Announcement

Collapse

Civics 101 Guidelines

Want to argue about politics? Healthcare reform? Taxes? Governments? You've come to the right place!

Try to keep it civil though. The rules still apply here.
See more
See less

Little Greta comes clean

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #91
    Originally posted by mikewhitney View Post
    You seem so concerned about protecting pure Marxist Communism that you don't want modern groups to take credit as being modern variations of Marxist Communism. People who have wanted to see class warfare happen have since recognized that that won't happen. So they promote alternatives like race (and other divisions) reinvigorated through things like intersectionality (CP, did I get the right word this time?). The modern tentacles of communism hope to cause revolution based on these new forms.
    While it is possible some groups could get misrepresented as modern forms of communism, but this mistaken identity doesn't even mean they are less harmful. I meant also to say that such misrepresentation doesn't mean that no groups aren't modern forms of communism. That is too bad. On the other hand, if they look close enough to communism, or they attract advocates of communism, then the group has veered into trouble anyhow.

    The States aren't even compatible with 's'ocialism. It is destructive on our form of government and our freedom.

    Maybe you can help and let us know some of the groups that you can warn us about. Which groups have doctrine too close to communism or are being steered by communist participants?
    Douglas Murray makes the case linking intersectionality to its Marxist substructure, in his new book "The Madness of Crowds."


    Murray is a prominent British member of the “Intellectual Dark Web” (IDW) of countercultural intellectuals — such as Sam Harris or Jordan Peterson — who openly contest the sacralisation of disadvantaged race, gender and sexual identities. The IDW’s willingness to transgress the speech rules of the progressive twitterati marks them out as heretics who violate the sensibility of academia, Hollywood and parts of the media.

    How did our societies become so insane? In The Madness of Crowds, Murray argues that it’s because highly educated people cling to a new religion known variously as “social justice”, “identity politics” or “intersectionality”. Essentially this is the old Marxist faith poured from the class bottle into the race-sex-gender one. Meaning is realised through struggle against those who commit wrongthink.

    ttps://www.ft.com/content/f79a4b38-d961-11e9-9c26-419d783e10e8


    https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/...-and-identity/
    Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

    Comment


    • #92
      Originally posted by mikewhitney View Post
      You seem so concerned about protecting pure Marxist Communism that you don't want modern groups to take credit as being modern variations of Marxist Communism. People who have wanted to see class warfare happen have since recognized that that won't happen. So they promote alternatives like race (and other divisions) reinvigorated through things like intersectionality (CP, did I get the right word this time?). The modern tentacles of communism hope to cause revolution based on these new forms.
      While it is possible some groups could get misrepresented as modern forms of communism, but this mistaken identity doesn't even mean they are less harmful. I meant also to say that such misrepresentation doesn't mean that no groups aren't modern forms of communism. That is too bad. On the other hand, if they look close enough to communism, or they attract advocates of communism, then the group has veered into trouble anyhow.

      The States aren't even compatible with 's'ocialism. It is destructive on our form of government and our freedom.

      Maybe you can help and let us know some of the groups that you can warn us about. Which groups have doctrine too close to communism or are being steered by communist participants?
      Keep in mind that starlight has actually declared and then doubled down on his claim that Stalin was a "right-winger."

      I'm always still in trouble again

      "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
      "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
      "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

      Comment


      • #93
        Originally posted by mikewhitney View Post
        You seem so concerned about protecting pure Marxist Communism that you don't want modern groups to take credit as being modern variations of Marxist Communism.
        I'm not sure what is wrong with you that has made you obsessed with trying to call all leftist groups "communist". It's like wanting to misuse the word "Christianity" to refer to every religion. It's somewhere between factually wrong and crazy.

        People who have wanted to see class warfare happen have since recognized that that won't happen. So they promote alternatives like race (and other divisions) reinvigorated through things like intersectionality (CP, did I get the right word this time?).
        You say so much crazy stuff, it's amazing.

