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And we are back to throwing insults around? Shame on thee.
If your arguments were superior, you would not have to defend them by insulting me as your best debating method. :)

What has been debated has been debated and their is nothing less to discuss. Your views are nothing but corruptive influences on anyone you talk to.

I am not ;) But I think it say more about you. That you think that wanting better conditions for women results in anarchy. Oh no, it will only lead to a better and more just society.

I think it won't. That's about it. We don't agree and therefore are diametrically opposed.

Well then we could strive toward one? One about the rule of law, social liberty and a free-market :)

((What do you mean?))

That sounds like a great ideal, if we can ever get to it.
 
What has been debated has been debated and their is nothing less to discuss. Your views are nothing but corruptive influences on anyone you talk to.



I think it won't. That's about it. We don't agree and therefore are diametrically opposed.



That sounds like a great ideal, if we can ever get to it.

So how would it be so bad to get more rights to women?

Not long ago many meant democracy was impossible :)
 
Not long ago many meant democracy was impossible :)
So, by "not long ago" you mean "more than two thousand years ago, when Athens was already a democratic city-state", right?
Democracy isn't impossible, it's just weak, there's better alternatives.
 
So, by "not long ago" you mean "more than two thousand years ago, when Athens was already a democratic city-state", right?
Democracy isn't impossible, it's just weak, there's better alternatives.

1700's, 1800's. Well non liberal-democracies fall down to civil disobidience, revolutions and the such. And if they don't the state have to use resources that could be better spent elsewhere on monitoring and surpressing the citizens.
 
So how would it be so bad to get more rights to women?

Not long ago many meant democracy was impossible :)

The only true change can occur from social and educational changes. The economy has nothing to do with it. It is not within the realm of anarchism.

Humans are broken now. We are weak, stupid, accidental beings. Maliciousness has less to do with it, we are simply prone to have every mistake, every issue and every conflict possible. Things may change, but only in a very long time.
 
The only true change can occur from social and educational changes. The economy has nothing to do with it. It is not within the realm of anarchism.

Humans are broken now. We are weak, stupid, accidental beings. Maliciousness has less to do with it, we are simply prone to have every mistake, every issue and every conflict possible. Things may change, but only in a very long time.

So when I speak of social and educational changes. You oppose it since you think it is economics, and then say you want social and educational changes? Some logic :) Don't even know how anarchism play in here :p
 
Tommy, could we have an actual update about the status of the game?
Any commie advances, any major events? Interesting elections abroad?
Germany rebuilding? Japanese?
IC scores comparisons, manpower pools for different blocs?
 
Yes I would like to know the state of the world. Possibly also how the former colonies are doing. And if other natins have started to decolonize.

Do this game simulate the EEC and ECSC in any way?

And if it is not too much work, could you show us the different armies, the naval bases (and the navies) and air strips with their fleets?
 
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So when I speak of social and educational changes. You oppose it since you think it is economics, and then say you want social and educational changes? Some logic :) Don't even know how anarchism play in here :p

Then we have no issue on this end. Sometimes what I read you say and what you mean are not always the same thing. I apologise.
 
Tommy, could we have an actual update about the status of the game?
Any commie advances, any major events? Interesting elections abroad?
Germany rebuilding? Japanese?
IC scores comparisons, manpower pools for different blocs?

They always happen after the election. Sorta.
 
What has been debated has been debated and their is nothing less to discuss. Your views are nothing but corruptive influences on anyone you talk to.

I feel genuinely sorry for Enewald. He seems to genuinely believe that other people in this thread have nothing better to do then rehash the same old arguments about anarcho-capitalism for the twenty-second time and would relish the prospect of covering ground that got boring in Blood and iron rather quickly rather than do something new.
 
The Autumn of Empire
1954-1958

In the weeks after the election the Labour Party appeared on the brink of collapse – the calamitous showing of the party at the polls discrediting Bevan’s already divisive leadership. The ultimatum sent by Gaitskell’s Social Democratic Club to the party leader had made it clear – if Bevan didn’t step down he risked seeing the Labour Party tear itself apart. With this danger in mind Bevan called for an immediate leadership election – hoping that the legitimising effect of a leadership election might hold the party together.


