Definition of Democracy
I've been trying to write a paper on what I believe the definition of democracy is for one of my classes. It's actually pretty difficult (for me anyway) to accept just one definition of the word.
What do you think a true democracy is?
and...
Do you think there as been a perfect example of a true democracy in action in the course of human history, i.e., the Greeks, the U.S etc.
Can or will a true democracy ever occur? Should it?
Just wondering what you all think...
I can tell you what it is not.
It is not the US.
We are not a democracy, never have been and I hope we never are.
We are a Constitutional Republic.
Long Live The Republic!
A democracy is mob rule.
"Two lions and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner".
Yeah, I've never thought the U.S was an example. Some people in my class are under that belief. But me and most of my peers are coming straight out of high school, and high school history classes pretty much teach kids that the U.S was founded with democracy in mind.
Is this true?
No. Not at all.
The ideal was always the Republic.
I think our conception of the term 'democracy' has shifted somewhat over the last hundred years or so. Rather than meaning mob-rule, it now has connotations simply of increased participation in the governance of the Nation. Republic and democracy have become more or less interchangeable, because Democracy is one of the ways in which Republic can be sought, and Republics have at their core a system of participatory governance which is democratic in nature: every citizen gets to vote in local and national elections, but every governmental decision is not put to the vote.
From Tom Paine's
Rights of Man:
The only forms of government are the democratical, the aristocratical, the monarchical, and what is now called the representative.
What is called a republic is not any particular form of government. It is wholly characteristical of the purport, matter or object for which government ought to be instituted, and on which it is to be employed, Res-Publica, the public affairs, or the public good; or, literally translated, the public thing. It is a word of a good original, referring to what ought to be the character and business of government; and in this sense it is naturally opposed to the word monarchy, which has a base original signification. It means arbitrary power in an individual person; in the exercise of which, himself, and not the res-publica, is the object.
Every government that does not act on the principle of a Republic, or in other words, that does not make the res-publica its whole and sole object, is not a good government. Republican government is no other than government established and conducted for the interest of the public, as well individually as collectively. It is not necessarily connected with any particular form, but it most naturally associates with the representative form, as being best calculated to secure the end for which a nation is at the expense of supporting it.
From Merc's link....
These two forms of government: Democracy and Republic, are not only dissimilar but antithetical, reflecting the sharp contrast between (a) The Majority Unlimited, in a Democracy, lacking any legal safeguard of the rights of The Individual and The Minority, and (b) The Majority Limited, in a Republic under a written Constitution safeguarding the rights of The Individual and The Minority; as we shall now see.
The Republic being much more gooder, but does become a pain in the ass,
sometimes.Is there (hypothetically, not necessarily actually happening) a such thing as a non-representative (direct) republic? A republic where the rights of the minorities are protected, the power of the majority limited - but the people directly vote and decide their fates, rather than using elected representatives?
Is there (hypothetically, not necessarily actually happening) a such thing as a non-representative (direct) republic? A republic where the rights of the minorities are protected, the power of the majority limited - but the people directly vote and decide their fates, rather than using elected representatives?
Some Swiss Cantons have regular (maybe quarterly) mass meetings where the enfranchised population all get together and have a show of hands on various issues. They still have representatives though.
Matter of fact I think I saw this in an IOTD a while back.
The Athenians, Spartans and many small ancient Greek city-states had a similar system: a big mass assembly that met occasionally, a small council that met regularly, and usually a designated war leader.
Try reading Herodotus or Plutarch for examples, if you have time.
Hope this helps.
PS Plato's "Republic" has a poorly translated title. "Raes Publica" should be "On the Constitution".
however, the greek democracy did NOT protect minority rights.
however, the greek democracy did NOT protect minority rights.
What in the American system of democracy protects minority rights. Whereas we do pass laws to protect minoriites, where does our election process and Constitution specifically protect minorities from the will of the majority? We have laws that do this but where does the 'democratic system' protect minorities?
The rights granted in the Constitution apply to all.
the bill of rights? especially the first.
The very structure of the american system is meant to keep the majority from imposing their will on the minority.
Whether or not it's entirely successful... is another matter
Just because you have the bill of rights and a constitution does not mean that your minorities are any better protected than minority groups in countries like Australia or the UK.
I don't see where minorities are more opressed in Australia than they are in the US for example.
however, the greek democracy did NOT protect minority rights.
I thought I had replied to this but it isn't here... hmmm :dunce:
To retype:
Touche'. Maybe you could have a look at the swiss system then.
Although, non-voters generally had
some rights in most Greek cities. Even slaves had certain protections.
But, "minorities"? Once you subtract women, children, slaves, resident foreigners, paupers, and others banned for various reasons, the voting citizens
were a minority, often 10 to 20 %. And boy they protected their rights quite well thank you. :reaper:
I know you don't mean "any group less than 50% of the population". Maybe you're talking about protecting the disadvantaged? the disenfranchised? the vulnerable?
Don't expect to solve any of these issues in a single paper. I did a PhD in philosophy and have watched colleagues wrestle with them for years.
the bill of rights? especially the first.
