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Author | Topic: Down To The Wire 2012 >>POLITICS<< | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Taq Member Posts: 9970 Joined: Member Rating: 5.6
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The Economist Intelligence Unit uses the Democracy Index to classify the United States, and 24 other countries, as a Full Democracy.
So how did you vote on the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare)? What about funding for the war in Iraq? Did you vote to continue funding or against it?
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
So how did you vote on the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare)? What about funding for the war in Iraq? Did you vote to continue funding or against it? My point is that when people say that the US is a democracy, they are not saying that it is pure democracy where everyone votes on everything.
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9076 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.7
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Well if all you have is a semantical argument then why are we arguing. You are arguing to argue, nothing more. Phat asked a question, I answered it with a technically precise answer.
Yes a Federal Republic is a form of democracy. But Phat wanted to know why that was different than a Democracy. The key is I am the one that originally stated the US was more of a Federal Republic than a Democracy so shouldn't what I meant by Democracy matter than what you mean? You win ok. Lets move on.Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts "God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Well if all you have is a semantical argument then why are we arguing. You are arguing to argue, nothing more. I wanted to ask the question, and I'm still wondering, has there even been an actual pure democracy?
Phat asked a question, I answered it with a technically precise answer. Is technically precise better than actual usage? (didn't you argue that a bison is a buffalo because that's how people say it?)
Yes a Federal Republic is a form of democracy. But Phat wanted to know why that was different than a Democracy. The key is I am the one that originally stated the US was more of a Federal Republic than a Democracy so shouldn't what I meant by Democracy matter than what you mean? That's fine, this semantic argument only came up because someone else said that only uneducated people would call the US a democracy in a formal sense and I found that hard to believe (and it turned out to be wrong). But you also said that the US isn't a democracy. I think that's a little misinformation if you're gonna go by the technical precise definition when its in conflict with the acutal usage.
You win ok. Lets move on. Has there ever been a pure democracy? I honestly don't know.
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Tempe 12ft Chicken Member (Idle past 335 days) Posts: 438 From: Tempe, Az. Joined: |
catholic scientist writes: Has there ever been a pure democracy? I honestly don't know. As far as Wiki states on Direct Democracy, it appears that there have been a couple examples of this political system. One of the ones that we have probably all learned about would be Ancient Athens. Direct DemocracyThe theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity. -Richard Dawkins Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -Issac Asimov If you removed all the arteries, veins, & capillaries from a person’s body, and tied them end-to-endthe person will die. -Neil Degrasse Tyson
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9076 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.7
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Has there ever been a pure democracy?
Not on a national level too unwieldy and chaotic. Townhall democracy is practiced in places in New England. Not sure of other places. I know links are discouraged but maybe these will help us.
quote:Is the United States a democracy? quote:Is the U.S. a democracy or a republic? What's the difference? In actuality our government has become more democratic in last 200 years. Most founding fathers were afraid of Democracy. Rule by the masses was very scary for the elites of the time. For example, Senators were not direct elected until the last century. As I have looked at this question in depth I guess you have forced me to relook at terminology and how I state it. Here is how I would state it now.
The US is not a pure Democracy it is a Federal Republic using Representative Democracy. The USSR was a Federal Republic too, so the distinction of representative democracy is actually more important than I had considered in the past. Thank you for pushing me on this. I would not have relooked at my ideas if you had not.Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts "God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9076 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.7 |
One of the ones that we have probably all learned about would be Ancient Athens.
The important thing to remember about this Democracy was that "the people" were defined as adult males.
quote:Source Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts "God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.
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Tempe 12ft Chicken Member (Idle past 335 days) Posts: 438 From: Tempe, Az. Joined:
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Yes, it was definitely not a perfect direct democracy. However, since the term citizen was not given to so many individuals at that time, it is probably the best example we will ever see of this system. It seems that a large percentage of what was determined to be a vote worthy citizen (namely adult non-slave males) would actually participate. Of the 250,000-300,000 people, your link states that about 1/3 were considered citizen families. This puts the number of citizens at around 100,000. Not all of these would have been males of course. However, they think that approximately 30,000 of the males actually participated in the vote. Even if we are assuming 50/50 split between men and women in the 100,000 that is over 50% of the citizen males voting.
Edited by Tempe 12ft Chicken, : Added: vote worthy Edited by Tempe 12ft Chicken, : added signatureThe theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity. -Richard Dawkins Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -Issac Asimov If you removed all the arteries, veins, & capillaries from a person’s body, and tied them end-to-endthe person will die. -Neil Degrasse Tyson
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Taq Member Posts: 9970 Joined: Member Rating: 5.6
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My point is that when people say that the US is a democracy, they are not saying that it is pure democracy where everyone votes on everything.
