that "new ideas" isn't a magical buzzword. Most new ideas are crap. It takes peer review, analysis, experimentation, and synthesis with existing paradigms to take an idea from conception to implementation.
It is typical of people who have a vested interest in the current broken system to use "new ideas" as a form of Moving the Goalposts. Newton's laws of motion didn't stop being valid because Einstein took them in a new direction. Many of the problems we face today, especially in the realm of economics, have theoretical solutions that are nearly a century old and have been used successfully in the past. Those solutions are being deliberately ignored.
What the "new ideas" people want is for our political energy and our attention to be diffused and blunted by the constant search for novelty, so that we don't notice the shell game that is being played in front of us.
Meanwhile, the areas in which we genuinely do need new ideas, new technology — environmental science is one such — are fiercely resisted by those same interests as being too "extreme", too out of touch with the traditional mainstream. Again, it's a brilliant bit of legerdemain.
Ignore tested solutions to problems by dangling the carrot of novelty in front of people, and ignore those workable innovations that do arise by swinging the stick of tradition. And the media just soaks it up.
edited 18th Dec '15 8:53:48 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

The problem with consensus is unless you're either full on genocidal, invade other countries or just a pack of upstart warlords, Someone will try to cover your ass no matter what you do to your citizens.
I'm baaaaaaack