Yes, people, making it up as they go, and shamelessly so, as to be a “liberal Democrat” by their own definition is to be “liberated from all traditional forms of authority,” which actually starts with history and the meaning of words as a means of inter-personal communications, as can be seen in this following colloquy from the internet where RLA2 is a self-identified “liberal” in favor of democracy in America over the Republic on what was an “ask me anything” thread where people could learn first-hand from a self-professed “liberal” how it was that a “liberal” would see the world, to wit:
RLA2 wrote: People who do not want to see equalitarian democracy flourish tend to define it as something bad.
INTERLOCUTOR: Athens became the most successful democracy of ancient Greece during the 400’s BC.
Athenian democracy granted all male citizens the rights to vote on government policies, hold political office, and serve on a jury.
However, it was restricted to male Athenian citizens.
Non-Athenians living in Athens, women, and slaves had no political rights.
So HISTORY defines democracy as something bad, not people.
In a democracy, the majority, or those with muscle, exclude from the protection of law those they don’t want to have it.
And your metaphors keep changing, rla.
Now you are over into an “equalitarian democracy.”
What, pray tell, is that now?
How many kinds of democracy are there, anyway?
Is there a non-equalitarian democracy, as well?
RLA2 wrote: People with a committment to the rule of law define democracy as something good.
INTERLOCUTOR: The Aftermath of Solon’s reforms:
After completing his work of reform, Solon surrendered his extraordinary authority and left the country.
According to Herodotus the country was bound by Solon to maintain his reforms for 10 years, whereas according to Plutarch and the author of Athenaion Politeia (reputedly Aristotle) the contracted period was instead 100 years.
A modern scholar considers the time-span given by Herodotus to be historically accurate because it fits the 10 years that Solon was said to have been absent from the country.
Within 4 years of Solon’s departure, the old social rifts re-appeared, but with some new complications.
There were irregularities in the new governmental procedures, elected officials sometimes refused to stand down from their posts and sometimes important posts were left vacant.
It has even been said that some people blamed Solon for their troubles.
Eventually one of Solon’s relatives, Pisistratus, ended the factionalism by force, thus instituting an unconstitutionally gained tyranny.
In Plutarch’s account, Solon accused Athenians of stupidity and cowardice for allowing this to happen.
So much for rule of law, anyway.
RLA2 wrote: We have a republican form of government, the state-federal structure.
This republican structure facilitates the process of democracy in that it allows for more decentralization.
Democracy vs republic is a false dychotomy.
RLA2 wrote: We have a republican form of government, the state-federal structure.
INTERLOCUTOR: COMMONWEALTH: It generally designates a republican frame of government – ONE IN WHICH THE WELFARE AND RIGHTS OF THE ENTIRE MASS OF PEOPLE ARE THE MAIN CONSIDERATION, rather than the privileges of a CLASS or the will of a monarch.
– Black’s Law Dictionary
TEDDY ROOSEVELT wrote:
New Nationalism Speech, 1910
The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man’s making shall be the servant and not the master of the man who made it.
That is conflating, I think, rla.
A REPUBLIC does not imply the relationship between levels of government, it is about the relationship between the people and the government.
INTERLOCUTOR: What Is Federalism?
Historical Examples of Things Like Federalism
Primitive leagues: leagues of nations (when they had more than military duties).
“Confederacy.” Calling these leagues federal may seem anachronistic: using our current term to describe something in the past.
Yet these primitive leagues (e.g. the Achaean League) resemble the Articles of Confederation in some ways.
Early modern leagues: e.g. Swiss.
They were a league of groups to defend against Habsburgs and Holy Roman Emperor.
USA: began as a league of rebellious provinces, but was transformed in Philadelphia in 1787.
A new kind of confederacy: “as much a single centralized state as it was an alliance of states.”
The word federalism was coined largely to describe this new mix, and still refers to systems like the USA.
Latin American federalism: mostly modeled after US.
Former English colonies: since most were small, they have often combined into a federal structure after independence (much as USA’s thirteen colonies did).
