It's a representative democracy where the constitution overrides the will of the majority if the two should collide. So, in other words, it's a form of democracy, just as a Constitutional Monarchy is a form of democracy. You're creating a false dilemma and playing little more than a game of semantics. This is a tired idiotic bit of tripe that gets trotted out by those who think they're being terribly clever, when all they're being is, well, tiresome and stupid.
This sort of false distinction irritates me. Republics can be democracies. Monarchies can be democracies. Democracy is about a free and open political life, about electing directly or indirectly those that govern. Democracy does not have one form.
I think Washington saw that the rise of the political party in the United States would lead to a bad end, but at the same time I think you cannot have a representative democracy without the representatives and candidates to be representatives finding ways to divide themselves.
Democratically deciding to take Sparta head on wasn't a cock up, it ultimately was a civilization shaking devastating decision that pretty much lead to the collapse of the Classical Greek era. It wasn't just a mistake, it was a near-fatal blunder that ultimately left Athens stripped of its empire and even, for a time, of its system of government.
The problem, as the British essayist, Walter Bagehot saw even in the 19th century is that the Electoral College never really became what the Founding Fathers had intended. It was the one Constitutional institution that, in his words:
Generally speaking, in an electioneering country (I mean in a country full of political life, and used to the manipulation of popular institutions), the election of candidates to elect candidates is a farce. The Electoral College of America is so. It was intended that the deputies when assembled should exercise a real discretion, and by independent choice select the President. But the primary electors take too much interest. They only elect a deputy to vote for Mr. Lincoln or Mr. Breckenridge, and the deputy only takes a ticket, and drops that ticket in an urn. He never chooses or thinks of choosing. He is but a messenger--a transmitter; the real decision is in those who choose him--who chose him because they knew what he would do.
- Walter Bagehot - The English Constitution
If the electoral college did indeed function as a sort of specialized Senate whose purpose was to weigh the candidates and choose the President, you would see a very different kind of political structure in Washington. The Founding Fathers specifically did not want the President chosen by popular vote, but they did not well enough define or embolden the role of the electoral college to allow it to function as anything other than what Bagehot referred to as a "transmitter" of the popular vote, a system even worse than a simple popular vote for the Executive.
It's a very good way to look at democracy. Historically, there have always been tensions between ruling elites and those they rule; the classic struggle between patricians and plebs. The mistake, I think, that the Marxists and Libertarians both make is in necessarily thinking that the best way to solve that struggle is by eliminating the patricians and turning everyone into plebeians. The real solution is to find some outlet for the ruled to express their collective and individual political desires.
You do need professionalism in cabinets, or as you put it, technocrats. There are complex issues that governments must grapple with, whether it was good irrigation canals in Ancient Sumer or managing a monetary policy in a modern state. A balance has to be struck between rulers and ruled, and democracy allows that. But direct democracy does not. Look at California, which is one of the most badly governed jurisdictions in the industrialized world, despite being one of the largest economies in the world. There really is such a thing as too much democracy, and the Founding Fathers understood it and built a system that viewed the popular will as as dangerous a concentration of power as the executive, legislative or judicial branches of government.
The problem is that a benevolent monarchy (or benevolent dictatorship of any kind) is only one bad ruler away from becoming an incompetent and/or malicious monarchy. Sure, Augustus was a pretty smart guy all in all, and actually was a skilled administrator, but other than Claudius, the Julio-Claudians were demented maniacs.
The Founding Fathers very much foresaw the future. These were men very well versed in political theory, and they would have known the lessons of the ancient Greek democracies, in particular Athens, where the citizens having basically a direct line to the executive could create dangerous, even catastrophic decisions. One can well imagine a representative assembly in Athens being less than keen on taking on Sparta, but there was no representative assembly. If a guy could stand in front of the assembly of eligible Greek voters and convince them that Athens would become a great empire if it went to war with Sparta, they voted right then and there, and it became policy.
Basically the whole point of the Electoral College and Congress is to create an intentional roadblock between the popular will and government policy, to give debate and sober second thought a chance to properly analyze a policy. It isn't a perfect system, but sometimes I wonder if the United States was a direct democracy if it wouldn't have flamed out like Ancient Athens did, just one catastrophic popular policy away from ruin.
I don't think any political theorist has ever thought that democracy would create qualitatively better governments than other means of choosing governments (monarchies, autocracies, theocracies, etc.). It's advantage, as singular as it is, is that it creates an environment in which a government can be peacefully removed from power and another transitioned in its place. Of course most people are not equipped to judge which party's policies, which run the whole gamut from economics to foreign affairs to social policy, are better or worse. I doubt even most politicians are. Most people either just vote kneejerk for the "conservative" or the "liberal" or the "little guy" or the "wise-looking older fellow".
