- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
- globalnews@lemmy.zip
- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
- globalnews@lemmy.zip
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We should have never had the status given we still use slaves.
Having a for-profit prison system was a bad choice.
Who could have seen it coming ?
The US is one of the most watered down democracies, even for a liberal democracy (which is severely watered down). Its a system where the needs of the many are filtered through the needs of the few. We dont need to “fix” liberal democracy, we need workers democracy (syndicalism).
Oh, but were not a democracy, were a constitutional republic hardy har har har har
- my republican friends.
constitutional republic
So we’re going to follow the constitution?
ohh
It’s like talking to MAGA about Christianity So you’re going to follow the bible?
ohh
we’re a constitutional federal republic, with democratically elected representatives, but a plutocracy, in practice
- me, a political science pedant of highest/worst order
As a political science pedant, can you explain to me the difference between a democracy and a constitutional republic? I tried to Google “constitutional republic” but I just got a Wikipedia page that said they were the same thing.
Which I guess would fit, since republicans are absolute dumbfucks, but if there’s actually some nuance there, I’m curious to know.
Thanks!
If the question is “What’s the difference?”, then, as is tradition, we must figuratively clear our throats before such discourse with the well-worn adage, “It depends.”
As a disclaimer, much of this content was copied from Wikipedia and arranged in a way to support my opinion; none of this should be taken as Gospel. This is not financial advice. And please accept my apologies for the tedious length.
If we limit our terms’ definitions to their etymological roots, then:
- Democracy:
** The term democracy first appeared in ancient Greek political and philosophical thought in the city-state of Athens during classical antiquity. The word comes from dêmos ‘(common) people’ and krátos ‘force/might’.
** In a direct democracy, the people have the direct authority to deliberate and decide legislation. In a representative democracy, the people choose governing officials through elections to do so. The definition of “the people” and the ways authority is shared among them or delegated by them have changed over time and at varying rates in different countries.
- Republic
** The term originates from the Latin translation of Greek word politeia. Cicero, among other Latin writers, translated politeia into Latin as res publica, and it was in turn translated by Renaissance scholars as republic (or similar terms in various European languages). The term can literally be translated as ‘public matter’. It was used by Roman writers to refer to the state and government, even during the period of the Roman Empire. The term politeia can be translated as form of government, polity, or regime, and it does not necessarily imply any specific type of regime as the modern word republic sometimes does.
** A republic, based on the Latin phrase res publica (‘public affair’ or ‘people’s affair’), is a state in which political power rests with the public (people) through their representatives—in contrast to a monarchy. Although a republic is most often a single sovereign state, subnational state entities that have governments that are republican in nature may be referred to as republics.
** Representation in a republic may or may not be freely elected by the general citizenry. In many historical republics, representation has been based on personal status and the role of elections has been limited. This remains true today; among the 159 states that use republic in their official names as of 2017, and other states formally constituted as republics, are states that narrowly constrain both the right of representation and the process of election.
** The term developed its modern meaning in reference to the constitution of the ancient Roman Republic, lasting from the overthrow of the kings in 509 BC to the establishment of the Empire in 27 BC. This constitution was characterized by a Senate composed of wealthy aristocrats wielding significant influence; several popular assemblies of all free citizens, possessing the power to elect magistrates from the populace and pass laws; and a series of magistracies with varying types of civil and political authority.
- Plutocracy
** A plutocracy (from Ancient Greek πλοῦτος (ploûtos) ‘wealth’ and κράτος (krátos) ‘power’) or plutarchy is a society that is ruled or controlled by people of great wealth or income. The first known use of the term in English dates from 1631. Unlike most political systems, plutocracy is not rooted in any established political philosophy.
** Some modern historians, politicians, and economists argue that the U.S. was effectively plutocratic for at least part of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era periods between the end of the Civil War until the beginning of the Great Depression.
** President Theodore Roosevelt became known as the “trust-buster” for his aggressive use of antitrust law, through which he managed to break up such major combinations as the largest railroad and Standard Oil, the largest oil company. According to historian David Burton, “When it came to domestic political concerns, TR’s bête noire was the plutocracy.” In his autobiographical account of taking on monopolistic corporations as president, Roosevelt recounted:
…we had come to the stage where for our people what was needed was a real democracy; and of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of a plutocracy.