The First Amendment is "freedom of religion". How does that protect minorities? IOW it does protect the population, in general, from government. But where, specifically, does the Constitution or Amendments protect minorities from the majority.
Oh, you mean other than and aside from the freedom to peaceably assemble, print whatever they like, say whatever they want, own arms for their protection, and the granting equal status under all law, how are they protected?
I don't know. Do they need some sort of protecting beyond that?
Oh, you mean other than and aside from the freedom to peaceably assemble, print whatever they like, say whatever they want, own arms for their protection, and the granting equal status under all law, how are they protected?
I don't know. Do they need some sort of protecting beyond that?
I don't know, either. But I can't help but think of the plight of Afro-Americans in the South as recently as the 60's. They often couldn't vote, were segregated into inadequate schools, etc. Most of the above rights in the Constitution were supposedly in force then, and much good they did.
Oh, you mean other than and aside from the freedom to peaceably assemble, ...
I don't know. Do they need some sort of protecting beyond that?
That 'perspective' is the question. I don't regard that as protection only of minorities. I regard that as protection of all from government.
But again, is that what is being called 'protection of a minority from a majority'? If not, then I don't understand details behind this 'minority protection'; why our minorities are protected and other democratic minorities are not.
Implied is that government represents the majority. Well it may have been when elected. Does Musharraf of Pakistan represent the majority? Does Mugabe of Zimbabwe represent the majority? Under the American system of democracy, both the majority and minority would require protection from such governments. IOW I do not understand what protection protects the minority from the majority. I see protection of all from government.
IOW I do not understand what protection protects the minority from the majority. I see protection of all from government.
Popular speech doesn't need protection; unpopular speech does. Popular groups don't worry about cops breaking up their meeting; only unpopular groups do. Constitutional rights protect the minority harder.
The majority can only do to minorities what is allowed under the law. The government is only involved with managing the law.
It's imperfect, because we are imperfect.
Popular speech doesn't need protection; unpopular speech does. Popular groups don't worry about cops breaking up their meeting; only unpopular groups do. Constitutional rights protect the minority harder.
But again you assume government is 'owned' by the majority. Unpopular speech can come from the majority - Vietnam antiwar. And the majority needed protection from government. Currently government even suspended writ of Habeas Corpus from everyone - including the majority. So who need protection from whom? UT - you assume majority and government are same. They are not. We are discussing three different parties - the majority, minorities, and government.
The question is how minorities are protected from the majority; not how minorities (and majorities) are protected from government.
I have heard it said often - our democracy is setup to protect minorities from the majority. Well maybe in laws. But how do the Constitution and its amendments do that? Not protect everyone from government. How does it protect minorities from a majority? I do not understand what is meant by (the perspective of) that statement.
The point is that if a minority group says something that the majority don't like, the government will protect the minority because they are not strong enough to protect themselves from the majority. That's what it has to do with the government.
I will add again though, that just because you have a constitution in the US, doesn't mean it's very different, if at all in any other western country.
Its true, we have done a great job at protecting gays and blacks over the past two centuries...
Well, I don't think it works that way in practice necessarily, but from my understanding, that's the way it's supposed to work.
Yes, you can never fully protect a hated minority.
The point is that if a minority group says something that the majority don't like, the government will protect the minority because they are not strong enough to protect themselves from the majority.
I suspected that is closer to what others really meant. It would not really be about protecting a minority from a majority. It would be protecting any persons from unjustified (illegal) attacks by any other persons.
No, we have not done a great job of protecting minorites (blacks, gays) from the majority. At least we have made some progress in laws and in prosecuting those laws. I don't see, for example, any Constitutional guarantees from discrimination based on gender, race, creed, color of skin, or sexual preferences. Those might be regarded as minority protection. The closest we have is, maybe, equal protection of the laws as provided by the 15th(?) amendment. But that is protection of any person from attacks by any other (or a government).
Tw, where those protections are found is in what is called the system of checks and balances -- the minority spoken of being the minority political view rather than anything demographical. The Founding Fathers rightly figured that a chief wellspring of armed strife and suchlike commotions and ructions would be political division. The Constitution is designed to arrange that such division would not produce civil war -- at least not at every second occasion.
I don't know, either. But I can't help but think of the plight of Afro-Americans in the South as recently as the 60's. They often couldn't vote, were segregated into inadequate schools, etc. Most of the above rights in the Constitution were supposedly in force then, and much good they did.
And blacks were forbidden arms, sometimes
de jure, more often
de facto. It's difficult lynching anybody who can gutshoot you -- and remedially instructive in humanity if he does.
This is the kind of fun you can get if you are forbidden killing tools. None too civilized, is it? Are you listening, Spexxvet?
Complicity in this is still a stain upon the record of the Democratic Party. The Dixiecrats might not have had the prolonged and quite regrettable influence they had on American politics had the Republican black population retained arms in full measure. This would have brought balance and diversity to the electorate in the Southern states.