No, it's not about choosing leaders, it's about getting rid of them. That's where democracy, when coupled with a tradition of the rule of law, really shines.
I wonder if it ever occurred to Microsoft that one solution would be to not abuse its market position. You know, at least pretend that they're incurable evil sociopaths.
The Metropolitan Police Force was one of Sir Robert Peel's (an actual real Tory, and not just the fake post-Thatcher kind) greatest achievements, and a model for police forces the world over. It was precisely because of fragmentation that Peel went this route, producing a stunningly effective law enforcement agency.
WTF? Just about every field of research uses statistics; from physics to biology. I don't have time to look up the entire quote, but I'll wager Rutherford didn't mean what you think he meant, because if he did, then that was just about the most retarded thing he may ever have said.
I mean, how the fuck would you describe quantum interactions without statistical tools? How do you describe radioactive decay? How do you describe genetics or population distributions?
To translate: I'm a layman with an interest in meteorology, which means I don't actually have any knowledge of climatology at all, but that won't prevent me from making sweeping accusations about researchers on a topic that I have little more capacity to measure than does my pizza delivery boy or the kid next door.
Eugenics is a bad thing because A. it violates basic human rights, B. it pretty much rejects the Darwinian notion that the more variation the better, and C. it has historically been applied as much to socioeconomic factors as to anything particularly hereditary.
An appeal to authority is only fallacious when the authorities being invoked are not in fact authorities. If you defend a diagnosis of macular degeneration because your dentist says that's what you have, that's a fallacious appeal to authority. If you defend a diagnosis of macular degeneration because your opthamologist says that's what you have, it is not fallacious.
It's hardly a technocracy. If it was, you would probably be facing the end of using petroleum products for producing energy tomorrow. As it is, governments do just enough to appear to be doing something.
But beyond that the question becomes "If the vast and overwhelming majority of researchers in a certain field say [i]X[/i] is happening", your response should be:
A. Wow, that sounds serious, what are the solutions?
or
B. That would cost a few billion a year, so fuck you.
But you see, the Transformers universe is occupied by humans with Shia LaBeouf's intellect. People like that would have a hard time not picking up a stick and doing themselves real harm long before they could ever stick it in an exposed cog.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, wasn't paying attention, too busy downloaded non-DRMed copies via Bittorrent. What were you nattering on about again?
Use your private definition of democracy if you like, and I'll gladly play that game too and declare your arse a soup bowl.
It's a representative democracy where the constitution overrides the will of the majority if the two should collide. So, in other words, it's a form of democracy, just as a Constitutional Monarchy is a form of democracy. You're creating a false dilemma and playing little more than a game of semantics. This is a tired idiotic bit of tripe that gets trotted out by those who think they're being terribly clever, when all they're being is, well, tiresome and stupid.
This sort of false distinction irritates me. Republics can be democracies. Monarchies can be democracies. Democracy is about a free and open political life, about electing directly or indirectly those that govern. Democracy does not have one form.
I think Washington saw that the rise of the political party in the United States would lead to a bad end, but at the same time I think you cannot have a representative democracy without the representatives and candidates to be representatives finding ways to divide themselves.
Democratically deciding to take Sparta head on wasn't a cock up, it ultimately was a civilization shaking devastating decision that pretty much lead to the collapse of the Classical Greek era. It wasn't just a mistake, it was a near-fatal blunder that ultimately left Athens stripped of its empire and even, for a time, of its system of government.
The problem, as the British essayist, Walter Bagehot saw even in the 19th century is that the Electoral College never really became what the Founding Fathers had intended. It was the one Constitutional institution that, in his words:
- Walter Bagehot - The English Constitution
If the electoral college did indeed function as a sort of specialized Senate whose purpose was to weigh the candidates and choose the President, you would see a very different kind of political structure in Washington. The Founding Fathers specifically did not want the President chosen by popular vote, but they did not well enough define or embolden the role of the electoral college to allow it to function as anything other than what Bagehot referred to as a "transmitter" of the popular vote, a system even worse than a simple popular vote for the Executive.
It's a very good way to look at democracy. Historically, there have always been tensions between ruling elites and those they rule; the classic struggle between patricians and plebs. The mistake, I think, that the Marxists and Libertarians both make is in necessarily thinking that the best way to solve that struggle is by eliminating the patricians and turning everyone into plebeians. The real solution is to find some outlet for the ruled to express their collective and individual political desires.