On paper, we (the U.S.) are a not a direct democracy, though we do vote directly about some issues via referendums; our constitution codifies the extents and limitations of legislation, enforcement, and jurisprudence of our laws and our rights as citizens.
We directly elect representatives to carry out the business of governance from local, state, to the federal level as our country’s political union is a federation of States that simultaneously retain their autonomy via the parameters outlined within the constitution and cede ultimate authority of jurisprudence to our bicameral national assembly (in our case, Congress) and Supreme Court.
In practice, due to regulatory capture, political expedience and corruption, and the realities of our global economic expansion, our country is effectively ruled by 2 factions of a political class of wealth that use faux-populism to maintain their power and influence.
I’d like to subscribe to more political pedantry
Unsubscribe!!!
Oh, we are? Is that why everyone other than hetero white males is getting mentions removed or protections gutted and/or removed? What part of the constitution that provides rights to all Americans is in play when this is happening? Go ahead, I’ll wait…
That would be my response.
My response is to click that “unfriend” button and never see them on social media again.
That works as well. I was going to delete my Facebook but decided posting things supporting minorities and other groups while being an annoyance to the right was more important.
And a few days after that, PragerU releases a video titled “Why democracies will fail eventually”, which tells its viewers that democracy creates “moral decadence”, and now a “strong leader” is needed to fix the issue, who might have told some noble lies like a parent tells their kid the stork brings the children when they’re not ready for reality. And the video ends with a “Roman salute” over “God Bless America”.
People tell their kids the stork brings babies because the parent is the one not ready to have the conversation.
The parent is avoiding their own humiliation. Telling kids how babies are made is not embarassing for kids. Kids have no reason to feel shame or judgement about these kinds of things….
Just pointing this out to show that the metaphor here is deeply flawed.
3-4 year olds don’t need to know about birds and the bees
Lol, tell me you’ve never been on a farm without telling me.
Sex, procreation is not a horrible perverted thing. It’s biology, science, and should be explained as soon as they’re curious enough to ask.
3-4 year olds don’t need to know about birds and the bees
Why not? It’s interesting and biology is part of the natural world around us.
Some kids probably won’t care but others will be super interested. Start the conversation and see where it leads.
Lots of 3 to 4 year olds are perfectly aware that they have a future sibling brewing in mom’s tummy.
Knowledge of bodily functions seems to concern you. That is your problem, not the kids.
It literally matters zero percent if kids know how bodies function.
The fear and judgement is all in your head lol.
It’s not even the matter of how the body works it can lead to them watching porn and shit early on which isn’t good cause kids are curious and google exists literally speaking from personal experience I was told way to early on by older friends and it lead to shit I don’t need to get into
Dude, they’ll watch porn either way probably. It’s more likely if you make it taboo that they’ll get into some weird shit. If it’s normalized then it’s not some mysterious thing they need to discover on their own. Your thought process is what leads to kids watching porn too young. They’re going to learn about it, like you did from older friends. If your parents made it normal to discuss maybe you’d be healthier.
That’s the problem. You were told by friends who left you with questions you answered in unsafe ways, not by adults who could answer your questions in an age appropriate way.
Giving kids age-appropriate sex-ed is a good way to protect them against predators. Many victims don’t even know something wrong has been done to them because people like you are too afraid to give them the barest guidance.
You need some therapy. Telling kids the truth about how our bodies work early on doesn’t harm them, but maybe your parents not talking to you about it and your older friends having to do it, perhaps in a crude way, is what led to that shit you don’t need to get into.
I was told way to early on by older friends
There’s your problem.
You were clearly abused by the church :(. I’m sorry that happened to you.
I hate that I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or if this really happened
“Could lose”? We are long past this point. When you can chose between two parties and they try to manipulate the election as hard as they can, then that’s a zombie democracy at best. And now? The president stands above the law. He can fire people illegally. He can disable law enforcement. Democracy in the US is gone. Hopefully only temporarily. Now it’s up to people to act, take their rogue government down and repair what can be repaired.
To be fair they did explicitly say that this report includes no data from 2025.
Oh fuck …
Removed by mod
Have you read the US Constitution? How is this misinformation?
I’m pretty impressed by that mod action frankly. In a bad way.
Baby, you haven’t been a democracy for a while
Really? Seems like we had a peaceful transition of power just this year.
