http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/edward-snowden-whistleblower-still-missing-at-moscow-airport-a-908023.html
Bravo, Der Spiegel! Clearly the only mature response to the mystery of Snowden's current location is to join in with some vaguely Russo-phobic speculation about what dirty reasons Putin's secret services might have for harbouring/kidnapping/interrogating him. A little evidence would be nice.
Showing posts with label Germany. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Germany. Show all posts
Wednesday, 26 June 2013
Saturday, 23 March 2013
The perils of using WW2 as a guide to past conflicts
So thanks to the incapacity of Belfast International airport to maintain normal service during snowfall I've come into possession of the latest 'New Statesman' - a publication I enjoy but don't get around to reading regularly.
The cover story is a rather interesting, but slightly implausible, attempt to link the current economic back-biting in the Eurozone to a consideration of the 'German question' as a driver of European history and international relations. Despite the tenuous linking of these themes it was a good read and I always appreciate any public debate that encourages an engagement with German history beyond the much picked over periods of the World Wars and the Nazi dictatorship.
However, as usual in such a sweeping history there were a couple of historical simplifications that jarred a little. Periods of German history and especially major wars were (possibly merely for reasons of space) characterised mainly in relation to one burning issue or theme. We find that the Thirty Years War was mainly concerned with the ambitions of the European powers in a time of religious turmoil while WW1 was caused by the alarming concentration of power in a unified Germany.
Of course such motivations were indisputably real. The Protestantism of the rebellious Bohemians was as influential in the origin of the Thirty Years War as France's fear of Spanish encirclement. Yet creating such a meta-narrative ignores the chaotic unpredictability of history. Where does the ambitious personality of Gustavus Adolphus or the territorial antagonism of the (universally Protestant) Scandanavian states fit into such an unnuanced narrative? If such awkward questions can be asked about the characterisation of a single war then how can five hundred years of German history before and after unification be tied together into any sort of consistent narrative?
In explaining this phenomena one could focus on the virtues of simplicity and a strong central argument or the political uses of easily understandable historical themes. However, in this post I will instead consider the effects on historical views of conflict caused by the centrality of the Second World War to British teaching of German history.
The dominant narrative and focus on World War II in the classroom and seminar hall allows teachers to focus on the horrors of war while absolving most of the blame from the victors of the conflict. The occurrence of ethnic cleansing and brutal attacks on civilians can be acknowledged by a focus on the mass killing of Jews and minorities during the Holocaust. The suffering of the ordinary soldier can also be emphasised through a focus on the discomfort of conscripted American soldiers, thousands of miles from home, and the privations of Allied paratroopers behind enemy lines.
However, such grim descriptions of the consequence of war are stripped of much of their subversive content by the ascription of the majority of the blame to the losers of the war. The ethnic cleansing and totalitarian acts of Germany can be used to obscure any war crimes or mis-treatment of non-combatants by the Allies. For example, the abandonment of Dutch resistance forces to German repression is justified by the need to end the war (and thus the killing of the Jews and other persecuted groups) as quickly as possible. The American use of nuclear weapons on civilians is condoned by the need to avoid the greater horror of clawing back island after island from fanatical Japanese troops. Such events are portrayed as horrific and distasteful but are ultimately justified by the necessity of combating the evil of Nazism and totalitarian expansionism.
In making this argument I am not sticking up for the Nazis and their authoritarian allies. I would far rather live in a world where the Allies won the war through pragmatic measures than in one where Hitler's grisly extermination of minorities continued beyond 1945. However, such standard justifications of Allied behaviour do influence our perception of previous conflicts. When we consider earlier wars we are conditioned to adopt an equally pragmatic approach in ascribing motivations. We assume that wars must have been fought for a central reason and that the actions of involved states must be explicable by rational necessity. In identifying such central and all-encompassing rationales for past conflicts we risk jettisoning large amounts of necessary historical context. We fail to consider such temporally and geographically specific factors as the difficulty of communicating with distant armies during the Thirty Years War or the incentive for soldiers to continue fighting when their only methods of logistical support were looting and extortion. Similarly we neglect the differences between a war initiated by a (theoretically) unchallenged Monarch and those directed by elected and (theoretically) easily replaced politicians.