Examples: Canada, Australia, India/Pakistan, Malaysia, Nigeria, etc. (though not all remained federal).
Communist federalism: unique form, designed to ease absorption of new republics, then abandoned for party domination once the new republics were firmly absorbed.
Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia after 1968, etc.
Federalism elsewhere: Africa (Ethiopia, libya, others for a while), but balkanization keeps them from lasting long.
Conceptual Definition of Federalism
“Federalism is a political organization in which the activities of government are divided between regional governments and a central government in such a way that each kind of government has some activities on which it makes final decisions.”
Federalism comes in many flavors, which can be thought of along a continuum from minimal (loosely allied) to maximal (highly centralized) federalism.
In minimal federalism, the central rulers have at least one (perhaps narrowly restricted) area in which it can act without approval of the federal units.
(Otherwise, it’s an alliance like the UN, not a federal union.)
In maximal federalism, the central rulers can make decisions in all but on (perhaps narrowly restricted) area without approval of the federal units.
(Otherwise, it’s a fully centralized government, not a federal union.)
http://wikisum.com/w/Riker:_Federalism% … al_Science
INTERLOCUTOR: Measuring Federalism
A strongly centralized party system can undermine federal divisions of authority.
Thus, fully centralized (“maximal,” see above) federalism is often accompanied by a strong governing party, rendering federal divisions “quite meaningless.”
Examples: USSR, Yugoslavia, Mexico (under PRI).
Thus, measuring the degree of federalism requires measuring the degree of party centralization.
And Riker measures party centralization according to (1) whether the party that controls the central government also controls the regional governments and (2) the strength of party discipline.
(Note that, in practice, looking at both party strength and institutional divisions is analogous to the veto players approach, which looks for both institutional and partisan veto players.)
http://wikisum.com/w/Riker:_Federalism% … al_Science
RLA2 wrote: Who or what made Henry Cambell Black the ultimate authority on government in the human social system.
Born 1860, growing up in a devout religious context, receiving a BA and MA from Divinity College, studying Greek and Roman classics, he then attended law school and practiced law for about six years.
He remained a nerdish scholar, spending his time writing and editing the Constitutional Review, from its beginning to his death in 1925.
He lived with parents Until they died and at age 50, married a woman who had been a border in his family’s house hold for many years.
The Black’s Law Dictionary was an out growth of many years of editing the writings of law professors.
The Dictionary is in its 9th edition.
The 1910 second edition is now in the public domain and available free on the internet and is thus the edition most often quoted.
RLA2 wrote: Who or what made Henry Cambell Black the ultimate authority on government in the human social system.
INTERLOCUTOR: Black’s Law Dictionary
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Black’s Law Dictionary is the most widely used law dictionary in the United States.
It was founded by Henry Campbell Black.
It is the reference of choice for definitions in legal briefs and court opinions and has been cited as a secondary legal authority in many U.S. Supreme Court cases.
The latest editions, including abridged and pocket versions, are useful starting points for the layman or student when faced with an unfamiliar legal word.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black%27s_Law_Dictionary
I believe the United States Supreme Court did, rla.
Shouldn’t they have?
RLA2 wrote: Black’s definitions of the basic terms for a theory of government did not come from a summary of court cases but rather from his own personal construct system, which was a product of his time and his particular history.
He apparently used his role and status as an professional insider to popularize his particular world view.
A world view that came primarilly from ancient history and theology–not from science or the kind of experiential learning that develops street smarts.
INTERLOCUTOR: JAMES MADISON wrote:
Do not separate text from historical background.
If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government.
INTERLOCUTOR: COMMONWEALTH: It generally designates a republican frame of government – ONE IN WHICH THE WELFARE AND RIGHTS OF THE ENTIRE MASS OF PEOPLE ARE THE MAIN CONSIDERATION, rather than the privileges of a CLASS or the will of a monarch.
– Black’s Law Dictionary
Are you then saying that a REPUBLIC is really something other than what Black’s Law Dictionary says it is?
