Tony says:
>All the time you have been envisioning the cantons of The Swiss as the
>perfect democracy. Maybe if Aceh and East Timor can become banking
>centers for laundering stolen Third World monies, they can then begin to
>move away from the type of Asia democracy that shoots, hangs, and
>persecutes.
The Swiss canton system is not a perfect democracy and for a good reason! It
dates back to the middle-ages. And the bankers of Europe at the time were
Italians. It was modernized by Napoleon and in 1848 (or maybe around that
date). Besides, laundering of money is done with equal ease in other
countries (including the USA) nowadays. Pointing the finger towards the Swiss
banks for this is a trick that other banks love.
Mac says:
>I state simply nothing can be democratic divorced from the economic system
>in which it is a part, and that an Imperialist country (which *does* include
>Switzerland) is inherently the most anti-democratic of existence. How such a
>state treats the citizens that live within its borders, while not totally
>irrelevant, is absoltely secondary and seldom a "plus".
Again, the Swiss system predates European imperialism by quite a while (and
the Swiss were late to join the bandwagon). Anyway, the point is not how the
state treates its citzens but its native ethnic/religious groups. The pre-
imperialist record is not perfect but is quite good.
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