You do need professionalism in cabinets, or as you put it, technocrats. There are complex issues that governments must grapple with, whether it was good irrigation canals in Ancient Sumer or managing a monetary policy in a modern state. A balance has to be struck between rulers and ruled, and democracy allows that. But direct democracy does not. Look at California, which is one of the most badly governed jurisdictions in the industrialized world, despite being one of the largest economies in the world. There really is such a thing as too much democracy, and the Founding Fathers understood it and built a system that viewed the popular will as as dangerous a concentration of power as the executive, legislative or judicial branches of government.
The problem is that a benevolent monarchy (or benevolent dictatorship of any kind) is only one bad ruler away from becoming an incompetent and/or malicious monarchy. Sure, Augustus was a pretty smart guy all in all, and actually was a skilled administrator, but other than Claudius, the Julio-Claudians were demented maniacs.
The Founding Fathers very much foresaw the future. These were men very well versed in political theory, and they would have known the lessons of the ancient Greek democracies, in particular Athens, where the citizens having basically a direct line to the executive could create dangerous, even catastrophic decisions. One can well imagine a representative assembly in Athens being less than keen on taking on Sparta, but there was no representative assembly. If a guy could stand in front of the assembly of eligible Greek voters and convince them that Athens would become a great empire if it went to war with Sparta, they voted right then and there, and it became policy.
Basically the whole point of the Electoral College and Congress is to create an intentional roadblock between the popular will and government policy, to give debate and sober second thought a chance to properly analyze a policy. It isn't a perfect system, but sometimes I wonder if the United States was a direct democracy if it wouldn't have flamed out like Ancient Athens did, just one catastrophic popular policy away from ruin.
I don't think any political theorist has ever thought that democracy would create qualitatively better governments than other means of choosing governments (monarchies, autocracies, theocracies, etc.). It's advantage, as singular as it is, is that it creates an environment in which a government can be peacefully removed from power and another transitioned in its place. Of course most people are not equipped to judge which party's policies, which run the whole gamut from economics to foreign affairs to social policy, are better or worse. I doubt even most politicians are. Most people either just vote kneejerk for the "conservative" or the "liberal" or the "little guy" or the "wise-looking older fellow".
No, it's not about choosing leaders, it's about getting rid of them. That's where democracy, when coupled with a tradition of the rule of law, really shines.
I wonder if it ever occurred to Microsoft that one solution would be to not abuse its market position. You know, at least pretend that they're incurable evil sociopaths.
Do you pseudoskeptics go to Fallacy School or something? I stand in awe of the amount of it coming out of your mouths.
Freedom doesn't mean liberation from reality. The universe actually doesn't give one sweet fuck about your freedoms.
The Metropolitan Police Force was one of Sir Robert Peel's (an actual real Tory, and not just the fake post-Thatcher kind) greatest achievements, and a model for police forces the world over. It was precisely because of fragmentation that Peel went this route, producing a stunningly effective law enforcement agency.
He didn't fabricate data and he didn't commit fraud. You, however, are a liar.
WTF? Just about every field of research uses statistics; from physics to biology. I don't have time to look up the entire quote, but I'll wager Rutherford didn't mean what you think he meant, because if he did, then that was just about the most retarded thing he may ever have said.
I mean, how the fuck would you describe quantum interactions without statistical tools? How do you describe radioactive decay? How do you describe genetics or population distributions?
To translate: I'm a layman with an interest in meteorology, which means I don't actually have any knowledge of climatology at all, but that won't prevent me from making sweeping accusations about researchers on a topic that I have little more capacity to measure than does my pizza delivery boy or the kid next door.
Eugenics is a bad thing because A. it violates basic human rights, B. it pretty much rejects the Darwinian notion that the more variation the better, and C. it has historically been applied as much to socioeconomic factors as to anything particularly hereditary.
An appeal to authority is only fallacious when the authorities being invoked are not in fact authorities. If you defend a diagnosis of macular degeneration because your dentist says that's what you have, that's a fallacious appeal to authority. If you defend a diagnosis of macular degeneration because your opthamologist says that's what you have, it is not fallacious.
It's you that doesn't have an argument. You actually are the one creating the strawman.
It's hardly a technocracy. If it was, you would probably be facing the end of using petroleum products for producing energy tomorrow. As it is, governments do just enough to appear to be doing something.
But beyond that the question becomes "If the vast and overwhelming majority of researchers in a certain field say [i]X[/i] is happening", your response should be:
A. Wow, that sounds serious, what are the solutions?
or
B. That would cost a few billion a year, so fuck you.
If you're too fucking lazy to vote in person, fuck you, no one gives a rats fuck what you think anyways.
Not according to Wikipedia.
But you see, the Transformers universe is occupied by humans with Shia LaBeouf's intellect. People like that would have a hard time not picking up a stick and doing themselves real harm long before they could ever stick it in an exposed cog.