        Maybe you can help and let us know some of the groups that you can warn us about.
        The Republican party. Their members keep committing crimes, especially when President or in presidential administrations. Their policies are also destructive to freedom, to the US, to its people, and to the world.

        Which groups have doctrine too close to communism or are being steered by communist participants?
        In the US? Virtually nobody. After Lenin invented communism-as-we-know-it-today at the beginning of the 20th century, the Socialist movement had a pretty acrimonious split into Communists vs Democratic Socialists with the two groups holding very different views and values and goals. Democratic Socialism was the far more popular variant in the West, while Communism was often more popular in very poor countries.

        George Orwell, a strong believer in Democratic Socialism, wrote one of history's most famous anti-Communist works, Animal Farm, and participated in military combat against Communists during the Spanish revolution. Communist groups in the West have been slim to none, and had zero influence since then. Democratic Socialist groups have had more influence, but it has tended to be a very watered-down version of Democratic Socialism that has boiled down to "strong unions are good, healthcare for everyone is good". In the present day Bernie Sanders, and Jeremy Corbyn identify themselves as Democratic Socialists, though again both promote only very watered-down versions of it (I believe in his youth Sanders was once expelled from a Democratic Socialist organisation for failing to hold sufficiently to its values).

        In the West, the term "social democrat" (as opposed to Democratic Socialist) has been adopted to refer to those who like tax-and-spend social policies / very very watered-down Democratic Socialism. So you could describe most center to leftist political parties in the West as "social democrats". Anyone wanting social security, more government spending on healthcare, or re-distributive taxation (i.e. the rich pay more than the poor, and some of that money gets given by the govt to the poor, in order to act as a mechanism to reduce inequality slightly), is a social democrat. So if you called left-wingers "social democrats" instead of "communists", it would make your posts make a lot more sense, instead of being like you were constantly mislabeling Jews as Catholics, the way it currently is with you mislabeling everything as communist.
        "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
        "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
        "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

        Comment


        • #94
          Originally posted by Starlight View Post
          I'm not sure what is wrong with you that has made you obsessed with trying to call all leftist groups "communist". It's like wanting to misuse the word "Christianity" to refer to every religion. It's somewhere between factually wrong and crazy.

          You say so much crazy stuff, it's amazing.

          The Republican party. Their members keep committing crimes, especially when President or in presidential administrations. Their policies are also destructive to freedom, to the US, to its people, and to the world.

          In the US? Virtually nobody. After Lenin invented communism-as-we-know-it-today at the beginning of the 20th century, the Socialist movement had a pretty acrimonious split into Communists vs Democratic Socialists with the two groups holding very different views and values and goals. Democratic Socialism was the far more popular variant in the West, while Communism was often more popular in very poor countries.

          George Orwell, a strong believer in Democratic Socialism, wrote one of history's most famous anti-Communist works, Animal Farm, and participated in military combat against Communists during the Spanish revolution. Communist groups in the West have been slim to none, and had zero influence since then. Democratic Socialist groups have had more influence, but it has tended to be a very watered-down version of Democratic Socialism that has boiled down to "strong unions are good, healthcare for everyone is good". In the present day Bernie Sanders, and Jeremy Corbyn identify themselves as Democratic Socialists, though again both promote only very watered-down versions of it (I believe in his youth Sanders was once expelled from a Democratic Socialist organisation for failing to hold sufficiently to its values).

          In the West, the term "social democrat" (as opposed to Democratic Socialist) has been adopted to refer to those who like tax-and-spend social policies / very very watered-down Democratic Socialism. So you could describe most center to leftist political parties in the West as "social democrats". Anyone wanting social security, more government spending on healthcare, or re-distributive taxation (i.e. the rich pay more than the poor, and some of that money gets given by the govt to the poor, in order to act as a mechanism to reduce inequality slightly), is a social democrat. So if you called left-wingers "social democrats" instead of "communists", it would make your posts make a lot more sense, instead of being like you were constantly mislabeling Jews as Catholics, the way it currently is with you mislabeling everything as communist.
          Maybe I could reduce my discussion to ideas that you can digest. But that would be silly in the long run.

