Fight with American ignorance, Part 1: US is a Republic, it is not a Democracy

[Geoff Guenther + 317]

A few things I'd like to address here. 

1) We should ban all talk about the second amendment here. Yes, it's very important, but it has simply become like the abortion issue in the 90s - everyone screaming and no one listening.

2) Everyone knows that I'm no fan of Trump.  He keeps inventing deep state conspiracy theories to deflect from his wrongdoings. HOWEVER, presidents usually are remembered by their handling of crises. Coronavirus is the first non-self-inflicted crisis that Trump has faced and we'll see how he does.

I don't see either of these positions as something that would keep ANYONE from discussing what kind of world we want to live in. And that should be the basis of any political discussion rather than the knee-jerk reactions that social media elicits. 

Edited February 25, 2020 by Geoff Guenther

[frankfurter + 562]

On 2/24/2020 at 10:34 PM, Tom Kirkman said:

Please provide the definitions which you consider to be correct.

democratic monarchy ?  do you know what is an oxymoron?   fyi, Canada is a constitutional monarchy.  

A Republic is no different from a Monarchy, except for one factor: heredity.  The leader of a republic is s/he who has been put in the leader seat by the "people". This need not be by democratic process; ie majority vote, or popular vote. This need not have a constitution.  The effect of a republic is to concentrate power in the hands of "the leader", which inevitably leads to oligarchy or autocracy.  This is proven today by the USA, via the electoral college, super delegates, presidential veto, campaign contributions without limits, unilateral declarations of national emergency, war powers, electoral vs popular vote, limited rights to citizens, supreme court judges being appointed vs universal suffrage, civil asset forfeiture, etc., etc.. 

Definitions are for lawyers and those others who make their livings arguing about such; basically those people who think they know about power but have none.  Real power dispenses with such trifles: they focus upon substance over form - the form is engineered to produce the desired substance.  The substance of America today is anything but a democratic republic.

 

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

On 2/24/2020 at 9:31 AM, frankfurter said:

respectfully, you are entirely incorrect in your definitions.  

 

On 2/24/2020 at 9:34 AM, Tom Kirkman said:

Please provide the definitions which you consider to be correct.

 

6 hours ago, frankfurter said:

democratic monarchy ?  do you know what is an oxymoron?   fyi, Canada is a constitutional monarchy.  

A Republic is no different from a Monarchy, except for one factor: heredity.  The leader of a republic is s/he who has been put in the leader seat by the "people". This need not be by democratic process; ie majority vote, or popular vote. This need not have a constitution.  The effect of a republic is to concentrate power in the hands of "the leader", which inevitably leads to oligarchy or autocracy.  This is proven today by the USA, via the electoral college, super delegates, presidential veto, campaign contributions without limits, unilateral declarations of national emergency, war powers, electoral vs popular vote, limited rights to citizens, supreme court judges being appointed vs universal suffrage, civil asset forfeiture, etc., etc.. 

Definitions are for lawyers and those others who make their livings arguing about such; basically those people who think they know about power but have none.  Real power dispenses with such trifles: they focus upon substance over form - the form is engineered to produce the desired substance.  The substance of America today is anything but a democratic republic.

 

I disagree that definitions are just for lawyers and those who make their living arguing about words.

You were the one that said that you disagreed with the definitions of 4 words, and then ran away from defining them when I asked you to provide what you considered to be correct definitions.

Let's try this again...

     Proper definitions are important for productive debating.

     I will reiterate.  If you think the definitions above are incorrect, please provide the definitions which you consider to be correct.

     Republic:

     Monarchy:

     Democracy:

     Authoritarianism:

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

On 2/26/2020 at 3:17 AM, Tom Kirkman said:

 

 

 

I disagree that definitions are just for lawyers and those who make their living arguing about words.

You were the one that said that you disagreed with the definitions of 4 words, and then ran away from defining them when I asked you to provide what you considered to be correct definitions.

Let's try this again...

     Proper definitions are important for productive debating.

     I will reiterate.  If you think the definitions above are incorrect, please provide the definitions which you consider to be correct.

     Republic:

     Monarchy:

     Democracy:

     Authoritarianism:

It's too bad @frankfurter wasn't required to study the CCP as assiduously as he's memorised the CCP talking points against the US. But then they'd have to shoot him, and charge his family for the bullet. 

Above @Anthony Okronglyamong his multitude of falsehoods makes the correct statement that China has far less per capita incarceration than the US. He neglects to consider the execution rate in China however. Much, much cheaper to operate a crematorium than a prison with the added bonus that ignorant people will consider your low incarcerations to be a positive.