(N.B. for our British & Commonwealth readers: this Southern region of the US is those States from Tennessee south to the Gulf and east from Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas to the Atlantic, plus in some sense some of Missouri. Known between 1860-1865 as the Confederacy, it survived as a political entity only during those Civil War years, but remains as a distinct cultural region to this day. It's not been redesignated as "the Southeast" or anything like that. The state of West Virginia owes its origin to the Civil War, having previously been a separate corner of Virginia. West Virginia stayed Union, while Virginia went Confederate and contained the Confederacy's capital of Richmond. That DC and Richmond are about an hour and a half apart by modern highway explains a lot about the campaigns and battles of the American Civil War.)
For the record, we may have been part of the Confederacy, but nowadays most Texans resoundingly consider ourselves part of the Southwest culture (i.e. Arizona, New Mexico, sometimes Oklahoma and Southern California) rather than the South. The south is genteel, we are frontiersmen.
And blacks were forbidden arms, sometimes de jure, more often de facto. It's difficult lynching anybody who can gutshoot you -- and remedially instructive in humanity if he does.
This is the kind of fun you can get if you are forbidden killing tools. None too civilized, is it? Are you listening, Spexxvet?
Wow. Now I get it. To have rights, one must have a gun. King, Ghandi, and Mandella all got it wrong!
As soon as I held a gun to my head, then suddenly everything Urbane Guerrilla posted makes complete sense. Silly me. Guns solve everything.
There are methods you can use when you know the other guys are going to play by the rules, and you understand them. And then there are methods you use when the other guys know no rules at all.
To have rights, one must have a gun.
Unenlightened as usual, I see. To
enforce and secure rights regardless of the situation, you need the means to do so.
As soon as I held a gun to my head, then suddenly everything Urbane Guerrilla posted makes complete sense.
It would be invidious of me to suggest you make this a frequent and regular practice.
I'm glad i don't live in a society where one must carry a gun to feel one has rights.
Wow. Now I get it. To have rights, one must have a gun. King, Ghandi, and Mandella all got it wrong!
As soon as I held a gun to my head, then suddenly everything Urbane Guerrilla posted makes complete sense. Silly me. Guns solve everything.
Actually, they made it possible to own guns.
There are methods you can use when you know the other guys are going to play by the rules, and you understand them. And then there are methods you use when the other guys know no rules at all.
Yeph. Both are even defined in the simplest of military doctrine. It's called talking. Amazing how everything can be solved without using guns. Amazing how a minority (described as 'big dics') don't understand. Amazing how that minority so fears as to always need a gun.
Unenlightened as usual - just like King, Ghandi, and Mandella. Not that I expect one enthralled by power and Cheney to understand such complex men. But is does explain the blind support for George Jr and contempt for the American soldier.
I'm glad i don't live in a society where one must carry a gun to feel one has rights.
It's hardly a case of "must," Aliantha, but it does help. It is after all the expression of the proper distribution of power in a Republic.
I disagree with that UG, but I'm not getting into a gun debate again. I've said my piece on it. If you want to see my arguments, you can just look up my old posts. ;)
Page 446 of most editions of Gandhi's biography includes a remark, noted by the biographer as a Gandhian effort at having it both ways, to the effect of "Among the worst crimes of the British Raj on the Indian people was denying them guns." The quote and the page number come up in the sigline rotation in the Cellar.
And my views haven't altered since that time, either: an armed people is a free people, and that is the only sure path of freedom.
Have you ever seen the looney tunes cartoon where one character takes out his fists, so the other takes out bigger ones, then they move to axes then handguns then machine guns then a bomb? It all happens in about 5 seconds flat, but that's how I see this race to have an armed public.
I've got a gun and it's bigger than yours. Why do you have to have a bigger gun to feel safer?
I have no guns and I feel safe. My father has a dozen or more and he feels safe too.
Of course I've seen it; Warner Bros. cartoons are my favorite of the old school -- funnier and smarter than everyone else's.
The "public arms race" is really just a boogieman and it's the kind of scare story the hoplophobic try and keep current. It's sufficient to alarm the ignorant, but that's about it. A truly scary arms race requires government-size funding of government-size weaponry. What's the man in the street packing, if it's more lethal than a cell phone? It ain't no MP5 submachine gun, I'll tell you that. All said and done, it's still just pistols, was pistols before us, and isn't likely to be anything but pistols in future times. Limited lethality, high convenience compared with the weight and size of an Uzi or MP5.
the government is the man in the street UG.
Yes. And so long as the electorate can turf the government's staffers out by any means effectual, that state remains a republic, and its government the servant of the people.
You know UG, sometimes I think that if brains were dynamite you wouldn't have enough to blow the wax out of your ears.
I mean that in the friendliest way possible of course. ;)
And my views haven't altered since that time, either: an armed people is a free people, and that is the only sure path of freedom.
Doesn't seem to work in Iraq. Perhaps humanity is more complex than a simple logical single premise-single conclusion.
UT, how can you possibly come to that conclusion? Those people are now a LOT freer than ever they were under Saddam. While free isn't automatically either happy or peaceful, for they have some few troublemakers to get rid of, the situation is not at all without hope, except for the naysayers who've never been comfortable with America's role as a striker-off of a people's chains.
Look to the Kurds in the north: are they unfree now? And they are most certainly armed. Eventually, the idiots elsewhere in Iraq will have grown tired of cutting each other's throats and all of Iraq will settle down and behave a lot more like Iraqi Kurdistan.