          Right now Pelosi is leading in the Dems into a coup against the will of the people. You probably think that this is normal.
          The Dems are pushing divisions based on racism. You probably think this is good stuff.
          The House members are becoming millionaires by promising things they never will achieve. You call this progress.
          The Dems are pushing Robin Hood tactics. Your atheism is driving you mad.
          You want us to give up freedom in order to have an enslaving government.

          How does this really differ from practical Communism?
          You seem to draw too broad of a distinction between socialist democrats and Communists.

          How seriously should we take your opinions here?

          There may be some things we need to do to improve the situation in our country. But I've never heard anything workable from the Dems.

          Comment


          • #95
            Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
            Keep in mind that starlight has actually declared and then doubled down on his claim that Stalin was a "right-winger."
            From the beginning people realized that Communism didn't fall properly on the traditional left-right political continuum. The "horseshoe" metaphor was first used near the beginning of the 20th century to suggest that perhaps the extreme-right and extreme left 'curve around' so that they are 'close' to one another in behavior, the way the opposite ends of a horseshoe are near each other.

            So something was wrong with the traditional left-right analysis, once communism was involved, that made people want to turn the left-right line into a curve rather than a straight line to fit the data they were seeing.

            Today, political scientists can feed data into the computer in bulk about what politicians in different countries and times voted for. Then the computer can crunch the numbers and automatically spit out some information about the internal structure of the data. And what the computer analysis consistently shows is that human politics is described with two dimensions. These two dimensions in politics are often labelled (by humans) as "Social issues" and "Economic issues".

            So, once you realize there are actually two dimensions needed to describe political positions, you can see why the people of the early 20th century were struggling to fit the political positions they were observing onto a single line, and feeling like they had to 'curve' it to fit the data.

            Is there any point in even trying to reduce 2-dimensional political positions down to 1-dimension? Isn't the outcome going to arbitrary, depending on how one draws that single axis across a 2-dimensional space? Yes and no. It seems to be the case that within that 2-dimensional space, most people's politics does tend to cluster toward a single line: Most leftists are liberals, and most right-wingers are conservatives. People's views on morality and their views on economics tend to cluster together. E.g. let's take Canada this year. Here's a 2-d plot of where the parties fall (truncated at the top-right is the People's Party):

            Canada.jpg

            That's a 2-d plot, but there's a rather obvious line you could draw that runs almost straight through all the parties. The line runs diagonally. And that line, I would say, reflects the traditionally-observed left vs right wing continuum that has been noticed in Western politics for hundreds of years. Pick any modern Western country, and look at a 2-d plot of where their parties fall, and most of their parties fall near that line. But if you choose to reduce the dimensions from 2 to 1, you sacrifice the ability to accurately describe parties that don't fall on that diagonal line. Communism and Libertarianism are the two views that when plotted on a 2-d chart don't fall anywhere near that diagonal line. You could say that there are no significant communist or liberatarian parties today in the West, so using only a single left-right continuum is fine for most purposes. That's fine, if you want to do it, but you've got to realize that by doing so you've lost your ability to describe those two systems, and that's why a century ago when they started turning up in the politics of the time, people had to try and curve the left-right line to look like a horseshoe in order to fit them in.

            If we were to plot Stalin on the above graph, he'd be tightly in the top-left corner. Nowhere near that line, nowhere near any of Canada's current parties. His position isn't anywhere along the traditional Western left-right political continuum.
            "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
            "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
            "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

            Comment


            • #96
              Originally posted by mikewhitney View Post
              Right now Pelosi is leading in the Dems into a coup against the will of the people.
              Polling done over the last several months consistently shows the majority of the public supports her actions. i.e. it is with the will of the people, not against it.

              If your point is that Trump won the 2016 election, then I would note he actually didn't win the majority of the vote, so his election wasn't actually the will of the people.

