Democracy vs dictatorship

[nomadpete]

41 minutes ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

Personally, I reckon you guys are weird.What could possibly be wrong with adding a small amount of fluoride?

Don't get me wrong,  I don't have a pro with small amounts of flouride in drinking water. It is well proven to improve  dental health.

 

I do have a problem  with governments at all level divesting their responsibilities by outsourcing. And pretty much every vital public utility gets reduced to being provided by the cheapest contractor. We only find out about the true cost of  this after the water quality (for instance) has suddenly caused a major health issue.

 

I do not trust the outsourcing process since the government entity always takes no responsibility for any problems, although they were responsible for providing healthy outcomes.

 

That is why I look after my own drinking water.

[onetrack]

There's a reasonably well-balanced article about fluoridation of town water supplies in the link below. 

All their information is from peer-reviewed scientific research.

 

The capital of Alaska, Juneau, removed fluoridation from their water supply in 2007 and tooth decay levels rose in the years afterwards. Proper studies were done on the situation and the results were definitive.

 

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/xylitol-gum-benefits-uses-and-more#allergies

 

Interestingly, 125 communities in 36 States in the U.S. voted for fluoridation, and only Juneau has reversed their decision.

 

Edited December 16, 2023 by onetrack

[pmccarthy]

When we had dead mice in the tank, the change in taste was so slow that we didn’t notice. It was only when visitors complained that we realised.

[nomadpete]

My mother came to NQ Australia where there was no flouride in the water, at 10 years of age. Her teeth were perfect. In the next years she got serious dental decay.

Turned out that Canada had natural flouride in the ground water.

By the age of about 20, she lost most of her teeth.

No, there was very little sugar in her diet.

She passed away at 90, from emphysemia after a life of heavy smoking.

When I was young, mum insisted on us rubbing a flouride tablet around our teeth to prevent decay. In spite of my sugar addiction  I still have my teeth.

Anecdotal, but strong enough argument for me.

[spacesailor]

I used ' fluoridated toothpaste ' now I wear a Full set of dentures. 

spacesailor

[Litespeed]

21 minutes ago, nomadpete said:

Don't get me wrong,  I don't have a pro with small amounts of flouride in drinking water. It is well proven to improve  dental health.

 

I do have a problem  with governments at all level divesting their responsibilities by outsourcing. And pretty much every vital public utility gets reduced to being provided by the cheapest contractor. We only find out about the true cost of  this after the water quality (for instance) has suddenly caused a major health issue.

 

I do not trust the outsourcing process since the government entity always takes no responsibility for any problems, although they were responsible for providing healthy outcomes.

 

That is why I look after my own drinking water.

Just look at the mess England is in after letting the capitalist rapists into the water system. Costs went up and now they have raw sewerage flowing into the ocean.

 

You can thank Macquarie bank for that.

[Jerry_Atrick]

 

3 hours ago, facthunter said:

It was a sort of arm's length thing. We voted in governments of various persuasions and handed over several tasks to them because they had better organisational abilities. (That was as it was back in the day.) One of the things we handed to them was responsibility for public health. Treating the water with fluoride was aimed at improving dental health, just as chlorinating the same water was.

 

Now we have reached the Age of "You can't do that", wherein anyone with a grievance or conspiracy theory can have the full attention of the Media to get a response. 

 

 

And correspondingly, the pollies have less and less organisational abilities and the executive public service seem to work in their own best interests.. if recent royal commissions are to be believed.

Edited December 16, 2023 by Jerry_Atrick

[Litespeed]

It's all good Jerry, chill out mate, the Torries have it all sorted.

 

 

 

More awesome honest ads.

 

 

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

2 hours ago, Litespeed said:

Just look at the mess England is in after letting the capitalist rapists into the water system. Costs went up and now they have raw sewerage flowing into the ocean.

 

You can thank Macquarie bank for that.

Indeed..