Certain fundamentals are indeed simple. A full understanding of them requires that the implications and ramifications arising from those fundamentals be known as well. I think I manage such understanding pretty passably, thank you. I can't say the same of certain of my opposition.
Those people are now a LOT freer than ever they were under Saddam
Exactly... now they are not getting snatched out of their homes in the middle of the night, home searched while their families are held in the front yard with no rights, then toted off to some hidden prison with no explanation, questioned without representation or rights, not tortured, nope... not now!
Eventually, the idiots elsewhere in Iraq will have grown tired of cutting each other's throats and all of Iraq will settle down and behave a lot more like Iraqi Kurdistan.
Yep, the same way the Israelis and the Palestinians grew ti... er, the same way the filipinos and the seperatists grew tire... um, the same way the...
UG, remove your blinders, your confirmation bias, and take a moment out of your self-aggrandizement that makes everybody puke.
1. Your proposition is that guns keep people free.
2. Iraq is lousy with AK-47s now AND was lousy with them while Hussein was in power.
3. But the people were not free.
The Kurds were armed. The Kurds were gassed. It took no-fly zones to keep them from being annihilated.
Freer people: unarmed Brits, or armed Iraqis under Saddam?
The Brits are in chronic danger of becoming slaves of Parliament. They will not escape that danger until their populace rearms. That is what an understanding of the historic prevalence of human cussedness tells the objective observer. If it hasn't told you as much, are you even paying attention?
My proposition is much better phrased as "a free people can't stay free without arms, especially private arms."
I can't make head nor tail of "your confirmation bias." What is this?
Ibram: seventeen going on eighteen, and you have no optimism, no hope? What, just because we, the United States, are trying to do something about all this? Jay-zus, kid. I'm fifty-one. Am I pessimistic? And if not, why not?
Zen: one thing they are not doing is starving, as agriculture took off when Saddam, Uday, and Qusay all headed for parts unknown -- the Fertile Crescent is fertile yet, and look what happens when you take oppression's dead hand off. One thing they have now is cell phones and satellite dishes -- connectivity with the world's Functioning Economic Core, which they did not enjoy under the previous management.
Yeah, Zen, there's a civil war on -- in that war are the seeds of favorable change that will bring Iraq out of the Non-Integrating Gap (where it would have remained under Saddam, as is not open to dispute even between Cellarites) and develop it towards the globe's Functioning Core, to borrow two terms from Barnett's ideas.
It's very difficult to impeach me on matters of fact, as you've noticed, and so the opposition resorts to complaints about my style -- as if that might be a rebuttal of any weight! It just means I've been less than insinuating -- overt, in a word. The people who are puking -- well, their minds are made ill by being too far left, their values a pismire's weight, their cultural assumptions all a-crumble, under the weight of more careful scrutiny than they've given, themselves. Naturally, they are upset, and their stomachs upset along with them. The thing is, they are wrong to be upset. The question is, how much purging will they need to be rid of these toxins?
Ibram: seventeen going on eighteen, and you have no optimism, no hope? Jay-zus, kid. I'm fifty-one.
Hope does not make for smart foreign policy.
Yep, the same way the Israelis and the Palestinians grew ti... er, the same way the filipinos and the seperatists grew tire... um, the same way the...
"Think of it as evolution in action."* I do.
And despair is an improved basis how...?
*Jerry Pournelle
Its realism. The world's problem's can't be solved by "well maybe they'll get tired of fighting for centuries on end, and everyone will live happily ever after".
I might point out that the Palestinians and Israelis have not been allowed to get tired of it to the point where all parties will end the thing in good faith. The thing about that is how leashed to foreign sponsors both parties are -- the battle's never been taken a` outrance.
It's circular logic, is what it is.
People who have guns are free!
Well some people don't have guns and seem free, while other people have guns and clearly aren't free. How do you know if a people are free?
I define free people as... those who have guns!
By the way, may I just give you a hint and note that "slippery slope" arguments don't work for me. They are usually a form of logical fallacy. Predicting the future is not a form of proof. It's sloppy thinking.
The Brits are in chronic danger of becoming slaves of Parliament.
Say what?
Exactly... now they are not getting snatched out of their homes in the middle of the night, home searched while their families are held in the front yard with no rights, then toted off to some hidden prison with no explanation, questioned without representation or rights, not tortured, nope... not now!
The difference is that there is usually good reason to do such searches. Their families know where they are. Many of them are returned to their families. In the previous administration the individuals would just disapear. You can find their bodies amonst the numerous mass graves uncovered in the deserts around Bagdad.
The difference is that there is usually good reason to do such searches. Their families know where they are. Many of them are returned to their families. In the previous administration the individuals would just disapear. You can find their bodies amonst the numerous mass graves uncovered in the deserts around Bagdad.
