EvC against war: Sign here!

This whole war is madness. I was at the march on Saturday (I've never been on any sort of demo before) - what else do the people in a so-called democracy do when the major parties don't represent their position?I'm still pessimistic in that I think war is inevitable as far as the US is concerned. But I think its more than possible that the UK may yet pull our troops back (if not, then Blair will have to go).PE

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Sooooo.... you know who not to vote for next time around, right?

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Well no, not really The Tories and Labour both want to go to war. I'm not sure what the Lib Dems want, although Charles Kennedy is anti-war. And there wasn't a "Not going to war with Iraq" party at the time of the last election - nor was it an election issue, as far as I can recall.I agree with you that democracy should not be conducted by referendum, but it would be nice for the majority viewpoint in this country to be at least given a mainstream voice.(Incidentally, I don't hold with this amazingly stupid opinion poll question "would you support war if given UN backing?", as it implicitly connotes that the UN decision is completely independent of the actions of the UK. The question should be "Should Britain vote at the UN for or against war?". )PE

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David Unfamous and PE:
1,000,000 people out of 59,778,002 (July 2002 est.) in the UK is hardly the majority. Democracy is prevailing whether you agree with it or not.

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What a spectacularly bizarre thing to say! Given that there were exactly zero people on the pro-war rally, then we can therefore conclude......?I wonder what you did mean by this. Did you mean that the Government should only not attack Iraq if more than 29,889,001 people turn up for an anti-war rally (emphasis on "more than" )?Or maybe you thought that I was unfairly making the inference that 1m + people on the march (the biggest demo in the nation's history) necessarily implied that the majority of the country was against the war?Or maybe you thought I might not realise that 1m was less than half of 59m? That, of course, would be astronomically idiotic of you, though not entirely unfeasible.Given your "democracy is prevailing" comment ("prevailing" against what exactly? "Evil"? "Terror"?) can I put my jdean hat on and extrapolate that you think "democracy is prevailing" in Iraq, also, where as you know Saddam had practically 100% approval at the last general election.Its difficult to know what you mean or where you're going without any more of substance from you.PE

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Government by popular representation is democracy. Do you understand this? 1,000,000 retarded stinking hippies - 59,778,002 of the population does not equal popular representation.
Allow me to put on my tea drinking, i've only seen a firearm at the movies, yellow teeth PE bowler and live in my coddled pseudoreality where war is not necessary and the minority is represented by Government.

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Iraq is not a democracy is it? But of course you know that. Just as you know that 100% of the Iraqi people voted in only 3 hours during that election? Oh yeah, you just want to be an ass.

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Cheerio old chap!

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I'm afraid I could make little sense of your masturbatory diatribe. Maybe you could keep both hands on the keyboard next time you attempt a response?PE

It seems that Richard Dawkins is also staunchly against the war, he's written a column about it in The Independent (UK "left-leaning" paper).Excerpt (addressed to American scientists, in particular):

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As a scientist, I would like to be able to say something like the following to my American friends:

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"Dear Colleague: You are a member of the leading scientific nation, by far. No wonder there has been a brain drain from my country to yours. The trickle in the other direction has been, alas, negligible. Occasional attempts, by my own university of Oxford among others, to compete on the open market to recruit leading American professors or promising young scientists, have usually foundered on the problem of salary. But is it possible that things are now beginning to change? Could it be that political developments in your country are now starting to make emigration look more attractive, in spite of the salary differential?

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"I know, of course, without even asking, that you were a member of the majority who voted for Al Gore. When your majority in the country, reinforcing your clear majority in the Electoral College but for dead-heated Florida, was reversed by the Supreme Court coup d'tat, you must have been saddened, even infuriated. You presumably consoled yourself that it couldn't last more than four years.

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"All that has now changed, and you must be close to despair, especially if you happen to be working in a field such as stem cell cloning and find your research blocked by the religious bigotry of this administration, the most anti-intellectual administration in living memory.

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"Have things reached the point where you might consider moving? We in Britain may not be able to match your salary, but we can at least offer you a civilised, decent government, very different from the one you are eager to leave behind."

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If only...

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(Note: irony. He's suggesting he can't say this Britain has a civilised, decent government either.)PE