Are you saying that science or the kind of experiential learning that develops street smarts have come up with some kind of different definition for what a REPUBLIC is as defined by the U.S. Constitution, and that we should use that alternate definition for what a REPUBLIC is over that expressed in Black’s Law Dictionary?
Are the dudes with the street smarts now saying that a REPUBLIC should be a frame of government in which the privileges of a class, say, the MIDDLE CLASS, and the will of our monarch are the main consideration, rather than the welfare and rights of the entire mass of people?
Is that what science is saying as well?
RLA2 wrote: No, I’m saying do not conflate the US Constitution and Black’s Law Dictionary.
I would take that a step further to say don’t allow the constitution to be transformed into scripture.
It has a process for being amended.
INTERLOCUTOR: U.S. CONSTITUTION Article IV, Section 4:
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/cons … article04/
I’m hardly conflating anything here, rla.
To the contrary, I am employing a two-step rational, logical process here.
And I am doing exactly what James Madison, himself a member of the Constitutional Convention and an American president to boot, told us to do when reading and interpreting the wording and language of the U.S. Constitution – Do not separate text from historical background.
Or you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government.
Which is what this present discussion is all about so our readers can follow along in here.
Sooo …
FIRST, I go to the U.S. Constitution, which happens to be scripture, or law of the land, until such time as it might be lawfully amended, where in Article IV, Section 4, that document informs us that:
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government
THEN, to find out what a REPUBLICAN FORM OF GOVERNMENT is, I go to Black’s Law Dictionary, since the Constitution does not separately define a republican form of government itself.
Put them together and what you have is that Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution as written states clearly and unambiguously that the United States SHALL guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government – one in which the welfare and rights of the entire mass of people are the main consideration, rather than the privileges of a CLASS or the will of a monarch.
I know that pisses you off to no end, rla, but so be it.
It is what it is until it is LAWFULLY changed.
RLA2 wrote: The constitution specifies a republican FORM of government and Black’s Law Dictionary specifies a republican FRAME of government and a process in which the welfare and right of the entire mass of people are the main consideration, rather than the privileges of a CLASS or the will of a monarch, which is what democracy means.
The republic-democracy dychotomy is a distinction without a difference.
The US Constitution laid the ground work for a democratic republic and the Amendments have for the most part have made it more democratic.
INTERLOCUTOR: First off, rla, Black’s Law Dictionary does not specify anything at all; rather it DEFINES what words being used elsewhere, such as the U.S. Constitution, actually mean.
Secondly, FORM and FRAME are interchangeable, and you see me using both, because they are interchangeable.
And DEMOCRACY most certainly is not the same as the REPUBLICAN FORM or FRAME of government.
DEMOCRACY is all about class, and in a DEMOCRACY, the dominant class disenfranchises the minority classes.
INTERLOCUTOR: The liberal-popular and the conservative-aristocratic emerged as the two dominant factions in Athenian democracy.
The spirit of the agon (competition), fame, glory, honor and the desire to surpass all others were values enshrined even in the Homeric poems, particularly the Iliad.
“It was widely accepted as ‘natural’, that the members of the community were unequal in resources, skills and style of life.”
In Herodotus’ prime, Athens was the dominant naval and imperial power.
It offered military protection to members of the Athenian (Delian) league in exchange for tributes, euphemistically called contributions – other euphemisms include protection for military occupation; prison was dwelling; an Athenian military defeat was to have a misfortune.
Athenians were granted homesteads in the colonies, cementing further their hold on them and squelching any moral objection from the participants.
Athens relied on imports of fruits and merchandise from distant lands to supplement local produce like corn and salted fish, and maintained permanent garrisons abroad to ensure a steady supply.
Many of the colonized though, even when they resented the politics of Athens, found its popular culture irresistible.
The professed objective of Athenian foreign policy was to aggressively promote democracies abroad in direct opposition to the more muted Spartan confederacy’s preference for oligarchies.
But exceptions to high principle were frequently made for illiberal ends.
At times, foreign territory was grabbed in the name of goddess Athena herself.
In reality, wars were used to acquire wealth, to keep the economy humming, to flex their muscle of growing power, and to distract citizens from domestic issues.
