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Kapt Krunch

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"Bruce in Bangkok" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:30:53 +1000, Herodotus
wrote:

For a country with the population of Singapore Island, we have not
done badly.

cheers
Peter

Oh, by the way Bruce,

I simply cannot let the opportunity go by.

We were also the first country in the world to have real democracy in
that we were the first to have universal sufferage - men and women.

But then I suppose the term 'democracy' needs to be defined here.

Ours is mere electionaring and voting.

It does not include big business putting their man in and then
dictating foreign policy and thus reaping huge profits from their
initial investment from the war industries and oil.

You are right about NZer's migrating overseas. The 'brain drain' is
the reason why the New Zealand Government pushed for Australia to put
restrictions on NZ migration to Australia. Once we did not even need a
passport and could enjoy all the benefits of Australia such as instant
access to free Medicare, unemployment etc. Now we need a passport and
have to wait for the rest though the visa is still largely automatic.
One of the reasons why I took out Australian citizenship.

regards
Peter

Sorry, but my home town was holding "Town Meetings" in 1600-something.
A "Town Meeting" ,for the democratically challenged, is a meeting of
all the town's peoples where past and future problems are thrashed out
in public and a "Select Man" elected to run things for the next year.
Very close th the Viking "Thing".

Granted we had a king to take care of the larger problems but as far
as local affairs were concerned most of the New England states had a
primitive form of democracy (the kind where the people ARE listened
to) since the earliest days.

To the best of my knowledge Kiwi Land was unknown at that time, except
to the folks who stick their tongue out in greeting who didn't really
practice a modern form of democracy -- more a "Well, you lost, so into
the pot you go" sort of government :-)

Bruce-in-Bangkok
(correct Address is bpaige125atgmaildotcom)