This is not to say that there is no place for wide narratives in an understanding of past conflicts. However, care must be taken to avoid smuggling in assumptions by organising analysis around overarching motivations. The context of particular historical situations and motivations should always be considered and a meta-narrative only sustained if it can be extrapolated from an in-depth study of each considered historical example.
The cover story is a rather interesting, but slightly implausible, attempt to link the current economic back-biting in the Eurozone to a consideration of the 'German question' as a driver of European history and international relations. Despite the tenuous linking of these themes it was a good read and I always appreciate any public debate that encourages an engagement with German history beyond the much picked over periods of the World Wars and the Nazi dictatorship.
However, as usual in such a sweeping history there were a couple of historical simplifications that jarred a little. Periods of German history and especially major wars were (possibly merely for reasons of space) characterised mainly in relation to one burning issue or theme. We find that the Thirty Years War was mainly concerned with the ambitions of the European powers in a time of religious turmoil while WW1 was caused by the alarming concentration of power in a unified Germany.
Of course such motivations were indisputably real. The Protestantism of the rebellious Bohemians was as influential in the origin of the Thirty Years War as France's fear of Spanish encirclement. Yet creating such a meta-narrative ignores the chaotic unpredictability of history. Where does the ambitious personality of Gustavus Adolphus or the territorial antagonism of the (universally Protestant) Scandanavian states fit into such an unnuanced narrative? If such awkward questions can be asked about the characterisation of a single war then how can five hundred years of German history before and after unification be tied together into any sort of consistent narrative?
In explaining this phenomena one could focus on the virtues of simplicity and a strong central argument or the political uses of easily understandable historical themes. However, in this post I will instead consider the effects on historical views of conflict caused by the centrality of the Second World War to British teaching of German history.
The dominant narrative and focus on World War II in the classroom and seminar hall allows teachers to focus on the horrors of war while absolving most of the blame from the victors of the conflict. The occurrence of ethnic cleansing and brutal attacks on civilians can be acknowledged by a focus on the mass killing of Jews and minorities during the Holocaust. The suffering of the ordinary soldier can also be emphasised through a focus on the discomfort of conscripted American soldiers, thousands of miles from home, and the privations of Allied paratroopers behind enemy lines.
However, such grim descriptions of the consequence of war are stripped of much of their subversive content by the ascription of the majority of the blame to the losers of the war. The ethnic cleansing and totalitarian acts of Germany can be used to obscure any war crimes or mis-treatment of non-combatants by the Allies. For example, the abandonment of Dutch resistance forces to German repression is justified by the need to end the war (and thus the killing of the Jews and other persecuted groups) as quickly as possible. The American use of nuclear weapons on civilians is condoned by the need to avoid the greater horror of clawing back island after island from fanatical Japanese troops. Such events are portrayed as horrific and distasteful but are ultimately justified by the necessity of combating the evil of Nazism and totalitarian expansionism.
In making this argument I am not sticking up for the Nazis and their authoritarian allies. I would far rather live in a world where the Allies won the war through pragmatic measures than in one where Hitler's grisly extermination of minorities continued beyond 1945. However, such standard justifications of Allied behaviour do influence our perception of previous conflicts. When we consider earlier wars we are conditioned to adopt an equally pragmatic approach in ascribing motivations. We assume that wars must have been fought for a central reason and that the actions of involved states must be explicable by rational necessity. In identifying such central and all-encompassing rationales for past conflicts we risk jettisoning large amounts of necessary historical context. We fail to consider such temporally and geographically specific factors as the difficulty of communicating with distant armies during the Thirty Years War or the incentive for soldiers to continue fighting when their only methods of logistical support were looting and extortion. Similarly we neglect the differences between a war initiated by a (theoretically) unchallenged Monarch and those directed by elected and (theoretically) easily replaced politicians.
This is not to say that there is no place for wide narratives in an understanding of past conflicts. However, care must be taken to avoid smuggling in assumptions by organising analysis around overarching motivations. The context of particular historical situations and motivations should always be considered and a meta-narrative only sustained if it can be extrapolated from an in-depth study of each considered historical example.
Saturday, 2 February 2013
Latest attack on Cameron's Referendum
I don't usually side with the British aerospace firms in their global initiative to push weapons on any country that they can get away with bribing.