..and
Haditha. You can call it deliberate revenge killing or you can call it a tragic case of collateral damage, but the end result is the same
But Ware's concerns in the past have gone beyond issues of evidence. He also expressed concern with the impact a harsh sentence might have on the morale of Marines. "Even more dangerous is the potential that a Marine may hesitate at the critical moment when facing the enemy," wrote Ware in the Sharratt report. After weighing all the evidence available, Ware ultimately concluded that Sharratt had acted according to his training: "Whether this was a brave act of combat against the enemy or tragedy of misperception born out of conducting combat with an enemy that hides among innocents, LCpl Sharratt's actions were in accord with the rules of engagement and use of force."
From
here:
House #1 -- 7 killed, 2 injured (but survived), 2 escaped 1. Abdul Hamid Hassan Ali, 76 -- grandfather, father and husband. Died with nine rounds in the chest and abdomen. 2. Khamisa Tuma Ali, 66 -- wife of Abdul Hamid Hassan Ali 3. Rashid Abdul Hamid, 30. 4. Walid Abdul Hamid Hassan, 35. 5. Jahid Abdul Hamid Hassan, middle-aged man. 6. Asma Salman Rasif, 32. 7. Abdullah Walid, 4. Injured: Iman, 8, and Abdul Rahman, 5. Escaped: Daughter-in-law, Hibbah, escaped with 2-month-old Asia House #2 -- 8 killed, 1 survivor: Shot at close range and attacked with grenades 8. Younis Salim Khafif, 43 -- husband of Aeda Yasin Ahmed, father. 9. Aeda Yasin Ahmed, 41 -- wife of Younis Salim Khafif, killed trying to shield her youngest daughter Aisha. 10. Muhammad Younis Salim, 8 -- son. 11. Noor Younis Salim, 14 -- daughter. 12. Sabaa Younis Salim, 10 -- daughter. 13. Zainab Younis Salim, 5 -- daughter. 14. Aisha Younis Salim, 3 -- daughter. 15. A 1-year-old girl staying with the family. Survived: Safa Younis Salim, 13. House #3 -- 4 brothers killed 16. Jamal Ahmed, 41. 17. Marwan Ahmed, 28. 18. Qahtan Ahmed, 24. 19. Chasib Ahmed, 27. Taxi -- 5 killed: Passengers were students at the Technical Institute in Saqlawiyah 20. Ahmed Khidher, taxi driver. 21. Akram Hamid Flayeh. 22. Khalid Ayada al-Zawi. 23. Wajdi Ayada al-Zawi. 24. Mohammed Battal Mahmoud.
I won't go into rules of engagement, but I will ask a few questions.
Did anyone in these houses vote to be liberated from Saddam?
Is there any indication that anyone in these houses was sheltering insurgents (no weapons found) other than that a bomb went off in proximity to the houses?
If a soldier shoots and kills a 1-year-old, does that make him or her a 'baby killer', or does there need to be proof of premeditated intent?
Is anyone going to serve any serious time for killing all of these people?
If you were a relative of one of these people, who would you blame? Who would you have a right to blame?
If the Iraq war is really about liberation and justice, why is the effect on morale of a guilty verdict even being brought up instead of purely focusing on actual guilt?
Even if the soldiers actions can be defended as justified under rules of engagement and the deaths brushed aside as 'collateral damage', the question remains as to whether Iraqis haven't simply traded one kind of horror for another. When little girls are killed in American cities in the crossfire between drug dealers, and in cases where the killer is caught, the defense inevitably boils down to the fact that the killer did not deliberately shoot the little girl and was engaged in self defense. This defense usually falls flat.
There will be no jail time for anyone who shot these people. The defense will be that they had the right to defend themselves and that they could not be expected to put the safety of civilians above their own lives. This is the true difference between police and soldiers, and the end result of a military rather than police solution to the 'war on terror'. Soldiers are trained mostly to kill, sometimes to pacify and occupy, and not to 'protect and serve'. Each civilian death at the hands of soldiers undoes thousands of hours of community service, negotiations with local leaders, etc.
It will probably be decided that there is no compelling evidence to convict, but this will just compound the error. The soldiers who shot those civilians played into the hands of the insurgent who planted the roadside bomb. It wasn't liberals, the press, lawmakers, or anyone else who failed to suppress the story in the US who can be blamed for this, because the Iraqis knew what happened. The only people in the dark were in the United States.
There will always be a justification for killing civilians. A car was traveling too fast or too close and might contain a car bomb. A man or woman did not stop or raise their hands fast enough, so they might be a suicide bomber. These can be reasonable explanations for people fighting an insurgency and who value their own lives above those of the people whose country they are occupying. Except that if the insurgents have gotten us to the point where we are shooting civilians, then the insurgents have found a winning strategy.
They say that one of the reasons we are in this war was because our president did not have personal experience with war. So maybe we should choose our next president more carefully. Maybe we should find and elect a 'baby killer', someone who did shoot an unarmed kid, or woman in a car, or who ran over a kid in the middle of the road because that's how insurgents stop convoys. Someone who wakes up every other night screaming and knows how very dirty this kind of war is, what it takes to win it, and how very much it is worth to avoid it. Someone who will plan beyond the carrier photo op and realize that occupation means more than catching flowers riding in parades.
The difference is that there is usually good reason to do such searches. Their families know where they are. Many of them are returned to their families. In the previous administration the individuals would just disapear. You can find their bodies amonst the numerous mass graves uncovered in the deserts around Bagdad.