Optical illusion. Plutocrats sharing power among themselves is not democracy, friend.
conspiracy theories about elections are hardly democratic
I’d hardly call it a conspiracy theory that both the Democrats and Republicans serve the wealthy.
“sharing power” implies that non-plutocrats are not involved in the decision, i.e. implying elections are fake
Did you just get radicalized? Yes they are basically fake.
To quote Bill Hicks, sometimes the ship leans a little to the left and sometimes it leans a little to the right, but it’s still going the same direction.
But now it’s going clear off to the right, which actually fucked with a lot of neoliberal agendas that they’ve been enacting for decades regardless of who was in office.
And I hesitate to even call that a real election, even though the train went off the rails. Considering Trump blabbered about how Musk helped him steal it.
yeah you weren’t going to vote either way
It’s not about the elections it’s about who gets the support and opportunity and resources to win elections.
A footrace can be executed completely fairly and transparently but if you need to buy special expensive shoes to participate and you receive them at someone else’s discretion and you need to join one of two private clubs to get an invitation and the leaders and members of those clubs also apply discretion then a lot of unfair choices and decisions are being made before the starter pistol goes off.
We peacefully transitioned into a technocracy with a wanna-be dictator idiot at the helm.
As an exercise for anyone reading this who doesn’t already know: How did Hitler got into a position of power? Look that up, don’t use AI, actually check up on that yourself.
Just a dictionary thing, Technocracy != tech bro president:
Government by technical specialists.
A system of governance where people who are skilled or proficient govern in their respective areas of expertise. A type of meritocracy based on people’s ability and knowledge in a given area.
When you call someone a technocrat, it means they’re more interested in research and quality than political debate
The US has purportedly been a technocracy for a few decades now. The second election of Trump will likely mark the end of the technocracy and the official start of something worse…kakistocracy, full bowl oligarchy, kleptocracy, pick whatever adjective you want.
The administrative state – the exact thing Elon and his doge goons are targeting – is the home of the technocrats.
Technically the Nazis lost that election, but the Conservatives who won turned around and handed power to Hitler, all to prevent the Left from gaining power.
Alien school: For todays class we will begin Earth history, please open your text book titled “Earth: All to Prevent the Left From Gaining Power.” This book covers the vast majority of Earth history.
Unironically though, you can see the same pattern going all the way back to Rome.[Michal Parenti’s The Assassination of Julius Caesar]
Something about the history of all hitherto existing society being the history of class struggles.
Wait a minute, so democracy brings people like Trump, Hitler and Hamas to power? Does it mean that democracy is shit?
How about single party socialism? Has that ever turned back into stateless communism, comrade? Or did it turn into “socialism with Chinese characteristics”, Putin’s Russia, Pol Pot, and the DPRK that Trump wants to turn the US into?
I’m not a communist bro.
The Khmer Rouge was never socialist, they were some weird feudal ideology, hence why the CIA supported them and the US recognized them as the legitimate government of Cambodia for like 30 years after Vietnam liberated them and put an actual socialist government in power.
Russia hasn’t been socialist since 1992; Putin’s Russia is what happens when you overthrow a democratic state run by the workers for the workers with a vibrant, multiparty capitalist “democracy”.
“Socialism with Chinese characteristics” is more democratic than the US; the average Chinese person feels they have far greater influence on the government than the average American. They tend to be confused why Americans hate and fear the police and why we aren’t able to vote for politicians who will fix the problem.
There’s also Cuba, who had a referendum on a new constitution a few years ago. After years of debate at the community level, they came up with a final draft that 92% of Cubans voted yes on. Could you imagine if we had that level of influence over our own government?
See the thing you’re missing is that the communist parties of these countries themselves democratic; they’re typically structured such that every member above the rank-and-file is elected, with instant recall and “give us a better candidate” options.
The Khmer Rouge was never socialist
They weren’t socialist bc they took a step past socialism and into communism directly. They abolished money, replaced army with armed militia, achieved direct democracy, abolished institution of family, replaced farmers with agrarian proletariat, achieved 100% public housing. USSR is a capitalist shithole compared to Democratic Kampuchea.
Yeah it’s really amazing the number that Western propaganda has done on folks perception of China
They assume democracy requires more than one party. When it should be people you vote for, rather than raw tribalism.
I would assume most monarchies transitioned just as peaceful. What does that prove?
Every 4-8 years to all elected opponent?