However, Robin Southwell (head of ADS) is the latest high profile critic of Cameron's pandering to the Europhile fringe of the Conservative party. Like many before him, Southwell points to the economic consequences of antagonising Europe.
"If you look at both exports and imports, the eurozone does more business with the UK than with any other trading bloc", he pointed out whilst noting that we are also now Germany's biggest trading partner.
Cameron talks a lot about his support for industry and defence but apparently short term political gains can be pursued to the detriment of both.
However, Robin Southwell (head of ADS) is the latest high profile critic of Cameron's pandering to the Europhile fringe of the Conservative party. Like many before him, Southwell points to the economic consequences of antagonising Europe.
"If you look at both exports and imports, the eurozone does more business with the UK than with any other trading bloc", he pointed out whilst noting that we are also now Germany's biggest trading partner.
Cameron talks a lot about his support for industry and defence but apparently short term political gains can be pursued to the detriment of both.
Tuesday, 2 October 2012
Two lost pairs of Lederhosen and a scary Futurologist
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/2012-oktoberfest-nears-record-beer-consumption-in-first-week-a-858919.html
Der Spiegel carries out an analysis of crime statistics during the Oktoberfest festivities. Somehow that is very, very German. Unfortunately violence and drunkenness seem to be up this year.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-the-american-futurologist-michio-kaku-a-857860.html
Why are technology worshippers always so politically naive? Not only does this guy get his dates wrong when he tries to do history - we had both telephones and automobiles by 1900, he also doesn't seem to have fully thought through many of his ideas:
1) "If you are a college student, you blink and you can see all the answers to the final examination by wearing your contact lenses. Artists will wave their hands in the air and create beautiful works of art. If you're an architect, you will see what you are creating and just move towers, two apartment buildings around as you construct things."
Works okay for the last two but if everybody has information at their finger tips why become a university student? Even for the others who is to say that modelling technology that advanced wouldn't turn everybody into an architect or an artist regardless of talent? Maybe he anticipates this but if so why does he not talk about the sociological changes it would bring?
2) We can get rid of death but overpopulation will not be a problem.
False analogy from current trends. There is a huge difference in the decision to not reproduce when we live for 80 years and resources are still finite and the same decision made by immortals who live in utopia. Also currently there is a large amount of cultural homogeneity in the developed world. Who can say whether other cultures would replicate the declining birth rate in a world of infinite resources.
3) "Eternal life does not violate the laws of physics"
Of course it does! Go off and read Isaac Asimov's 'The Last Question' you silly Futurologist!
Der Spiegel carries out an analysis of crime statistics during the Oktoberfest festivities. Somehow that is very, very German. Unfortunately violence and drunkenness seem to be up this year.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-the-american-futurologist-michio-kaku-a-857860.html
Why are technology worshippers always so politically naive? Not only does this guy get his dates wrong when he tries to do history - we had both telephones and automobiles by 1900, he also doesn't seem to have fully thought through many of his ideas:
1) "If you are a college student, you blink and you can see all the answers to the final examination by wearing your contact lenses. Artists will wave their hands in the air and create beautiful works of art. If you're an architect, you will see what you are creating and just move towers, two apartment buildings around as you construct things."
Works okay for the last two but if everybody has information at their finger tips why become a university student? Even for the others who is to say that modelling technology that advanced wouldn't turn everybody into an architect or an artist regardless of talent? Maybe he anticipates this but if so why does he not talk about the sociological changes it would bring?
2) We can get rid of death but overpopulation will not be a problem.
False analogy from current trends. There is a huge difference in the decision to not reproduce when we live for 80 years and resources are still finite and the same decision made by immortals who live in utopia. Also currently there is a large amount of cultural homogeneity in the developed world. Who can say whether other cultures would replicate the declining birth rate in a world of infinite resources.
3) "Eternal life does not violate the laws of physics"
Of course it does! Go off and read Isaac Asimov's 'The Last Question' you silly Futurologist!
Wednesday, 18 April 2012
The Funny Side of Car Crashes?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,828091,00.html
Who says the Germans don't have a sense of humour?
Who says the Germans don't have a sense of humour?
Friday, 23 December 2011
Spiegel on Havel
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,805536,00.html
The Spiegel coverage of the death of Vaclav Havel is definitely worth a read, providing a bit more context and biography than the facts-only BBC version.