              If your point is that you hate the US constitution and hate the founding fathers, and hate the constitutional principles for impeachment that they deliberately put in the constitution that Nancy Pelosi is following, okay, that's your opinion. If you don't think the ability to impeach a President should be in the US's constitution, maybe you should try to get it changed. The concern of the founding fathers was that if the President misused his office to commit crimes with the aim of influencing election outcomes, then simply having an election every four years wouldn't be a sufficient check on his power and he might keep himself in power through such methods (this was prior to any term limits). For that reason in particular, they thought it was crucial that the US constitutional have a mechanism for the removal of a president who was committing crimes or misusing his office, other than through elections, and for that reason they wrote the process of impeachment into the US constitution when they wrote it.

              I don't mind if you dislike the US constitution. I, personally, as an observer of international politics, think the US constitution has many issues and is one of the worse constitutions internationally, but that is because it was one of the first to be written. People have learned a lot since then. The US added 27 amendments to their constitution over time for a reason.

              The Dems are pushing divisions based on racism.
              Not really. The Republican party is the party of white people only and of white supremacy, the Dems are a party of everyone.

              Here are the new members elected to congress for each party in 2018:

              New Congress.jpg

              One party (the Democrats) is a diverse group that is of every race (white included), that reflects America. One party is uniformly of one race and one race only (the Republicans). It's pretty clear who the party of racism is.

              The House members are becoming millionaires by promising things they never will achieve. You call this progress.
              I don't think I've ever expressed an opinion on the subject of politician's salaries, nevermind called it progress.

              If you mean the topic of money-in-politics with regard to donations to the campaigns of political candidates, then you should be aware that I am one of the most outspoken members of this forum about the severity of that threat. I strongly, strongly, support an amendment to the US constitution to allow limits and bans to be put on the ability of people to donate money to the campaigns of political candidates, and to overrule the horrific Republican Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision (and related decisions) that effectively made corruption and bribery of political candidates legal. That is in danger of destroying your country through legalized bribery and corruption, and I think as a result a key reason to vote Democrat is to ensure that the Supreme Court picks will be people who will rule against corruption not in favor of it like the insane Republican Supreme court judges keep doing.

              The Dems are pushing Robin Hood tactics. Your atheism is driving you mad.
              Are these two silly claims related?

              You want us to give up freedom in order to have an enslaving government.
              You're crazy.

              I support freedom. It's one of my main key political values. Seriously. And I do so vastly more that you do with your nutty politics. Seriously.

              How does this really differ from practical Communism?
              It doesn't have the slightest relationship to it. Like, pretty much zero, zilch, none.

              Here's a really easy way to tell: Which part of the above involved the government owning and running all businesses, and totally abolishing all private industry? None of it. Okay, so it isn't communism.

              You seem to draw too broad of a distinction between socialist democrats and Communists.
              The two historical movements have tended to hate each other. To me, it's like asking "okay, but why should we distinguish Muslims and Christians?"

              How seriously should we take your opinions here?
              I read/listen-to a lot about modern politics in many countries, and also the history of politics, and I've read quite a few works on socialism and Marx so I know what I'm talking about with regard to those, and my father has a degree in political science and worked with politicians so I heard a bit about the subject of politics growing up. If you mean US politics specifically, I tend to follow that most (the politics of my own country is pretty boring).
              Last edited by Starlight; 12-06-2019, 05:00 PM.
              "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
              "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
              "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

              Comment


              • #97
                Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                In polling done over the last several months shows the majority of the public supports her actions. i.e. it is with the will of the people, not against it.

                If your point is that Trump won the 2016 election, he actually didn't win the majority of the vote, so his election wasn't actually the will of the people.

                If your point is that you hate the US constitution and hate the founding fathers, and hate the constitutional principles for impeachment that they deliberately put in the constitution that Nancy Pelosi is following, okay, that's your opinion. If you don't think the ability to impeach a President should be in the US's constitution, maybe you should try to get it changed. The concern of the founding fathers was that if the President misused his office to commit crimes with the aim of influencing election outcomes, then simply having an election every four years wouldn't be a sufficient check on his power and he might keep himself in power through such methods (this was prior to any term limits). For that reason in particular, they thought it was crucial that the US constitutional have a mechanism for the removal of a president who was committing crimes or misusing his office, other than through elections, and for that reason they wrote the process of impeachment into the US constitution when they wrote it.

