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An Anonymous Coward writes:
Found this interesting bit of history at the NY Times
George H. W. Bush: Hello, Mikhail.
Mikhail S. Gorbachev: George, my dear friend. It is good to hear your voice.
G.B.: I greet you on this momentous day, this historic day. I appreciate your calling me.
M.G.: Let me begin by saying something pleasant to you: Merry Christmas to you, Barbara and your family. I had been thinking about when to make my statement, Tuesday or today. I finally decided to do it today, at the end of the day. So let me say first Merry Christmas and very best wishes.
Well, let me say that in about two hours I will speak on Moscow TV and will make a short statement about my decision. I have sent a letter to you, George. I hope you will receive it shortly. I said in the letter a most important thing. And I would like to reaffirm to you that I greatly value what we did working together with you, first as vice president and then as president of the United States. I hope that all leaders of the commonwealth and, above all, Russia understand what kind of assets we have accrued between the leaders of our two countries. I hope they understand their responsibility to preserve and expand this important source of capital.
Gorbachev goes on to say that he is handing off control of the USSR's nukes to Russia in an organized fashion. Bush thanks him for that and then recalls the fun they had tossing horseshoes at Camp David.
With all the talk of Trump and Putin being business buddies, it looks like there is at least some precedent of the two cold war country leaders carrying on a civil conversation.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday January 03 2017, @10:25PM
In fact medieval Iceland, for example, did exist, and it doesn't seem to have been all that bad a place. Even in its latter years when there was a perceived problem with violence which lead to the end of that system, the rate of violence was no worse than the US has experienced recently. And while Somalia is certainly not a nice place, it was much worse when it had a government. Somalia was the poorest country in the region under a normal government and the economy improved dramatically after it was sent packing. More recently they've found they can't defend themselves against advanced western nations bombing the crap out of them, it's true, but having a government in place wouldn't change that fact. Lebanon and Syria have vastly greater natural resources and expert help but even with that they are unable to control their airspace. So the best real-world examples we have definitely do not support your claims, particularly when we keep in mind that the comparison needs to be, not to some nirvana where nothing ever goes wrong, but to other political systems, none of which are perfect.
How about logic? If I do my best to fill in the holes in what you have written there is sort of a skeleton of a logical argument, tenuous as it is.
"Yours requires a huge percentage of people to band together to defend not banding together to defend ideals."
I don't know why you think 'ideals' need to be defended in this context. Do you think that the mainstream nation runs on ideals, or defends them? Virtually never. They run on money and self interest. Why do you suppose that will work for one yet not for the other?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by quietus on Thursday January 05 2017, @03:11PM
In fact medieval Iceland, for example, did exist, and it doesn't seem to have been all that bad a place.
You might want to read a couple Halldor Laxness novels [wikipedia.org] first, before putting such a claim forward.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday January 05 2017, @04:26PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by quietus on Saturday January 07 2017, @03:32PM
(Score: 1) by Arik on Saturday January 07 2017, @04:38PM
The roots of English common law lie back in the ancient customs of the germanic bands, so it's a close cousin to the Icelandic version. The low country is another area that shares that heritage, of course with a heavy influence from roman law afterwards.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?