Classical Athens soon turned into a wartime economy.
Special interest groups in popular assemblies cloaked their impassioned speeches in the rhetoric of national interest and glory – deemed acceptable grounds for hostile military action even when others’ legitimate rights were mauled.
Athens began asserting itself in all manner of allied causes and interfered in other nations’ internal matters.
It had shrewd orators – demagogues, idealists, pragmatists, with the ability to manipulate public opinion to catastrophic ends – illustrated by the Mitylene debate when the popular assembly, following the frenzied instigation of the demagogue Cleon, rashly voted to condemn all men in the rebellious colony to death to set an example.
In greater Hellas, Athens repeatedly invoked its role in the Persian wars as moral justification for present domination, backing it up with militant aggression, much to the exasperation of the second-rank powers and other ‘inward-looking’ city-states.
A generation after Herodotus, the great historian Thucydides thought the Peloponnesian war inevitable: Athens had become an unprincipled bully; they had to be checked.
Their cultural effulgence had a dark side; they were victims of their own cupidity and recklessness.
Their conduct towards other city-states, with its own self-serving logic and momentum, had set them on a road to disaster.
Some Athenians believed that a just society needed an inspired combination of philosophy and real-politick in a leader – a philosopher-king, but the production and predictable supply of such men proved utopian.
Their democracy, too, depended on public awareness, responsibility, and participation to provide a bulwark against any willful abuse of power; conscious citizens were vital for its success in their asking – who are these men making decisions for me and my people?
The disparity between the rich and the poor, and the knowledge gap between the civilized few and the superstitious many, had become enormous in Athens.
Class conflict between wealthy landowners and less fortunate craftsmen, sailors and small traders became pervasive; the poor began asking awkward questions when reminded of their obligation to the polis.
Thucydides portrays the fragile and corruptible nature of popular government and noble institutions, the twin spectacle of the juggernaut of history and an endlessly vulnerable humanity, egocentric leaders lusting for power and glory, and at times inevitability, in light of the often blind and contending cultural instincts of peoples – his is a stage portrait of man, the political animal.
http://www.shunya.net/Text/Blog/DemocracyAthens.htm
INTERLOCUTOR: MARKETWATCH wrote:
America is no longer a democracy, not even a plutocracy.
Today our middle class is in a rapid trickle down into Third World status, while the rich get richer and the gap between the super-rich and the rest steadily widens.
It is now irrelevant who wins the 2012 race, because money corrupts and Obama is already a puppet of this system favoring lobbyists and wealthy donors.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/2011-2 … e_carousel
The experiment of a REPUBLIC in America was an abject failure, thanks to democracy, which sold out the REPUBLIC to the highest bidders, as democracy always does, in the end.
RLA2 wrote: DEMOCRACY is all about class, and in a DEMOCRACY, the dominant class disenfranchises the minority classes …Yes.
FORM and FRAME are interchangeable because they both refer to how the government is structured.
Every system has both structure and process.
The founding fathers and Mr. Black came along before general system’s language became available to scholars.
The US Constitution structures the US government in the form of a constitutional democratic republic.
The people are still struggleing to establish and maintain a democratic process.
There have always been a large gap between theory and practice.
This gap has been maintained because leadership has been allowed to emerge only from among the elite who controlled banking and comerce, organized religion and higher education, government bureauracy and the military.
Henry Black, because of his insider position with Trinity College, the Episcopal Church and the Journal for Constitutional Review was uniquely positioned to reinforce the prevailing perspective of the most elite who gave lip service to democracy while carrying on bidness as usual.
end quotes
That is a conversation that went on and on and never went anywhere or got to anywhere because the self-proclaimed liberal RLA2 would not accept Black’s Law Dictionary as a source for the meaning, of words in the Constitution, and yes, that is a real conversation from back in February of 2012, which is an indication of how long this inability to have a rational discussion about government in America with a self=proclaimed liberal has existed.
Maybe it is just me, but when words no longer have common meaning, and history becomes what you want it to be, then do we still have a nation?