                You are losing any respect one might feel toward you. At least you point out something later that might be useful or interesting.

                I don't mind if you dislike the US constitution. I, personally, as an observer of international politics, think the US constitution has many issues and is one of the worse constitutions internationally, but that is because it was one of the first to be written. People have learned a lot since then. The US added 27 amendments to their constitution over time for a reason.

                Not really. The Republican party is the party of white people only and of white supremacy, the Dems are a party of everyone.

                Here are the new members elected to congress for each party in 2018:



                One party (the Democrats) is a diverse group that is of every race (white included), that reflects America. One party is uniformly of one race and one race only (the Republicans). It's pretty clear who the party of racism is.

                I don't think I've ever expressed an opinion on that subject, nevermind called it progress.

                Are these two silly claims related?

                You're crazy.

                I support freedom. It's one of my main key political values. Seriously. And I do so vastly more that you do with your nutty politics. Seriously.

                It doesn't have the slightest relationship to to. Like, pretty much zero, zilch, none.

                Here's a really easy way to tell: Which part of the above involved the government owning and running all businesses, and totally abolishing all private industry? None of it. Okay, so it isn't communism.


                The two historical movements have tended to hate each other.
                Philosophers will often quibble on little details.
                I just get the sense that you are lacking insight into the events in America even though you strive to follow what is happening in the states.

                To me, it's like asking "okay, but why should we distinguish Muslims and Christians?"
                That is the atheist mindset demonstrated here.


                I read/list to a lot about modern politics in many countries, and also the history of politics, and I've read quite a few works on socialism and Marx so I know what I'm talking about with regard to those, and my father worked with politicians so I heard a bit about the subject growing up. If you mean US politics specifically, I tend to follow that most (the politics of my own country is pretty boring).
                You almost introduce one interesting thing. What constitution do you like better than the US constitution? (a link would be helpful)



                This should be interesting.

                Comment


                • #98
                  Originally posted by mikewhitney View Post
                  That is the atheist mindset demonstrated here.
                  Do those words mean anything at all?

                  Are you trying to pretend all atheists think the same?

                  What constitution do you like better than the US constitution?
                  Canada, or New Zealand.

                  It's been the general conclusion of political scientists observing politics around the world over the last few hundred years, that parliamentary systems work better than presidential ones. e.g. a system like Canada, or the UK, or Australia, or Denmark, or New Zealand has, in which you have an elected Congress (called a Parliament) as the primary branch of government, and don't separately elect a President. In such a system, Congress/Parliament itself chooses a leader, which it can replace at any time, who is called a Prime Minister and which is a similar position to the Speaker of the House position in the US, and similar a subset of the elected congressmen/members of parliament (MPs) serve in dual position as cabinet members while retaining their positions in congress/parliament.

                  A parliamentary system tends to prevent the issue that Presidents from becoming dictators, as their powers are spread out among many elected representatives, who can all be replaced at any time by a vote from the wider parliament. No individual can as easily seize power, without taking power away from their fellow politicians, who would object to that happening. Whereas in a Presidential system the President is handed an entire branch of government to do his bidding, is separated from the other elected officials, and basically is given all he needs to become a dictator if he wishes to, and in many countries who tried to copy the US constitution, that is exactly what happened. In situations where Congress gets seriously concerned about the President's apparent wrongdoing and tries to rein him in, such an impeachment process can take a year or more. In a parliamentary system, if the elected politicians are seriously unhappy with the Prime Minister, they can replace him within 24 hours. So there is a much-reduced scope for wrongdoing in office.

