Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times thinks the time may be ripe for world government. His article is practically a case study in unintentional irony and unwitting self-fisking (a sample: "The European Union has already set up a continental government for 27 countries, which could be a model. The EU has a supreme court, a currency, thousands of pages of law, a large civil service and the ability to deploy military force.")
Gideon Rachman then hears from some folks who don't much care for the idea; you know the sort: "the gun-toting, bible-bashing, nationalistic bit of the United States" (does he really mean "bible-bashing", by the way? Surely he means "bible-thumping").
Anybody here think the Brits - particularly this Brit - should lead the way?* Personally, I would say that the notion of world government is simply not on; certainly I'm not buying it based on the mere affidavit of a fellow who looks like my idea of Wodehouse's Stanley F. Ukridge.
*H/T: Dog fight at Bankstown
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8 comments:
Don't Brits already rule the world? I mean who has the last word on American Idol? Who says if You Can Dance? Why is it we always hear people with British accents running everything and telling us what to do?
So, you're suggesting that what Rachman's really after is world government run by the British? Hmm. Cunning, that. Just imagine: jellied eels, bad teeth and gun control for everybody.
I thought we already settled the idea of Brits telling us how to run things. Maybe this guy comes from some alternate universe where George Washington and John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were hanged as traitors.
BTW, does Rachman wear pinz-nez glasses held on with ginger beer wire? Because I've always wanted to see what that looks like.
Steve: I rather think not, but the photo of him at the FT blog somewhat resembles the artist's rendition of Ukridge that graces the cover of one of my Wodehouse paperbacks.
While I don't have a general prejudice against an eventual world government (being a futurist, scifi geek who believes in spreading humanity beyond the earth, after all), I believe human nature will have to evolve considerably beyond the limited, collectivist crap spouted by socialists befote then. In short, we won't see it in our lifetime, or our great-granchildrens' lifetime, or even theirs. Let's think instead a "whole earth government", and I believe before that happens (if it ever does), that there will be human colonies that will be beyond the reach of an earth-based government.
I know it sounds like scifi. But I was born and spent my childhood before there was such a thing as routine air travel between continents for ordinary people. My grandmother traveled to Texas from Tennessee, walking beside a wagon, with a baby on her hip.
The past is closer than you think. And so is the future, of which we know nothing.
I can't see one-world government in the absence of a one-world, generic culture; pretty "blah", I'd say.
The ability to deploy military force. snicker!
I think he means they would have the ability to deploy OUR military force.
Yojimbo: Exactly. And the guy mentions "thousands of laws" and "a civil service" as if these were great boons to mankind.
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