I hadn't previously known that Havel had apologised for the expulsion of the Sudetenland Germans. That must have been an extremely brave political decision. Obviously every country should apologise for past attacks on ethnic minorities. However, since Czechoslovakia had been invaded with the German minority used as an explicit justification by Hitler it must have required even more public courage than usual.
The Spiegel coverage of the death of Vaclav Havel is definitely worth a read, providing a bit more context and biography than the facts-only BBC version.
I hadn't previously known that Havel had apologised for the expulsion of the Sudetenland Germans. That must have been an extremely brave political decision. Obviously every country should apologise for past attacks on ethnic minorities. However, since Czechoslovakia had been invaded with the German minority used as an explicit justification by Hitler it must have required even more public courage than usual.
Friday, 2 December 2011
FU Russia Today
http://rt.com/news/merkel-european-crisis-869/
Headline from Russia Today: Merkel gives EU the FU
FU apparently being a recognised abbreviation for Fiscal Union.
Might just be me but this wasn't my first thought.
Wednesday, 5 October 2011
Spiegel seizes the lender's moral high ground
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,790138,00.html
It always gives me a sour taste when I see German newspapers heaping condemnation on the southern members of the Eurozone. It takes two to tango and it takes a poor lender and a poor borrower to put together a bad loan. If German banks and financial companies couldn't be bothered to check whether they were going to be paid back they shouldn't have gone on handing out more loans.
Joseph Stiglitz makes a good point when he says that the world needs borrowers and lenders to function. While lenders might be in a stronger position when the world tips over into recession this doesn't mean that it they are in ethically superior to nations that are net creditors.
It also doesn't help that the article isn't internally consistent. Sensible, Protestant, Northern Europe vs the slack, profligate, Catholic South makes a nice newspaper headline. However, even the Spiegel acknowledges that Belgium has similar levels of debt to Italy and Greece. Presumably we should be blaming the Catholic Waloons for contaminating poor, sensible Belgium with debtor tendencies?
It always gives me a sour taste when I see German newspapers heaping condemnation on the southern members of the Eurozone. It takes two to tango and it takes a poor lender and a poor borrower to put together a bad loan. If German banks and financial companies couldn't be bothered to check whether they were going to be paid back they shouldn't have gone on handing out more loans.
Joseph Stiglitz makes a good point when he says that the world needs borrowers and lenders to function. While lenders might be in a stronger position when the world tips over into recession this doesn't mean that it they are in ethically superior to nations that are net creditors.
It also doesn't help that the article isn't internally consistent. Sensible, Protestant, Northern Europe vs the slack, profligate, Catholic South makes a nice newspaper headline. However, even the Spiegel acknowledges that Belgium has similar levels of debt to Italy and Greece. Presumably we should be blaming the Catholic Waloons for contaminating poor, sensible Belgium with debtor tendencies?
Tuesday, 6 September 2011
Harrowing film of the week - 'The boy in the striped pyjamas'
Going into this film I was expecting not to like it. My logic behind this was that it received a 12a certificate in the UK. I didn't think that there was any way that you could cover the horrors of the Holocaust within the constraints of a program partially aimed at a pre-pubescent audience
It didn't take long for the film to disillusion me of this opinion. Stylistically it works. Nobody would have been stupid enough to carry out acts of horrendous violence against the prisoners in front of the Kommandant's eight-year-old son. Therefore, the more graphic atrocities are carried out behind closed doors. We get before and after portraits rather than viewing the event itself, as when an SS guard claims he is going to have a 'conversation' with Shmuel about stealing food and the next time we see the Jewish boy he has a badly bruised eye. Somehow this more subtle, child's-eye-view approach to the Holocaust bypassed my usual mental resistance to take in dramatic representations of horror and really got to me at points.