                  The US system also has a tendency to lead to gridlock where congress is controlled by one party and the president is from the other party, so pretty much literally nothing gets done, as each party refuses to pass the laws the other suggests. The general populace tends to dislike gridlock. In countries that have copied the US system, gridlock usually became for them a serious problem, and then when their country faces a crisis, or a manufactured crises, the President seizes more power, overruling the congress, and the people support him because "at least he is doing something!", and usually ends up becoming a dictator as a result. Usually he initially is rather popular as a dictator because the people are happy that finally something is getting done, and they no longer have endless political gridlock. Of course, years later, they usually begin to regret that they have forgone democracy in favor of a dictator. Such has been the outcomes in the various countries that have tried copying the US constitution... it didn't work well for them.

                  Apart from the US form of government being fundamentally flawed, it's constitution isn't very good for quite a few reasons, but I would say many of it's problems can be summarized as: It's too long for a bare-bones constitution and too short for a lengthy constitution. Basically either a constitution can be nice and short and simply state what the branches of government are and what their powers are, and leave it at that (that's my personal preference). Or, in addition to doing that, it can also rigorously and clearly a variety of human rights which are to be enshrined in the constitution and protected by the Supreme Court, so that no part of the government is ever able to pass a law that circumvents the human rights enumerated clearly, unambiguously, and with clear reasoning in the constitution. The original US constitution was fine with regard to this - it fell into the first category of simply stating the powers of the different branches of government, and then was done. But the first bunch of amendments to the US constitution (the Bill of Rights) moved the US constitution toward the second type of constitution, without actually getting there: They listed a bunch of rights, but vaguely and unclearly, and those rights are often a couple of words in description and that's it, so there ends up being interminable arguments about what those rights actually mean or refer to, and court decisions end up arbitrary and politicized. The 14th Amendment made matters worse as it created the stupid process of 'incorporation' that it inflicted on the Bill of Rights, where over the following century and a half courts had to try and creatively retroactively force-fit the Bill of Rights onto the States rather than originally intended Federal government, which ended up with them giving a bunch of arbitrary and silly rulings because the underlying constitution itself was nonsensical.

                  If you want examples of countries that have good examples of both the short, and long forms of constitution, New Zealand has the short form, as we have a law passed by parliament called the Constitution Act that simply defines the branches of government and their powers and when elections are to be, and it's not very long (less than 10 pages) because it basically says the democratically elected parliament can pass whatever laws it likes, and if the people don't like those laws then they can vote the politicians out at the next election (courts aren't allowed to strike down laws here, so whatever parliament says goes, and before you go crying that this would lead to dictatorship/slavery/human-rights-abuses, it's worth noting New Zealand tends to be pretty consistently rated as the freest country in the world in international comparisons of freedom and human rights). Canada is commonly given as a good example of the long form of a constitution, with their constitution including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms which enumerates quite a long list of rights. In Canada the courts can and do strike down laws passed by parliament that are deemed to violate this list of rights. The sense I get is that most political scientists would tend to regard Canada's constitution as among the best in the world, and typically recommend for other countries to copy it. Here is an article about how other countries have copied the Canadian constitution.
                  "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                  "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                  "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                  Comment


                  • #99
                    Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                    Do those words mean anything at all?

                    Are you trying to pretend all atheists think the same?

                    Canada, or New Zealand.

                    It's been the general conclusion of political scientists observing politics around the world over the last few hundred years, that parliamentary systems work better than presidential ones. e.g. a system like Canada, or the UK, or Australia, or Denmark, or New Zealand has, in which you have an elected Congress (called a Parliament) as the primary branch of government, and don't separately elect a President. In such a system, Congress/Parliament itself chooses a leader, which it can replace at any time, who is called a Prime Minister and which is a similar position to the Speaker of the House position in the US, and similar a subset of the elected congressmen/members of parliament (MPs) serve in dual position as cabinet members while retaining their positions in congress/parliament.