 

Noty Maquarie bank.. you can thank the government. It is not the only issue; the NHS is increasing contracted out to private organisations and coists go up while services go down and the waiting lists are over 7m people; with A&E waiting times, at their worst, being 99 hours. They are absolutely scandalous.

[Litespeed]

The irony is the libs in Oz created Macquarie bank, and followed your political model from the Torries.

 

It gave us Howard the coward, then we sent Crosby the political snake to you guys. He helped win you elections and you dumb asses gave him a mbe? 

 

You should have taken him to the tower of London. 

 

Now your government looks at all the dodgy shit we did under the libs and you have copied it to the max.

 

Hence the offshoring of assylum seekers to the safe haven of Rawanda. Funny how anyone from there will automatically be accepted as at danger and genuinely a refugee and be accepted by the Brittish.

 

Please stop copying our worst of humanity, your  making our genocidal maniacs look normal.

[facthunter]

Hard to have a sensible conversation about FLUORide. You immediately get a "put down" label.  and that has been the case from day one, Rub It on your teeth when they are forming maybe but most water goes on other things. What tiny % would be drunk? B@gger @ll and it's not easy to remove it,  IF you wanted to. Once it's in your bones it stays there and they become brittle. It still deserves more research. Diet and mouth hygiene has a lot to do with Dental Caries.   Nev

[Jerry_Atrick]

18 hours ago, Litespeed said:

The irony is the libs in Oz created Macquarie bank, and followed your political model from the Tories.

 

It gave us Howard the coward, then we sent Crosby the political snake to you guys. He helped win you elections and you dumb asses gave him a mbe? 

 

You should have taken him to the tower of London. 

 

Now your government looks at all the dodgy shit we did under the libs and you have copied it to the max.

 

Hence the offshoring of assylum seekers to the safe haven of Rawanda. Funny how anyone from there will automatically be accepted as at danger and genuinely a refugee and be accepted by the Brittish.

 

Please stop copying our worst of humanity, your  making our genocidal maniacs look normal.

Yes.. When I first arrived here in 1997, Blair and Brown were swept in after a wave of unpopularity with the Tories. From then on, I have realised if you want to predict what happens in the UK, simply look at what Australia did some years prior. After their reign was finished, complete with the Treasurer (Brown) stabbing his more popular PM in the back, and then becoming PM, it ended with a not 13+ year reign of destruction by the Tories (similar to the LNP). Only because of fixed and longer terms (requires a 2/3 majority of votes in the house of commons to call an early elections), will it be 15 rather than 13 years of conservative rule.

 

Even Labour here are doing the same as Labor in Aus; uncharismatic leader; small target policies (although understandable as we are still about a year away + from an election  unless the Tories self-implode); Labor witering away an unassailable lead. Tories right on the nose, which means, in the absence of a coordinated effort of independents al la Holmes a Court, the Lib Dems and the Greens may fair better than expected. Labor has already whittled away a 20 percent lead to 12% and I can only see it going downhill from there. 

 

The UK voter is different to the Aussie voter, though. The UK lower socio-economic class is much bigger, and they tend to protest vote against their own interests; so they may well still vote Tory because of the Rwanda boat deal and the Supreme Court upholding human rights being framed as an attack on British sovereignty. This will rile the lemmings The Tories have already passed laws to make it harder to vote if one is younger (require certain ID that a lot of younger people don't bother to get (getting a drivers licence for example, is not high on a lot of urban dwelling youngsters minds). Compound that with a lurch to the right by the young thanks to both mainstream and social media disinformation, and it does not bode well for the UK. Note, also, Europe is generally heading towards a reunification of the right-wing days of old. Although, I think one Nordic country last year solidly rejected it.  And of course, here the election system is first past the post, which is actually a misnomer, assuming the post is at 50% of the vote; the system here is the one with the most votes, and rarely is that someone greater than 40% of the vote for the turnout. 

 

Back to UK copying Australia - the points system for immigration, which has been a failure here;  the citizenship tests, which few existing citizens could pass; and exorbitant residency and visa costs; and even the TV is shoddy over here these days... There has been morel I just can't recall at the moment.