I mean, term limits don’t make a democracy and there have been elective monarchies.
The Vatican is an elective absolute monarchy.
When do Catholics vote for the Pope?
When the Conclave elects a new one.
No, but it’s irrelevant to the question.
…You might want to study some more history there bub
Sure mate. Hereditary successions were usually smooth. In elective monarchies, there were more power struggles. Do you have anything to add other than insults?
Not to mention that monarchies last way longer than democracies on average throughout history.
Is that so? I would assume democracies last a lot longer than 10 to 50 years? Considering that most of the world has democracies and they tend to be at least since WW2 that does not feel right.
Considering I don’t know any democracy that laster longer than 200-300 years and there are a lot of monarchies that lasted for many hundreds or even thousands of years.
That makes one in a row now.
The only party willing to accept defeat and not cry foul until their cult riots lost. It will never happen the other way around are you’d have be to a deeply vastly empty head to not know that.
Degree of democracy has more to do with the size of the ruling coalition relative to the size of the pool of the interchangeables. When power is shared within a large ruling coalition, there tends to be a louder and more influential voice by the interchangeables, leading to more democracy and better living conditions for everyone, including those in the losing coalition. Autocracies on the ruling spectrum tend to have tiny ruling coalitions.
Source: my memory of reading The Dictator’s Handbook by Bueno de Mesquita and Smith. Highly recommended reading.
If the ruling coalition of the US is much smaller than it appears to be, then yeah, it’s at risk of losing its foothold as a democracy.
That’s not the only quality of a democracy.
How many eligible voters abstained?
Is there any way to tell who abstained and who just chose not to take time off work so they could pay their bills?
Unfortunately the system is fucked.
Yeah for sure.
How long is the voting window? Is it like 9-5?
It depends on the state. It does tend to be a bit broader than that and most states allow early voting.
However, red states tend to put more hurdles in to maintain their power, limiting polling access in working class districts, especially ones that aren’t predominantly white. Forcing folks to stand in long lines or get across town to cast a ballot. Or scrutinizing and tossing out more mail in ballots in those districts over something petty. Folks don’t have the spoons for that between bills, kids, work, and chores.
Also factor in that a lot of folks abstained because they know their state is already blue or red, and at least, in the swing state I live in, the turnout was actually very high.
Anyway, it’s not as simple as 1/3rd of folks abstained. While I imagine some did, just out of apathy toward the federal government and not understanding how dangerous Trump is to our planet, it’s just not the whole story is all I’m saying.
The US has a long history of making voting a privilege based on class. And while on paper it’s not supposed to be the case, there are certainly mechanisms at play that disinfranchise folks who would likely otherwise vote.
Damn. When Sweden (or any Nordic country) says it, it really hits hard.
“You’ve only been a democracy for only 50 years. Not unless you don’t count black people… you are nearly as mature democracy as Botswana.” - Lukas Matsson (Swedish guy) on Succession
America is lost. Do not let Elon near your country.
Trump’s approval rating us TOO DAMN HIGH!
Could? Do it now.
Just publish an addendum and yank it. The great experiment failed. We’re cooked, chat.
- Democracy isn’t a status given by some watchdog.
- Democracy is shit
So you’re all for dictatorships then?
Democracy and dictatorship is not a dichotomy.
What do you mean by that?
- Do you mean electoral politics is fundamentally flawed?
- Do you mean direct action by the working class (workers democracy) is better than liberalism?
- Or are you just begging to have the orange tyrants foot deep down your throat?
-
Yes. Obviously.
-
No. Both are shit.
-
No.
-
Oooh edgy.
Anything else than democracy is shittier
Demonstrably false.
We await patiently for your demonstration.
What’s the longest lifespan of a democratic state in human history? Now compare it to the average lifespan of monarchies, for example.
The measure of whether a system of government is good or bad is not “how long it lasts”.
Go ahead and demonstrate it then
Easy: democracies don’t last long compared to the other forms government. So they can’t be better than other forms of government.
Only for those who prefer the taste of boot leather.
sorry for derailing a little:
why is there multiple links to choose from as a source? What exactly created that choosable format - are they automated, is this some system like groundnews or something?
EDIT: Seems to be only on some interfaces. I see it on the photon interface for feddit.org but I dont see that on the base fedditorg
Idk, don’t have that on my client (Eternity) but that’s dope