So, we're just
mostly like them, LOL!
The difference is that there is usually good reason to do such searches. Their families know where they are.
Unless they are rendered to some Eastern Bloc country.
Urbane, Liverpool soccer fans can beat up and beat down the entire English Parliament, and the monarchy, if they feel like doing so.
Those liverpool fans are scarey! :alien:
And you're certain of that how, Deadbeater? Hey, Parliament and Queen could call on the SAS and SBS and Royal Marines...
I'll answer Rich's provocative question with another: could any of them have voted to be liberated from Saddam, do you suppose?
DanaC, that you're incredulous shows just how different our two respective paradigms of the proper sphere of a government are. Your people would be in a much more stable position for retaining British-style limited government -- a going concern since the Magna Carta -- without your draconian gun laws. They have the effect of removing the popular restraint upon the governmental sphere, the sort of thing we Americans sum up in the phrase "checks and balances."
UG, I really don't see where the US being an armed republic has stopped the government from acting as overlords to the people or where it has protected the people from bad government.
I do, having studied places -- a few close up -- with bad government in them. We do a lot better than that, so much so it isn't even a contest.
Of course you do UG. It's a western civilization and one you're comfortable in. Of course it seems better than something you're not familiar with.
How can you be so sure your way is the best way?
UG, I'm curious now--give us a recent example of how the US as an armed republic has protected us from bad government.
The Reagan Adminstration and the younger Bush's Administration, thank you. These do the sort of things I like us doing, and they don't mess with Americans' civil rights. The Clinton Administration failed in these and positively invited a gray cloud of corruption to hang over the White House, the senior Bush's Administration promised to continue acting like the Reagan but failed to, and the Carter Administration was simply weak.
Along with Robert Heinlein, I reckon it good to retain all options fully open in sociopolitics, even the comparatively unpleasant ones: as troubling as it is to shoot somebody, it's worse to suffer genocide at the hands of said somebody. This seems to me self-evident, but man, loud are the screechings when I voice it. There is such a thing as too much bowing to authority.
I seem to favor Administrations that are good at foreign policy -- and are assertive about it regardless of clamor sent up from foreign shores. Somehow, what we do never seems to destroy nations, despite their hollering.
Aliantha -- reading history. And I've spent a bit of time in my life surrounded by Eastern civilizations also: Japan definitely has its shit together, while Turkey is more iffy, more Third World -- but with much that gives me hope.
And you're certain of that how, Deadbeater? Hey, Parliament and Queen could call on the SAS and SBS and Royal Marines...
And our country can call on our militaries. Do you honestly believe that the average citizen with a rifle would stand a chance against our SF? A group of a hundred overweight dudes who play militia on the weekends would be brought low by a squad or two of marines. Hell, a couple of National Guardsmen. Put some rifles in Air Force AC repairmen's hands and they are STILL better trained and equipped. If you think your arsenal gives you ANY protection against our government, you're crazier than I imagined.
And Merc, while I do agree that it's ridiculous to assume we're anywhere near Saddam in OUR actions, it should be pointed out that all the insurgents and terrorists running around now are certainly just as bad if not worse. And also, we do take people from their families on slim evidence. We do give them back, but they're bruised, maybe a little bloody. We do tell the medical examiners to sign two admittance forms in case the prisoners receive some accidental injuries.
Lotsa edits... enjoy! And I've really got to shut down soon. Let us pause to digest and really write some essays, or link to Philosophy...
Queeq, that argument displays a lack of understanding of guerrilla tactics and strategies -- and that lack drops it into a pitfall. People knowledgeable about unconventional warfare don't say things like that.
Have a gander at the book Protracted Conflict sometime. A classic.
The Reagan Adminstration and the younger Bush's Administration, thank you.
Somehow, what we do never seems to destroy nations.
Wow! :eek: I didn't even notice that. The Bush Jr administration doesn't impede civil rights. Definitely have had some great media freedoms, right? Haven't had any problems with freedom of speech at protests or rallies. Absolutely no privacy issues. Holy crap. We don't destroy nations? We did certainly do a great job with our current endeavor. Also, Vietnam was doing well when we left, too, huh?
I give up, UG. You're just bat-shit crazy. You outcrazied all my arguments. There's no response. I might just stop bothering to respond. :headshake:
Digest is the key word here..the man's obviously had too much curry tonight. ;)
Unless they are rendered to some Eastern Bloc country.
Says who? Do you know how much it would cost to do that for every person detained? It ain't happening dude.
DanaC, that you're incredulous shows just how different our two respective paradigms of the proper sphere of a government are. Your people would be in a much more stable position for retaining British-style limited government -- a going concern since the Magna Carta -- without your draconian gun laws.
Yes, our two paradigms are different. In what way are my people not in a stable position for retaining British-style limited government?
I do, having studied places -- a few close up -- with bad government in them. We do a lot better than that, so much so it isn't even a contest.
So, my country has bad government?