The resulting election provided the Labour Party with a new leadership that had been predicted by neither Bevan nor Gaitskell. Harold Wilson, at 38 much younger than both his two main opponents, had served as a cabinet minister during Attlee’s governments before becoming an enthusiastic Bevanite during the early 1950s. With the party facing the abyss in 1954 he had presented himself as a candidate that was moderate enough not to be divisive but radical enough to push for the possibility of real change. With Gaitskell withdrawing after a poor showing in the first ballot Wilson was able to push ahead of Bevan and secure the party leadership. Distancing the party from the Communists, Wilson would attempt to rebuild Labour support – pushing the restoration of Labour’s role as the dominant force to the Left of Centre.


During the Eden administration of the 1950s great efforts were made to reassert Britain as a world power – even as it shifted away from its colonial Empire the British government appeared firmly committed to ensuring that it remained the world’s third force. In September 1954 the United Kingdom became the world’s third nuclear power as it unveiled to the world the success of its nuclear tests. Between 1954-56 a number of new warships were launched ensuring that the Royal Navy was comparable only to the United States Navy, which was admittedly almost twice its size, with both the French and Soviet fleets being considerably behind. At the same time projects aimed at expanding and modernising the RAF meant that the British air force was comparable in size to the Soviet air force. In line with the government’s drive for military expansion in 1955 an act was passed in parliament allowing for mandatory two year conscription for every adult male – providing the necessary manpower for the militarist project.


From the mid-1950s Britain’s process of decolonisation once again began to swing towards violence. From 1954 British forces would be involved in major guerrilla conflicts in Cyprus and Kenya as nationalists insurgents struggled to bring an end the iron grip of the British Empire. The wars in Cyprus and East Africa drew the first major deployments of British troops into combat since the Korean War in 1950. At the same time gradual steps towards deconstruction of the Empire were taken. In 1954 Newfoundland and Labrador were transferred from a British to a Canadian administration, the following year Rhodesia and Nyasaland were placed under a nominally autonomous administration aimed at eventually establishing an independent state under majority rule whilst later that same year Ceylon was granted independence under a friendly government with Britain retaining a military base near the capital Colombo.


Lest it be forgotten, the leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition from 1954 was not Labour’s Harold Wilson but the veteran Liberal leader Archibald Sinclair. Having taken over the leadership of the party in 1935, Sinclair led the Liberals through their darkest period and into an era of rebirth after the War that had culminated in the 1954 election. However, after two decades at the head of British Liberalism, Sinclair’s health was fading rapidly. Shortly after his twentieth anniversary as party leader Sinclair would suffer a debilitating heart attack and resign the party leadership. In stark contrast to Labour, the Liberals were a united party in the ascendancy and the St Andrews born Member for Orkney and Shetlands Jo Grimond was able to rise to the leadership largely unopposed. Grimond acted as a timely answer to the emergence of Wilson was beginning to see many of the Liberal Party’s new supporters drift back to Labour. A strident supporter devolution, especially for Scotland, a critic of Tory militarism, Labour’s socialism and the National Liberals’ disregard for social justice Grimond brought a youthful vigour to the party whilst staying true to its central tenants.

Through the mid-1950s the British economy continued to flourish as incomes and the standard of living rose at an impressive pace. Despite a relatively high rate of inflation and an increasingly imbalanced current account (with higher incomes seeing ever larger quantities of goods being imported even as exports rose much more slowly) the country appeared prosperous and stable. It was this stability that kept Thorneycroft and his radicals in line and the Conservative-National Liberal Alliance strong. From 1956 everything would begin to change. One of the defining years of the Cold War, political crises in Central Europe, the Middle East and South-East Asia would tilt the world towards War once again whilst Britain, and several other Western countries, were to be afflicted by a worrying economic downturn.


Popular belief would have it that the worst political repressions of the Post-War world came in the Stalinist regimes of Eastern Europe and China, in reality the gruesome title belongs to the Dutch East Indies. Following the brutal reassertion of Dutch colonial power after 1945 the East Indies were afflicted by low level guerrilla warfare as Dutch colonial forces attempted to destroy the insurgency of Nationalist forces by any means necessary. However, from 1953 the Nationalists began to make major advances once again – forcing the Dutch to redouble their efforts. Following the election of a Social Democratic government in the Netherlands in 1955 Indonesia was granted independence on January 3rd 1956 – with the Dutch transferring power to Nationalists who were willing to respect Dutch property, prevent social revolution and remain hostile to the Soviet Union.