[Litespeed]

Jerry,

 

Aussies prove regularly they will vote against their own self interests as well. 

 

Stupidity seems universal at times.

 

It's notable right wing nutters that get the most traction often come tour Australia. The yank ones are big on right wing Christian stuff, the poms more right wing everything else.

 

That Buffon Boris just did a speaking- mumbling tour with Tony the mad monk Abbott.

[facthunter]

"Seizing the Moment" wasn't it.?  Make Britain Great Again. It's been  all downhill from there. . Nev

[willedoo]

According to exit polls Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally party has won the first round of France's parliamentary election. Her party is on 34%. The New Popular Front, a newly created far-left coalition, has taken 28.1 per cent and Emmanuel Macron's centrist Renaissance party has taken 20.3 per cent. France is first past the post which means if it was a single round vote, Marine Le Pen's party would be in government. Under a preferential voting system like we have, her National Rally party would lose.

 

All parties who get more than 12.5% of the vote go through to a second round vote in a week's time and first past the post wins. France has a tradition of ganging up on parties they don't want to win. Various interests are encouraging those in third place to drop out and throw their support behind those in second place to keep Le Pen's party out. That's the thing with first past the post - you can have a government that two thirds of voters voted against. A lot of people say first past the post is the most democratic, but it can also result in a government that a large majority of people oppose.It all depends on your interpretation of democracy.

[facthunter]

There's arguments for both. Preferential means you get more than one chance of voting someone in. This corrupted the senate votes here some years ago..   Nev

[Marty_d]

The only answer is to make it compulsory to number every box.

[Litespeed]

The bi- camaral system with preferential voting is the best system by far.

 

It works best when voting is compulsory.

 

We may not be perfect esp the states that don't use this system.

 

But still the better of the world's democratic nations.

[old man emu]

The US Supreme Court has just handed down a decision that has turned the United States from a democracy to a dictatorship. From now on, any US President can do anything that is contrary to a law, and for the President, that is not a crime. Perhaps it could be a good thing. If Bidon wins the election, he could order the execution of Trump and it would not be a criminal act.

 

 

 

This video goes deeper into the explanation of what the Supreme Court's decision means, and points out the corruptness of the members of that Court.

 

 

[nomadpete]

Methinks...

 

There goes the neighbourhood.

 

Lucky SFM isn't  our boss or we might be instantly following in the amerkan footsteps.

[facthunter]

He's over there working for them and calls what's happening to Trump a "Pile On".  Nev 

[red750]

Absolute travesty. But what's good for the goose is good for the gander. If this is allowed to stand, Trump can't carry out his threat to prosecute Joe Biden.

 

Add to this the likely ascent of the far right in France (who wants to go to the Olympics now?) and the rise(?) of Farage in the UK, God help us all.

[facthunter]

Joe must automatically have the SAME rights? NO?  and HE has a while to go.. Some want him dismissed immediately. Is that a S#1t for Brains country, or what? Trump is the Yank Mafia. taking over. fully aided by the GOP who are too scared  to do anything to stop  him..  Nev

[old man emu]

The devil in the detail is that the Court's ruling means that Presidential immunity has existed since the adoption of the Constitution. That means that the move to impeach Richard Nixon could not have even begun to be discussed. Although President Nixon was never impeached by the House or subjected to a trial in the Senate, his conduct sets the precedent for many authorities, scholars, and the general public of what is impeachable behavior in a President.

 

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S4-4-7/ALDE_00000695/

 

53 minutes ago, facthunter said:

Joe must automatically have the SAME rights? NO? 

Most definitely. 

[willedoo]

I seem to be missing something here. The way I read the court decision is that there is immunity from criminal prosecution (and I assume civil) for official acts but not for unofficial acts. I don't know if it would influence impeachment as it's not criminal or civil prosecution and the penalty for a guilty impeachment verdict is removal from office only.