The character acting is fantastic, although only the Kommandant really got the hang of the German accent and the others all sound very English or American. It is interesting to see how Gretel and Bruno adjust to life in such a warped environment; Gretel is charmed by the ideological surity and surface attractiveness of camp life while Bruno retains his innocence and lack of understanding throughout the film. The ending is a real wrench that I didn't see coming even as Bruno burrowed under the fence (the border guards seemed to be especially lax, by the way). By removing the barrier between him and Shmuel he repairs any residual damage to their friendship from the food stealing incident and shows that when not being cowed by a shouting guard he feels no base revulsion or hatred of the people in the camps. However, this same childish lack of understanding means he (and even the more street-wise Shmuel) cannot comprehend the danger he is getting himself into by breaking down the boundaries, enforced by the brutality of the state repression apparatus, between Jews and the Volksdeutsche.
P.s. What is it with all the presentations of terrible people as loving parents this week? First, Omar in Four Lions with his pleasant and jokey home environment where everyone knew he planned to blow himself up for jihad. Then the Kommandant with his obvious affection for his family despite disagreements about his concentration camp posting and genocidal activities. I mean, I know it is crude propaganda to make fictionalised portraits of your (former or current) enemies as wife beaters and alcoholics, but some of them were! Robert Ley was an alcoholic, Goebbels slept around and Goering had a morphine addiction throughout his career as the heir presumptive of the Third Reich. Still it is nothing new for the film-making industry to obsess with the image of the sophisticated and clever Nazi. It raises more interesting questions about motivation and ideology than an examination of the average SA member who was in all likelihood not very clever and enjoyed fighting the Nazi's political enemies on the streets of Berlin.
It didn't take long for the film to disillusion me of this opinion. Stylistically it works. Nobody would have been stupid enough to carry out acts of horrendous violence against the prisoners in front of the Kommandant's eight-year-old son. Therefore, the more graphic atrocities are carried out behind closed doors. We get before and after portraits rather than viewing the event itself, as when an SS guard claims he is going to have a 'conversation' with Shmuel about stealing food and the next time we see the Jewish boy he has a badly bruised eye. Somehow this more subtle, child's-eye-view approach to the Holocaust bypassed my usual mental resistance to take in dramatic representations of horror and really got to me at points.
The character acting is fantastic, although only the Kommandant really got the hang of the German accent and the others all sound very English or American. It is interesting to see how Gretel and Bruno adjust to life in such a warped environment; Gretel is charmed by the ideological surity and surface attractiveness of camp life while Bruno retains his innocence and lack of understanding throughout the film. The ending is a real wrench that I didn't see coming even as Bruno burrowed under the fence (the border guards seemed to be especially lax, by the way). By removing the barrier between him and Shmuel he repairs any residual damage to their friendship from the food stealing incident and shows that when not being cowed by a shouting guard he feels no base revulsion or hatred of the people in the camps. However, this same childish lack of understanding means he (and even the more street-wise Shmuel) cannot comprehend the danger he is getting himself into by breaking down the boundaries, enforced by the brutality of the state repression apparatus, between Jews and the Volksdeutsche.
P.s. What is it with all the presentations of terrible people as loving parents this week? First, Omar in Four Lions with his pleasant and jokey home environment where everyone knew he planned to blow himself up for jihad. Then the Kommandant with his obvious affection for his family despite disagreements about his concentration camp posting and genocidal activities. I mean, I know it is crude propaganda to make fictionalised portraits of your (former or current) enemies as wife beaters and alcoholics, but some of them were! Robert Ley was an alcoholic, Goebbels slept around and Goering had a morphine addiction throughout his career as the heir presumptive of the Third Reich. Still it is nothing new for the film-making industry to obsess with the image of the sophisticated and clever Nazi. It raises more interesting questions about motivation and ideology than an examination of the average SA member who was in all likelihood not very clever and enjoyed fighting the Nazi's political enemies on the streets of Berlin.
Wednesday, 31 August 2011
Update on Libya
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14739743
Saif al-Islam seems to have a different definition of 'victory' to that shared by most people. I'm surprised he hasn't retreated to Algeria along with other members of his family
Russia has been finally forced to recognise the National Transitional Council. That has got to be painful after his earlier criticisms of NATO's actions. (http://stochasticreview.blogspot.com/2011/03/god-save-us-from-politicians-and-their.html)
Elsewhere the Germans seem to be doing a lot of hand-wrangling over their foreign minister's decision to stay out of Libya. (http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,783368,00.html). Most papers are criticising Westerwelle of the FDP for his choice to abstain on the UN decision to allow intervention in Libya. Of the papers quoted only the Berlin daily, der Tagesspiegel, refrains from such criticism. In fact it pushes a stronger line that not only was it the right decision in the circumstances but that the NATO intervention was one sided and unjustified. It even seems to suggest that Russia, China or Germany should have vetoed the resolution. Controversial stuff!