Along with Robert Heinlein, I reckon it good to retain all options fully open in sociopolitics, even the comparatively unpleasant ones: as troubling as it is to shoot somebody, it's worse to suffer genocide at the hands of said somebody. This seems to me self-evident, but man, loud are the screechings when I voice it. There is such a thing as too much bowing to authority.
Oh my! The fact that you would fall back on a writer of science fiction says it all. Look at your own words, "There is such a thing as too much bowing to authority." No kidding! UG, you and Heinlein have given me the best laugh I've had all day! :lol2:
Do you know how much it would cost to do that for every person detained?
Who said "every"?
Why are you so surprised, Sam? A sci-fi writer somehow can't be a philosopher? Where the hell would anybody get that idea? It was Heinlein's lifelong ambition to display his philosophy of life in his fictional works, and he succeeded. You ask me, an allergy to Heinlein is an allergy to life's best things if not life, period.
The reason I like the Bush and Reagan Administrations is because they went out and did the Heinleinesque things I want to see done -- Heinlein was about as antitotalitarian, indeed libertarian, a thinker as you're likely to find. The leftwinger hippie-types who used to scream to the skies about Heinlein being a fascist completely missed the boat.
There's been a plenty of allegation that Bush & Company have -- muwahhahahaa! -- plotted against our civil rights. I've been hearing it over and over.
But the actions and developments don't match the allegations. You're not being put in a gulag even though you never voted for Bush. I can still buy guns -- the state of California restricts my gun buying far more than George Bush does, which pisses me off about California. Here we are on this forum, associating completely freely and speaking completely freely, even obscenely in several senses -- precisely as we did in August 2001. Hell, son, nobody's even listened in on one of your phone conversations.
Yes, our two paradigms are different. In what way are my people not in a stable position for retaining British-style limited government?
You are no longer capable of marching on Parliament and telling them their services will no longer be required, pending their replacement by MPs more attuned to the populace's rights and liberties.
You were much better fixed for this ninety years ago -- before the option of arms was gradually, slice by slice, taken from you.
There are Britishers who are awake to this now, and want the ban against self-defense even by arms wiped away, and private gun ownership fully restored, and never mind a lot of damned impertinent officious questions about "need."
So, my country has bad government?
No it doesn't. But is there never room for improvement? Are not representative governments capable of improvement with an absolute minimum of social disruption? It's something doable.
Heinlein would spit in your fucking face for that, UG. Haven't you ever read For Us, The Living?
No laws established banning anything that doesn't quantifiably hurt anyone else.
Bush's platform is not based on freedom or anything like it... its based on banning abortion, banning gay marriage, banning stem cell research, and banning drugs, just for starters.
And you will NEVER be able to convince ANYONE otherwise.
You were much better fixed for this ninety years ago -- before the option of arms was gradually, slice by slice, taken from you.
Guns were never a big part of this country. Farmers had (and still have) guns. Some ex-servicemen had (and still have) guns. You can still get a gun licence and keep guns in this country. Truth is, very few people do, or ever did, own guns in England. We've historically favoured blades.
Before the ban on handguns, there was a spate of handgun ownership, but that was primarily amongst the criminally minded and given that they're criminally minded, that hasn't really changed much. All that's changed is the extent to which they can be prosecuted for mere possession.
In terms of marching on parliament: the numbers of people owning guns has always been so low as to make that idea preposterous. Frankly, even if 250,000 people marched on Parliament waving guns, that would not allow them to overthrow an elected government, because said government controls the armed forces and in a straight fight, they'd win hands down. If we were to march waving guns, they'd bring out bigger guns and tanks, and the result would be a fucking bloodbath.
However, this doesn't mean we cannot force out an unpopular government. The thing with the democratic process, is that politicians always look to the next election. If, as was the case in 1990, a Prime Minister has become so unpopular as to put the party at risk of losing power atthe next general election, the party will get rid. 250,000 people marched against Thatcher's Poll Tax. The result was her own side stuck the knife in.
If, in some hypothetical future time, a government decided to hold onto power in a despotic fashion (removing right of election, putting us into a State of Emergency, declaring themselves untouchable etc) then, maybe, we'd need guns. But don't wrry about the fact guns are illegal without a licence. Drugs are illegal, and we manage to find plenty of them. If we ever need guns, believe me we'd get them.
The problem is, UG, that overall, firearms and their usage are simply not a large part of our culture. It's not a case of having our ability to oppose by force, removed. In order to make Britain a gun carrying nation like the states you would have to profoundly alter our culture and mentalite. Now I can see why someone might want to try arming the nation in the 18th or 19th century. But I see no need to be taking backward steps now. We've got to where we are without the need for massive amounts of gun ownership. I personally am quite proud of that.
I wouldn't want my society to always be ready for civil war. I wouldn't want to always have that thought in mind, that we may someday need to force out a despotic regime. We have ballot boxes and checks and balances, and a long, long history of them too. Guns should play no part in politics.
You said that
You are no longer capable of marching on Parliament and telling them their services will no longer be required, pending their replacement by MPs more attuned to the populace's rights and liberties.
