Threat to property

[w1z4rd]

/compliment on

What brilliant insight! What astonishing prescience! What a thorough grasp of the topic!

So glad my confusion was cleared up, after all these years. Detention without trail was soo avoidable if only I'd known. Thanks, ghoti!

Pleasure

 

[Arthur]

For the few who think that the State is too intrusive, here's a famous quote by Brit historian AJP Taylor.

Note the bits about permits, passports, control of money, etc, and the taken-for-granted liberties for ornery everyday people.

Read and weep:

“Until August 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman. He could live where he liked and as he liked. He had no official number or identity card. He could travel abroad or leave his country for ever without a passport or any sort of official permission. He could exchange his money for any other currency without restriction or limit. He could buy goods from any country in the world on the same terms as he bought goods at home. For that matter, a foreigner could spend his life in this country without permit and without informing the police. Unlike the countries of the European continent, the state did not require its citizens to perform military service. An Englishman could enlist, if he chose, in the regular army, the navy, or the territorials. He could also ignore, if he chose, the demands of national defence. Substantial householders were occasionally called on for jury service. Otherwise, only those helped the state who wished to do so. The Englishman paid taxes on a modest scale: nearly £200 million in 1913-14, or rather less than 8 per cent. of the national income ... Still, broadly speaking, the state acted only to help those who could not help themselves. It left the adult citizen alone.”

-- from Taylor's English History, 1914-1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970)

(Sidenote to ghoti: I do not endorse Taylor's views or comments - he was a life-long socialist, so he wasn't trying to paint a rosy past. I merely cite this passage to show that the modern conception of State omnipresence and omnicompetence is barely a century old, at least in the anglosphere. Neither do I want to go back to 1914 or some golden past - there is no such thing. The only direction is forward or die. However, I believe our civilisation has a bleak future if it remains mired in an outmoded and unworkable statist-collectivist political economy.)

 

[Paul Hjul]

Entirely true. I was talking about what the N in ANC stands for not what one the N`s in South African Native National Congress (SANNC) stands for. I was specific about this.

What you just did was like if I said the P in DP stands for Party and you come along and go, "thats not entirely true, the P in PP stands for progressive"

You suggested that the ANC was formed to mirror the Afrikaaner Nationalist Party, that is not entirely true. The SANNC was formed for a different purpose, it changed into a nationalist mirror and started a transformation about 5 years into its existence. Hence your suggestion "is not entirely true" and the nuance is of more than historic interest - the evolution of the ANC is damn important.

Yeah they did as the PP. What I mean is everyone gets a vote, not just blacks and not just whites. They had members of all colors until they were told they were not allowed to. Well at least this is what PP members are directly telling me. Should I tell people who were actually there and activists of the PP that random forum dude says they were wrong?

Sadly you are wrong. The early progs - which formed the PP and eventually landed to the DA did not advocate "that everyone gets the vote" they advocated a qualified franchise - exactly the same as the Cape Franchise at unification. What progs opposed - and this tore up in the United Party was the minority rule or reserved seats for minorities - the later occurred in Zim and was a "conservative" idea.
The division between qualified and universal franchise - one man one vote - was the division in the late 50s and early 60s between progs and liberals. To be more precise for the Liberal Party and radical liberals one man one vote was non-negotiable for progs it was - a particularly "progressive" view was that a qualified franchise with progressive expansion. It was only by the 1980s that those within the prog movement who supported universal franchise (and Suzman comes to particular mind, although I really don't know at what point Suzman moved to universal franchise as a position) had won over a general support within the prog movement that universal franchise was necessary even if not ideal. That was the position when Dakar came about. Coincidently the ANC was pushed to universal franchise by the communists in the 50s - and consequently their idea of universal franchise is different - it is the right to vote for the government ...

You are welcome to tell any activists of the PP that the Liberal Party beat the PP in supporting what has become our franchise position by 20 years, you are also welcome to ask them how they justified being a whites only political organization - this was legally mandated and was the reason for the Liberal Party dissolving, it was not possible not to be a white party.

I must add I take offence at being referred to as a "random forum dude" - firstly I do not post anonymously and secondly have actually researched the history of South African politics, and am actually an academically published author on South African liberalism. I suspect you are an overreaching DA Fanboy - unfortunately they creep in from time to time. I also believe that my activities in promoting liberalism in South Africa are quite substantial and that your attitude in this thread is to discard everybody who is not forwarding your myopic line.

 

[w1z4rd]

Im just ganna double check my source. Will email active members of the PP at the time and ask them if I misheard. Pretty sure this is what I was told. They even told me the story of the time where black people could no longer be members of the PP... and all the black members cards were kept in a special cabinet for the day they could vote together.

 

[w1z4rd]

Sadly you are wrong. The early progs - which formed the PP and eventually landed to the DA did not advocate "that everyone gets the vote" they advocated a qualified franchise - exactly the same as the Cape Franchise at unification. What progs opposed - and this tore up in the United Party was the minority rule or reserved seats for minorities - the later occurred in Zim and was a "conservative" idea.
The division between qualified and universal franchise - one man one vote - was the division in the late 50s and early 60s between progs and liberals. To be more precise for the Liberal Party and radical liberals one man one vote was non-negotiable for progs it was - a particularly "progressive" view was that a qualified franchise with progressive expansion. It was only by the 1980s that those within the prog movement who supported universal franchise (and Suzman comes to particular mind, although I really don't know at what point Suzman moved to universal franchise as a position) had won over a general support within the prog movement that universal franchise was necessary even if not ideal. That was the position when Dakar came about. Coincidently the ANC was pushed to universal franchise by the communists in the 50s - and consequently their idea of universal franchise is different - it is the right to vote for the government ...

"She stood up in Parliament and opposed Apartheid unequivocally. For 13 years, she was the only MP to do so. She took on every Apartheid bill and subjected it to criticism of the most penetrating, detailed and coruscating kind. Utterly fearless and devastatingly articulate, she confronted the scores of Nationalist MPs and bullying Ministers. She took them on, time after time, in speech after speech. Mr Mothapo speaks nonsense when he seeks to imply that she supported bills that “limited the rights of black South Africans”. Contrary to Mr Mothapo’s suggestion, she consistently opposed racial discrimination of any kind. She opposed the Tricameral Parliament in 1983 because it sought to permanently disenfranchise Black South Africans. And, to avoid any doubt, her non-racial approach always extended to the franchise. It is correct that, in the early days, her party was in favour of a franchise based on certain basic educational or property qualification. It was never one qualified by race, and from 1978, the party supported an entirely unqualified and universal adult franchise. Suzman was unwavering in her support for a Bill of Rights and the principle of the Rule of Law - defining features of our current liberal constitutional democracy."
http://www.hsf.org.za/media/press-r...n-suzman-2013-a-bright-star-in-a-dark-chamber

I asked the Helen Suzman foundation the question and they recommended this paragraph.