Within two months the country had moved into civil war as radical forces around the 1,000,000 member strong Communist Party of Indonesia faced off against the new national government. By the late summer of 1956 the government had lost almost all authority outside of Java with the revolutionaries make great advances and even crossing over into Australian territory in New Guinea. Fearing that one of the most populous nations on earth might fall to the Communists the United States began to deploy troops to Indonesia – by the end of the year there were already 70,000 American military personnel in the country and that number would only grow steadily from there.


Around the world international Communist suffered one of its most traumatic blows in 1956. The disillusionment caused by the events of that year was typified by the experience of one Communist MP sent to take part in a debate at the Oxford Student Union in early 1957, upon reaching the front door of the building he simply turned around and left feeling that there was no point in arguing in favour of the indefensible.

In February, having emerged as the dominant force within the CPSU, Nikita Khrushchev delivered a ‘secret speech’ to leading members of the Soviet Communist Party in which he denounced Stalin and the tyrannical measures he had taken during his rule. As details of the speech slowly spread across the world many were horrified by the condemnation of the greatest hero of the international Communism, others were worried by the break in the monolithic unity of purpose of the movement whilst many more were shocked at the details of Stalin’s despotic terror which had hitherto been unknown in large parts of the world. But much worse was to come. In July a Polish troops clashed with workers in Poznan – killing scores, then in October Revolution broke out in Hungary. With the Communist Party stepping down from power in the face of massive popular protest at its rule Hungary attempted to remove itself from the Warsaw Pact and forge out its own independent destiny. The hopes of October were to quickly become the broken dreams of November as Soviet tanks forcible restored a subservient Communist Party to power and crushed the rising. Across the world hundreds of thousands drifted away from party membership and millions from their alignment to the movement. In Britain Harry Pollitt retired, a sick and broken man, whilst 15 Communist MPs would renounce their membership within a year of the Hungarian Revolution, most of them joining the Labour Party.


Just as the two great Superpowers were rocked during 1956, the British Empire would also face down a powerful foe. On July 26th, 1956, Egypt unilaterally nationalised the Suez Canal – one of the most valuable assets of the entire British Empire. It was a bold act that was to have major repercussions for Egypt, the Middle East, Britain and the world as a whole. Whilst Nasser’s actions were universally condemned in the West, few could agree on what course of action to take. The British cabinet in particular was riddled with divisions over the issue with the Prime Minister overruling and largely ignoring his Foreign Secretary and coalition ally Ernest Brown in going ahead with secret talks with the French and Israelis over a potential intervention.


The British, French and Israeli plan was complex, daring and riddled with flaws. On October 4th Israeli invaded Egypt – crushing the Egyptian army in the Sinai and advancing towards Suez. With the economically invaluable canal at risk the British and French demanded that both sides withdraw from the vicinity of the canal and offered to send a taskforce to occupy the Canal Zone. The trick fooled no one with both the Soviet Union and the United States condemning the Imperialist ploy of the British and French. More importantly, Eden had gone behind Brown’s back in establishing his plot – enticing the National Liberal leader to rage. Faced with a hostile situation domestically and internationally Eden humiliatingly called upon the task force to turn around en route to Suez and return to Malta.


With the British being forced to backtrack into a policy of neutrality in Suez they had been delivered the worst possible outcome of the gambit. The Prime Minister had been humiliated, the Canal remained in Nasser’s hands but worst of all the Israelis rebuked American and United Nations efforts to negotiate a truce – meaning than shipping through Suez was severely disrupted causing a spike in oil prices and a major shock to market confidence. Suez was the spark for a market crash in early 1957 that saw a number of British firms go under and unemployment rise to over a million for the first time since the War.


With the economy failing, both the Labour and Liberal opposition castigating the government and the Alliance itself at war with itself the end of Eden’s administration seemed certain by March 1957. Yet, Eden was to be saved by an unexpected U-turn in Washington. As the war in the Middle East dragged on the Americans were growing increasingly concerned over the economic fallout caused by the disruption of shipping lanes through Suez, and the prestige being garnered by the Soviet Union for its defence of Egypt – something that had helped cushion the blow of its invasion of Hungary. In late March the Americans have Eden secret permission to intervene in Egypt in order to bring a swift end to the conflict. On April 3rd hundreds of British planes blacked Northern Egypt’s skies before a small task force landed around Suez on April 4th. On April 6th British tanks were hurried into Cairo where they supported a royalist coup against Nasser.