                    A parliamentary system tends to prevent the issue that Presidents from becoming dictators, as their powers are spread out among many elected representatives, who can all be replaced at any time by a vote from the wider parliament. No individual can as easily seize power, without taking power away from their fellow politicians, who would object to that happening. Whereas in a Presidential system the President is handed an entire branch of government to do his bidding, is separated from the other elected officials, and basically is given all he needs to become a dictator if he wishes to, and in many countries who tried to copy the US constitution, that is exactly what happened. In situations where Congress gets seriously concerned about the President's apparent wrongdoing and tries to rein him in, such an impeachment process can take a year or more. In a parliamentary system, if the elected politicians are seriously unhappy with the Prime Minister, they can replace him within 24 hours. So there is a much-reduced scope for wrongdoing in office.

                    The US system also has a tendency to lead to gridlock where congress is controlled by one party and the president is from the other party, so pretty much literally nothing gets done, as each party refuses to pass the laws the other suggests. The general populace tends to dislike gridlock. In countries that have copied the US system, gridlock usually became for them a serious problem, and then when their country faces a crisis, or a manufactured crises, the President seizes more power, overruling the congress, and the people support him because "at least he is doing something!", and usually ends up becoming a dictator as a result. Usually he initially is rather popular as a dictator because the people are happy that finally something is getting done, and they no longer have endless political gridlock. Of course, years later, they usually begin to regret that they have forgone democracy in favor of a dictator. Such has been the outcomes in the various countries that have tried copying the US constitution... it didn't work well for them.

                    Apart from the US form of government being fundamentally flawed, it's constitution isn't very good for quite a few reasons, but I would say many of it's problems can be summarized as: It's too long for a bare-bones constitution and too short for a lengthy constitution. Basically either a constitution can be nice and short and simply state what the branches of government are and what their powers are, and leave it at that (that's my personal preference). Or, in addition to doing that, it can also rigorously and clearly a variety of human rights which are to be enshrined in the constitution and protected by the Supreme Court, so that no part of the government is ever able to pass a law that circumvents the human rights enumerated clearly, unambiguously, and with clear reasoning in the constitution. The original US constitution was fine with regard to this - it fell into the first category of simply stating the powers of the different branches of government, and then was done. But the first bunch of amendments to the US constitution (the Bill of Rights) moved the US constitution toward the second type of constitution, without actually getting there: They listed a bunch of rights, but vaguely and unclearly, and those rights are often a couple of words in description and that's it, so there ends up being interminable arguments about what those rights actually mean or refer to, and court decisions end up arbitrary and politicized. The 14th Amendment made matters worse as it created the stupid process of 'incorporation' that it inflicted on the Bill of Rights, where over the following century and a half courts had to try and creatively retroactively force-fit the Bill of Rights onto the States rather than originally intended Federal government, which ended up with them giving a bunch of arbitrary and silly rulings because the underlying constitution itself was nonsensical.

                    If you want examples of countries that have good examples of both the short, and long forms of constitution, New Zealand has the short form, as we have a law passed by parliament called the Constitution Act that simply defines the branches of government and their powers and when elections are to be, and it's not very long (less than 10 pages) because it basically says the democratically elected parliament can pass whatever laws it likes, and if the people don't like those laws then they can vote the politicians out at the next election (courts aren't allowed to strike down laws here, so whatever parliament says goes, and before you go crying that this would lead to dictatorship/slavery/human-rights-abuses, it's worth noting New Zealand tends to be pretty consistently rated as the freest country in the world in international comparisons of freedom and human rights). Canada is commonly given as a good example of the long form of a constitution, with their constitution including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms which enumerates quite a long list of rights. In Canada the courts can and do strike down laws passed by parliament that are deemed to violate this list of rights. The sense I get is that most political scientists would tend to regard Canada's constitution as among the best in the world, and typically recommend for other countries to copy it. Here is an article about how other countries have copied the Canadian constitution.
                    Thanks for the response.

                    Did you find a constitution that reasonably can handle a situation where the law makers have become totally corrupt?

                    I can also understand that attempts to copy the US Constitution to other countries could fail due to cultural differences. But, from what i've seen so far, I would stick with what we have. But I may see what these other constitutions say.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by mikewhitney View Post
                      Thanks for the response.