Who decides UG? Looking at this board and the difference of opinions on it, which of your countrymen would make that decision? If you and your ilk decide that the politicians are not in tune with the populace, what about the many thousands who would disagree? What you are talking about is the ability for a dissatisfied mob to overrule the democratic process through armed insurrection. What gives that armed mob the right to overrule the wishes of the rest of the electorate?
If our MPs are out of tune with the populace, and new MPs are required, there are democratic processes which can be entered into. Democratic processes in which every citizen has a right to engage.
If Britain, US, etc, wanted to violently overthrow a government, we would ironically have to use terrorist-like tactics of blowing up shit, disrupting the economy, and innocent people would have to die, it is unavoidable unfortunately. Guerrilla style warfare is the only way for a group of untrained citizens to defeat a formal army.
We've historically favoured blades.
There's something quietly badass about that statement :cool:.
If Britain, US, etc, wanted to violently overthrow a government, we would ironically have to use terrorist-like tactics of blowing up shit, disrupting the economy, and innocent people would have to die, it is unavoidable unfortunately. Guerrilla style warfare is the only way for a group of untrained citizens to defeat a formal army.
And even then, if whoever was in power pulled out all the stops, there's nothing to say the untrained citizens would have much of a chance at all. Don't forget the US still fields the most powerful army in the world. All that I would expect to happen is every major city would become a battleground, with no side winning, and people dying daily. Kind of like... nevermind, everyone's already thinking it.
Yeah, and the people trying to overthrow the government would be labled 'rebels' and in that regard, the rest of the western world would be most likely to support the legal government when taking into consideration the historical fallout from these types of disruptions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DanaC
We've historically favoured blades.
[QUOTE]There's something quietly badass about that statement .
[/QUOTE]
*nods slowly* Yeah well. Nowadays the gangstas go for the firepower...time was the gangsters would give you a Chelsea smile...and that was no laughin matter.
If Britain, US, etc, wanted to violently overthrow a government, we would ironically have to use terrorist-like tactics of blowing up shit, disrupting the economy, and innocent people would have to die, it is unavoidable unfortunately. Guerrilla style warfare is the only way for a group of untrained citizens to defeat a formal army.
It's not the only way.
Consider how Marcos was chased out of the Philippines by massive, but peaceful, protests.
Consider the "Velvet revolution" that brought down the communists in Eastern Europe.
But of course, consider also the failed attempt at Tiananmen Square, the Prague spring, etc.
Peaceful mass demonstrations can
sometimes overthrow an entrenched government, if (1) the protest is huge and (2) the police and military lack the ruthlessness to suppress it by massacring unarmed civilians of their own country.
In the case of Britain, I believe (on the grounds of having watched
The Bill lots ;) ) that (2) is pretty likely. There is such a strong tradition of democracy that if the government did attempt to perpetuate itself, many police and military personnel would refuse to use deadly force against mass protests, especially if there were other authority figures (the judiciary, royals, clergy, etc etc) supporting the protests.
The chance that civilian-owned guns may be needed to defend democracy must be balanced against both the risk that civilian-owned guns may be used (by a minority) to overthrow democracy, and the certainty that more guns will mean more gun deaths. In Britain, the need seems pretty low.
The chance that civilian-owned guns may be needed to defend democracy must be balanced against both the risk that civilian-owned guns may be used (by a minority) to overthrow democracy, and the certainty that more guns will mean more gun deaths. In Britain, the need seems pretty low.
I would agree with that. Although, unfortunately, guns are starting to filter into our culture a little more via the innercity gangs. We've had several high-profile shootings over the last year or so, mainly involving gangs and mainly involving the black community. Why this is I don't know. It's been suggested that they're aping the South Central style gangsta culture of the US. I don't know if that's it or not, but amongst the white gangs it still tends to be mainly blades. We've had way more teenagers stabbed than shot, even with the new trend towards guns.
Heinlein would spit in your fucking face for that, UG. Haven't you ever read For Us, The Living?
No, he'd shake my hand, appreciating that here's another one who gets it. Were he alive. I don't think you can defend your idea, and it hardly can be seen to be logically brought on by my post -- so what
is your problem with me mentioning that Heinlein was not a fascist?? Are you trying to tell me proto-Heinlein does not appear, piece by piece, through his works from
Starship Troopers on? This suggests you don't know the material.
Excessive Candour, an essay
And you will NEVER be able to convince ANYONE otherwise.
Ideological opposition to truth is idolatry, Ibram, and it embarrasses the idolator; don't be embarrassed. Turn wise instead. I'd appreciate a bit less hysteria from you, thanks.
Peaceful mass demonstrations can sometimes overthrow an entrenched government, if (1) the protest is huge and (2) the police and military lack the ruthlessness to suppress it by massacring unarmed civilians of their own country.
I don't know much about peaceful revolutions and how they exactly work and their effects but it seems that those tend to be more symbolic than anything. But in the case of a protest against a fascist America, I don't know who we would be trying to make a point too? The government would not give up their power except by revolution and no outside force would attack to save us from fascism.
I am split on whether your second point would work or not if the United States did truly become fascist because even though I know a lot of the SWAT teams will fire on innocent people, I don't know what would happen when the protests reach sizes of hundreds of thousands in multiple cities. I would really not want an 8/8/88 repetition.