In scarcely a week the fate of British power in the Middle East, and Anthony Eden’s government, was totally reversed as the Israeli-Egyptian War was brought to an end and Suez returned to Anglo-French ownership. The victory in Egypt gave Britain a level of hegemony in the Middle East that it had not enjoyed since its withdrawal from Palestine. Now on very friendly terms with Israel, governments under substantial British influence ruled over Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Jordan, Iran, Yemen and Oman. Elsewhere the Sudan was granted independence in July 1957 whilst in August Britain’s possessions in the Caribbean were reorganised into the partially independent West Indian Federation as the slow process of decolonisation continued.


The Prime Minister had somehow made it through the Suez Crisis with his prestige intact, even enhanced with the eventual British triumph in the spring. However, through 1957 he would be forced to become embroiled in a major power struggle within his own government. The whole Suez Affair had been deeply embarrassing for Ernest Brown –had been made to appear extremely weak to his own party and a bellicose nuisance to the Prime Minister at the same time. When Thorneycroft finally challenged Brown for the leadership of the National Liberal Party in May the long term leader was easily swept aside, with Thorneycroft being promoted to Deputy Prime Minister. With Brown being removed from the cabinet entirely Thorneycroft assumed the position of Foreign Secretary for himself and had Eden appoint Enoch Powell, an ex-Conservative who flirted with the pro-Tory wing of the National Liberal Party, as his successor at the Home Office.

Elsewhere, Eden and the Chancellor, Rab Butler, had never seen eye to eye, indeed Butler once described Eden as ‘’half mad Baronet, half beautiful women’’ and had become deeply concerned with the Prime Minister’s insistence on such an aggressively imperialist foreign policy with associated high defence spending – especially now that funds were direly needed to stimulate the economy in light of the recession. Through June and July Butler began to measure the level of support within the Conservative Party for a challenge to Eden’s leadership, however his confidence was betrayed and word quickly returned to the Prime Minister of his machinations. Choosing to confront Butler directly, in early August Eden demanded his Chancellor’s resignation and shortly thereafter received it. However, just as one threat to his leadership was dealt with another rose as Thorneycroft made a power play – demanding that he be made Chancellor of the Exchequer and be given free rein to formulate a budget based on his monetarist beliefs that would tackle Britain’s economic woes.


Believing that Thorneycroft’s economic policies would prove disastrous, and unwilling to allow the new National Liberal leader any more power, Eden instead appointed fellow Conservative Harold Macmillan. With Macmillan a committed One Nationist he promised to formulate a Keynesian response to the recession and the protection of the mixed economy – something that went someway to easing the concerns of the Liberal Party whom the government still had to work with closely in parliament. However, being turned down in his bid to become Chancellor was a slight that Thorneycroft would not soon forget.


In 1957 Britain would make a number of forward strides in the advancement of its military power. On October 8th the country’s first hydrogen bomb was tested whilst earlier in the year the production of a substantial stockpile intercontinental ballistic missiles was begun. Elsewhere through the year there was a substantial investment in the defences of the British Isles as anti-air and military radar stations were constructed across the country.


In that same year the Irish Republic Army would begin its first major series of violent operations since the War as a bombing campaign swept across Northern Ireland. True to their status as a party of order, and their alliance with the Ulster Unionist Party, the Conservative led government fought fire with fire – giving the Unionist controlled Stormont government of Northern Ireland its full and unconditional support.

Through late 1957 the relationship between the Conservatives and their National Liberal allies went into terminal decline. Although they clashed on a number of points, not least of which was the personal struggle between Eden and Thorneycroft, the central issue remained, as ever, economics. The National Liberals simply refused to accept the plans of the Chancellor, Harold Macmillan, to push for an increase in public spending accompanied by tax cuts as a means to combat the recession – for monetarists it was utter insanity and could not be accepted. As it became clear that their views would be pushed aside once again the National Liberals left the government in February 1958 – renouncing the Conservative-National Liberal Alliance that had endured for a decade.

Despite the breakdown of the alliance with the National Liberals, the Prime Minister had initially hoped that he might remain in government by forming a coalition with the Liberal Party. However, Grimond and the Liberals feared that a full blown coalition with the Tories would end their hopes of retaining the bulk of the Centre-Left support they had won in 1954 and instead pushed for a new election. Having failed to form a new coalition Eden was therefore forced to call for a new general election and hope that the death of the Alliance would not result in the fall of the Conservative Party from power for the first time in eight years.
 