Saif al-Islam seems to have a different definition of 'victory' to that shared by most people. I'm surprised he hasn't retreated to Algeria along with other members of his family
Russia has been finally forced to recognise the National Transitional Council. That has got to be painful after his earlier criticisms of NATO's actions. (http://stochasticreview.blogspot.com/2011/03/god-save-us-from-politicians-and-their.html)
Elsewhere the Germans seem to be doing a lot of hand-wrangling over their foreign minister's decision to stay out of Libya. (http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,783368,00.html). Most papers are criticising Westerwelle of the FDP for his choice to abstain on the UN decision to allow intervention in Libya. Of the papers quoted only the Berlin daily, der Tagesspiegel, refrains from such criticism. In fact it pushes a stronger line that not only was it the right decision in the circumstances but that the NATO intervention was one sided and unjustified. It even seems to suggest that Russia, China or Germany should have vetoed the resolution. Controversial stuff!
Friday, 22 July 2011
Neo Nazis
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,775764,00.html
Briefly skimmed this article on the upbringing of the children of far right Neo-Nazis (although I've always wandered about the automatic correlation of Nazism with right wing policies. Sure the conservative social values, racism and fervent nationalism fit the bill but what about the Keynesian economics and nationalization of large parts of industry? Maybe fascism is primarily defined by its authoritarian attempt to control all aspects of a citizen's life rather than by a position on the left-right spectrum.)
This paragraph caught my eye, "Experts are worried about the children of Germany's neo-Nazis growing up in isolated extremist communities. The children read Nazi-era books, put together puzzles showing maps with 1937 borders and attend camps with ideological instruction. Is it time for the state to intervene?"
Maybe I'm jaded but my first thought was, "Could be worse. At least they aren't using maps with the 1942 borders."
Briefly skimmed this article on the upbringing of the children of far right Neo-Nazis (although I've always wandered about the automatic correlation of Nazism with right wing policies. Sure the conservative social values, racism and fervent nationalism fit the bill but what about the Keynesian economics and nationalization of large parts of industry? Maybe fascism is primarily defined by its authoritarian attempt to control all aspects of a citizen's life rather than by a position on the left-right spectrum.)
This paragraph caught my eye, "Experts are worried about the children of Germany's neo-Nazis growing up in isolated extremist communities. The children read Nazi-era books, put together puzzles showing maps with 1937 borders and attend camps with ideological instruction. Is it time for the state to intervene?"
Maybe I'm jaded but my first thought was, "Could be worse. At least they aren't using maps with the 1942 borders."
Sunday, 22 May 2011
16 year olds allowed to vote in Bremen
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13489953
Bravo, Bremen!
"The BBC's Stephen Evans, in Berlin, says studies indicate that 16-year-olds are less likely to take the trouble than older people - and one study also seems to show that their level of ignorance about politics is much greater than 18-year-olds. "
1) You know a good way to make people less ignorant about politics? Let them engage in the politicial process!
2) Why does it matter if only a minority of sixteen year olds vote? Surely better that politically conscious people of that age (yes they do exist) are not disenfranchised arbitrarily than that we withhold the vote from them simply because not everyone of their age will make use of it.
3) I suspect that eighteen year olds are statistically less likely to cast their votes than old age pensioners. Does that mean they should have their votes taken away?
Bravo, Bremen!
"The BBC's Stephen Evans, in Berlin, says studies indicate that 16-year-olds are less likely to take the trouble than older people - and one study also seems to show that their level of ignorance about politics is much greater than 18-year-olds. "
1) You know a good way to make people less ignorant about politics? Let them engage in the politicial process!
2) Why does it matter if only a minority of sixteen year olds vote? Surely better that politically conscious people of that age (yes they do exist) are not disenfranchised arbitrarily than that we withhold the vote from them simply because not everyone of their age will make use of it.
3) I suspect that eighteen year olds are statistically less likely to cast their votes than old age pensioners. Does that mean they should have their votes taken away?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)