What we are saying is that they are using the term incorrectly, but it is used so often in this incorrect way that we understand what they are trying to get at. It's a bit like ignoring people when they say that the Sun moves about the Earth when they describe morning moving towards evening.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
What we are saying is that they are using the term incorrectly, but it is used so often in this incorrect way that we understand what they are trying to get at. It's a bit like ignoring people when they say that the Sun moves about the Earth when they describe morning moving towards evening. I disagree. Saying the sun moves about the Earth is factually wrong but saying the US is a democracy is not. I don't think that's using the term incorrectly either. "Democracy" doesn't mean "pure (or direct) democracy".
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Percy Member Posts: 22389 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.2
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From an editorial in today's NYT, Romney Versus the Automakers:
"Mr. Romney apparently plans to end his race as he began it: playing lowest-common-denominator politics, saying anything necessary to achieve power and blithely deceiving voters desperate for clarity and truth." I just do not understand why the lying isn't abundantly obvious to everyone. I have watched no political ads, I have seen no speeches on the news, and I didn't watch the debates, but I have been following the written press coverage closely, and I haven't yet heard that Obama has said anything like what I think he should say, for example: "I'm not going to lie to you to win an election. Digging out from under the worst financial collapse since the Depression has been difficult to everyone personally and to us collectively as a nation, and I wouldn't be doing my job as president to deny this reality. But to deny how far we've come in the past four years whose challenges have forged our dedication and strength would also be a lie. If reelected as president I will continue the policies that have already brought us so far and that will carry us forward to a brighter future that is our destiny." --Percy Edited by Percy, : Add title.
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Taq Member Posts: 9970 Joined: Member Rating: 5.6 |
I disagree. Saying the sun moves about the Earth is factually wrong but saying the US is a democracy is not.
Both are factually incorrect.
"Democracy" doesn't mean "pure (or direct) democracy".
If we are picking nits, it does mean a pure democracy. However, the usage of the term has changed over the years. Languages are living entities so there is a strong argument to include republics under the heading of democracy.
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Taq Member Posts: 9970 Joined: Member Rating: 5.6 |
I just do not understand why the lying isn't abundantly obvious to everyone.
It is my opinion that there is a segment of the population that wants to see Obama out of office at all costs. They see these lies as little white lies for the better good. Do people really think that Obama is a secret Muslim who is part of an inner circle of Arab leaders looking to overthrow the West? I really don't think anyone truly believes that, but they will still claim it. Human psychology can be quite intriguing at times.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined:
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I just do not understand why the lying isn't abundantly obvious to everyone. It's super-abundant. But what is anybody supposed to do about it? What is the media supposed to do about it? I mean, you should understand this problem intimately. Remember those years ago when you decided that the new moderation policy was that you couldn't call someone a liar because that was a personal attack; and therefore you couldn't refer to a statement as a "lie" because the implication would be that the author of that statement was a liar, and that would be a personal attack? Don't you think the media has kind of the same problem, here? They're previously decided that you can't say that someone is a "liar", so you can't call a statement a lie; you can report that others have called the statement a lie, but then you have to give balance to the opposing view. So you wind up with "shape of the Earth; opinions differ" view from nowhere journalism that is singularly unequipped to deal with a post-truth campaign. You get something like
quote: They just can't help it. What's the alternative? Fact-checking turned out to be a bust when the fact-checkers felt like they had to make the lie totals for both Romney and Obama come out the same, to the extent that they rated Obama statements "lies" and the proof was that if you too Romney's word that he wasn't lying, he wasn't. You can't cite "everybody knows" or the conventional wisdom, but any time you do cite a source you just set up a "he said she said" situation where you have to report both sides.
I haven't yet heard that Obama has said anything like what I think he should say, for example: "I'm not going to lie to you to win an election. Digging out from under the worst financial collapse since the Depression has been difficult to everyone personally and to us collectively as a nation, and I wouldn't be doing my job as president to deny this reality. But to deny how far we've come in the past four years whose challenges have forged our dedication and strength would also be a lie. If reelected as president I will continue the policies that have already brought us so far and that will carry us forward to a brighter future that is our destiny. Well, he's said this repeatedly. Most notably in his convention keynote address. It's largely the basis of the criticism that Obama doesn't offer "anything new" for his second-term agenda, which seems to forget that he's the President now and his constituents would largely prefer that, if he does have a new policy direction or a new secret plan to solve our problems, that he put it out there now and not basically hold it as a hostage to get votes. But why would you have heard about his speeches, since you're not watching the speeches? If you're very studiously ignoring everything Obama has to say, when would he have had the chance to say this to you? And why would it be the media's job to act as stenographers for political bloviating?
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hooah212002 Member (Idle past 801 days) Posts: 3193 Joined:
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Do people really think that Obama is a secret Muslim who is part of an inner circle of Arab leaders looking to overthrow the West? I really don't think anyone truly believes that, You underestimate the stupidity and ignorance of a lot of people. Not only do people actually think he's a Muslim, they also think that it matters. I've had discussions with people like this. They really do believe it. They've been force fed this shit for years now purported as fact by "news" sources they trust. They also believe that Fox really is the only "fair and balanced" news source and the rest are liars. Or worse: liberal."Science is interesting, and if you don't agree you can fuck off." -Dawkins
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