Moustachless Wilson defeats Gaitskell in walkover contest? Thanks a lot Tommy, I have to vote for PR and stupid devolution now like some kind of claymore-wielding maniac in a Whig wig. :mad:
 
Good.

Brits and Israeli's, kicking those Egyptians back to the Pyramids. Life is simpler with aggression.
 
Hmm Labor or Liberals?

On one hand I want and actual center left victory so I think that the liberals are my choice at this juncture.

On the other I am a union man at heart and want to see labor win for that reason.

Not that it matters much because the Nat Libs. and cons will probably hold on to power indefinitely until Thatcher reign as the iron empress eternal knowing our mixture of an-caps and colonel blimps ! :angry: :(

I can see it now Colonel Blimps keeping us in eternal war to fight for a dead and purely exploitative empire While the Nat Libs demand everything including fire departments privatized to the benefit of no one but enewaldian egos and a dozen truely fat cats.

The Nat. Libs seem intent on getting the worst type of neo liberalism implemented forever more.
 
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Hmm Labor or Liberals?

On one hand I want and actual center left victory so I think that the liberals are my choice at this juncture.

On the other I am a union man at heart and want to see labor win for that reason.

Not that it matters much because the Nat Libs. and cons will probably hold on to power indefinitely until Thatcher reign as the iron empress eternal knowing our mixture of an-caps and colonel blimps ! :angry: :(

I can see it now Colonel Blimps keeping us in eternal war to fight for a dead and purely exploitative empire While the Nat Libs demand everything including fire departments privatized to the benefit of no one but enewaldian egos and a dozen truely fat cats.

Well the monetarist reforms would have been for the better. It is impossible for the government to control demand, and Keynesniasm haven't really proved to be working, beside from creating large amounts of inflation. Something that actually hurt the consumer, the common household and only benefit the fat cats.

Just look at the recent events. Due to the massive spending of the governments, according to Keynes our economy should be tip top with high employment. But what happens? Financial meltdown and rising unemployment. The government can't detirmine demand and employment through measures like these. Only thorugh a central bank. That is why the monetarist theories actually are healthier and better off for the economy. And it is in no way a hands off policy, laissez-faire or anarcho-capitalism. One might even see it as a more free-market orientated keynesniasm.
 
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Well the monetarist reforms would have been for the better. It is impossible for the government to control demand, and Keynesniasm haven't really proved to be working, beside from creating large amounts of inflation. Something that actually hurt the consumer, the common household and only benefit the fat cats.

I don't like monetarism but I'm deathly afraid of supply side that flows from it , and the harshness under which it is always done. I get that post war consensus can reign unchanged forever but we can modify without gutting and going full service economy and merciless more money=better than attitude and crushing unions.

Further Keynesian can work when structure changes are including and its not used as just a holding power, with investments in industries and education first and foremost.

Also Inflation while not great is equally of burden to the static investments of the incredibly wealthy than to the working person so its in their interest to demand that the common man suffers the consequences in their stead.
 
Moustachless Wilson defeats Gaitskell in walkover contest? Thanks a lot Tommy, I have to vote for PR and stupid devolution now like some kind of claymore-wielding maniac in a Whig wig. :mad:

I don't have a claymore. :)
 
I don't like monetarism but I'm deathly afraid of supply side that flows from it , and the harshness under which it is always done. I get that post war consensus can reign unchanged forever but we can modify without gutting and going full service economy and merciless more money=better than attitude and crushing unions.

Further Keynesian can work when structure changes are including and its not used as just a holding power, with investments in industries and education first and foremost.

Where do Milton Friedman say that he want to crush unions? And his theories have never been tried ((since we're in1960 or 1958 now)) so you can't say that they don't work. But they are more reasoneble, and we can see that with what Keynes would describe as a low conjecture, that is the economy going down with rising unemployment, even with large government investments which would according Keynes raise demand and employment. However the contrary happened; unemployment rose and we entered a so called low conjecture. This do greatly indicate that the government actually can't detirmine demand and stimulate to employment through expansive financial politics. Let it be a more healthy approach.

Monetarism is in many ways based upon Keynes' monetary policies. However no one have followed them and disregard them. And the effects of that is horrible. A massive decrease in purchasing power, increasing unemployment, lower real-wages and in turn demand.
 
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