                      Did you find a constitution that reasonably can handle a situation where the law makers have become totally corrupt?

                      I can also understand that attempts to copy the US Constitution to other countries could fail due to cultural differences. But, from what i've seen so far, I would stick with what we have. But I may see what these other constitutions say.

                      The Canadian constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms is great if you are an atheist and/or a liberal. (That last proviso was especially for Starlight, who seems to get upset if you say that all atheists are left-leaning).

                      If you are neither if those things, then this country is horrible to live in and getting worse by the day.


                      Securely anchored to the Rock amid every storm of trial, testing or tribulation.

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by mikewhitney View Post
                        Thanks for the response.

                        Did you find a constitution that reasonably can handle a situation where the law makers have become totally corrupt?

                        I can also understand that attempts to copy the US Constitution to other countries could fail due to cultural differences. But, from what i've seen so far, I would stick with what we have. But I may see what these other constitutions say.
                        I think it was John Adams who said that our Constitution is only suited for the governance of a moral and religious society.
                        Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
                        But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
                        Than a fool in the eyes of God


                        From "Fools Gold" by Petra

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by mikewhitney View Post
                          Did you find a constitution that reasonably can handle a situation where the law makers have become totally corrupt?
                          "Corruption" is a broad category that can refer to a lot of different things. My country is usually ranked as the least corrupt country in the world in international comparisons, but I can't point you to any one thing we do that has that result - rather its a cumulative effect that people in general here have no tolerance for corruption so there are lots of different laws and systems in place to prevent it.

                          In the US's case, corruption would be reduced by: A ban on lobbyists, public financing of elections, a constitutional amendment to limit/ban political donations, laws around the ways politicians can make money before entering office and after leaving it, a change in the voting system from plurality voting to STV / Instant-run-off, a constitutional change of the federal government from a presidential system to a parliamentary system.
                          "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                          "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                          "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by mossrose View Post
                            The Canadian constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms is great if you are an atheist and/or a liberal.
                            In general I am personally opposed to this sort of constitution. Because it gifts the courts with a lot of power to make mistakes in future by creatively interpreting the rights listed in the constitution in ways the writers never intended, and once they make those mistakes they are very hard to undo. Even if I happen to agree with the moral outcomes of some of the court decisions, I still think the way of getting to those decisions is dangerous for a country because it can just as easily go wrong.

                            It should be elected politicians who rule on sensitive issues, and who are answerable to the people, and who can be replaced themselves or themselves repeal their decision if the people later decide it was wrong.

                            But the people can't replace unelected judges if the people think their decisions were wrong. Any sort of constitutional amendment to undo those wrong judicial decisions tends to be incredibly difficult and require in-practice-unattainable super-majorities.
                            "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                            "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                            "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                            Comment


                            • Poor baby...

                              Greta Thunberg 'ignored' by world leaders at climate summit, admits protests have achieved 'nothing'

                              https://www.theblaze.com/news/greta-...hieved-nothing
                              Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by seer View Post
                                admits protests have achieved 'nothing'
                                You wouldn't know it from how angry conservatives online seem to have gotten about it.
                                "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                                "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                                "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                                Comment

                                Related Threads

                                Collapse

                                Topics Statistics Last Post
                                Started by little_monkey, Yesterday, 04:19 PM
                                16 responses
                                137 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post One Bad Pig  
                                Started by whag, 03-26-2024, 04:38 PM
                                53 responses
                                356 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post Mountain Man  
                                Started by rogue06, 03-26-2024, 11:45 AM
                                25 responses
                                112 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post rogue06
                                by rogue06
                                 
                                Started by Hypatia_Alexandria, 03-26-2024, 09:21 AM
                                33 responses
                                197 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post Roy
                                by Roy
                                 
                                Started by Hypatia_Alexandria, 03-26-2024, 08:34 AM
                                84 responses
                                364 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post JimL
                                by JimL
                                 
                                Working...
                                X