Random Thoughts (Political Edition)

Supporting specific actions or instances =/= support of the people who make them, and other decisions



No we don't. I can hardly associate our republic with a democracy, partially because the people we elect lie and change their minds. Furthermore, we have zero system for recalling these punks.

Furthermore, the change doesn't depend on people not being ignorant, its dependent on the system changing where the more money you have, the more likely you're going to get elected.

Anyone will believe a lie if it's said often enough.

I just wanted to go back to this because it was never really gone over in detail. The US is absolutely not a democracy. If you want to be very specific the United States is a federal constitutional representative democratic republic.

Yeah I know that is a lot of terms to try and describe a form of government but that is the specific form the US uses and many people in the US don't understand that so it doesn't surprise me that people in Europe don't get it either.
 
The Federalist No. 10 - The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection

From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.

- James Madison http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa10.htm
 
Looked back through the thread to see if this was posted, just saw lots of angry debating about Islam, speech, war, and other stuff. Bring on the levity!

Remember all those jokes about unpopular governments buying votes? Cue EU stage right...


http://www.ottawacitizen.com/travel/news/Vacationing+human+right+chief+says/2924330/story.html

So friends, I am a student between 18-25, if I come to the EU can I have free (or significantly discounted!) tours?

Grrrrrrrrr

The EU, making corruption an art!
 
Which is why I usually (but certainly not always) think highly of the supreme court because every other facet of U.S. Politics seems to be riddled with religious bias (or maybe that's just cuz I'm from Texas) and little or at least less respect for separation of church and state. At the very least I get the impression that these people have ACTUALLY read the constitution.
It seems like if you want to get elected for just about anything, especially federal office, you have to pay lip service to the Church. Personally I see that as a violation of the separation of church and state (at least the idea behind it). If legislators want to impose their conception of morality on me then they might as well set up a national church.

The US is absolutely not a democracy. If you want to be very specific the United States is a federal constitutional representative democratic republic.

Yeah I know that is a lot of terms to try and describe a form of government but that is the specific form the US uses and many people in the US don't understand that so it doesn't surprise me that people in Europe don't get it either.
I don't know how many times I've corrected people for saying that the US is a democracy (no, we're a constitutional republic), only to get a blank stare back. Damn, I went over this in middle school!

Jetsetter beat me to posting Federalist #10, Madison's bit on controlling the negative effects of factions. Must spread more short, nerdy founding fathers around before ... etc etc.

Anyone want to join me in establishing the Federalist party?
You do that and we will have a problem.
Andrew_Jackson.jpg


:lol:

I like some of the ideas that Madison and Hamilton put forward. I'm a supporter of a strong federal government, for instance. I absolutely support a single currency for all states and having limited government involvement in the economy. But at their core the Federalists were the party of the wealthy elite. Madison wanted an extremely powerful executive branch, and possibly an even stronger federal system than we have today.

... so anyway, it would depend on your platform. :D
 
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Back a few weeks ago I saw some poll that more people would be more parents would be more accepting of their children marrying a person of a different race then a person who was an atheist.

I think the same can be said about most elected officials and the President for sure. Its great that we have advanced enough to have a black president but I don't see us having a president who is atheist or even agnostic for generations to come.

Here is a blog post about the study and full study here.

Summary below.

The actual question referred to can be found on page 102 of the full study. I?ll summarize it below for those who do not wish to wade through the whole report.

I found it encouraging that an average of only about 5% of White, Black, Hispanic and Asian Americans said they would not be able to accept someone of another race marrying into the family. That is a tremendous step in the right direction for America; however, the fact that an average of 26% of those asked said they could not accept someone who does not believe in God shows we have a long way to go. I?m not sure why, but apparently Asians were not asked the ?God? question?it may be because many Asians tend to be atheistic and might be more accepting, then again it could be unintentional.

Another thing I found discouraging that stuck out to me when the results are broken down by race was the fact that Blacks were more prejudiced against Atheists than Hispanics or Whites were.

Whites 24%
Blacks 36%
Hispanics 20%

One would think that our African American brothers and sisters would be less likely to practice bigotry but I guess religious belief trumps any empathy one might expect blacks to have for other unjustly ostracized minorities like atheists and gays.



This is another poll from 2007 that speaks directly about the president and electing an atheist.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/black_president_more_likely_than_mormon_or_atheist_/

gallup_20070219_diversity.png



What form of gov't does Sweden have anyway? Anyone know exactly?

The UK is in long form a unitary constitutional monarchical parliamentary democracy.
 
I need to spend more time in this thread.

Anyhow here is why I hate democracy: Strong central government + nation wide popularity contest = dictator.
 
Anyhow here is why I hate democracy: Strong central government + nation wide popularity contest = dictator.
I think it's possible, if you have strong enough political institutions and checks and balances within government. A federal, as opposed to unitary, system can also block that.

Not that I'm advocating switching the US to a strong, unitary democracy. I think we're better off as a federal republic. But there are small reforms we could make without compromising the current system.
 
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AFAIK a true democracy does not have leaders. Everything is voted directly by the people.

Which is why we are not one (in fact I'm not sure it has ever existed, and it sure as hell wouldn't work very well), as has been brought up several times in this thread.
 
Well ... that's a direct democracy (or I think pure as well, never heard it called true though).... most systems use a representative democracy system with some direct democracy for stuff the leaders are too scared off deciding on.
And the reason most democracies use representative is because then you don't have to be as involved in every decision which takes up quite a large time which is on the whole quite ineffective.
 
Precisely.

I use "true" in that sense, i.e., a government that could be called nothing but "democracy," rather than a representative democracy or some other variation.
 
Yeah I'm not for a "true" or "direct" democracy, cuz life experience has taught me that the majority is often pretty retarded.
 
The electoral college is pointless. Completely, utterly pointless, it's in itself designed to be undemocratic, each state gets two senators, Oklahoma is as powerful as California in the Senate, that's enough.
 
I just saw this over at Jalopnik:

500x_no_hope.jpg


Seriously, how much of a douche do you have to be to run around with that....
 
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