This 6-minute explanation might come in handy someday:
Comments
Explaining “our democracy” — 17 Comments
This way to explain democracy is a losing discourse to the left. I wish we conservatives should never use the term democracy and certainly not promote democracy. Our constitution doesn’t have this term. Instead we should focus on promoting freedom/liberty. Promoting democracy is the left’s doctrine. I call them democracy fundamentalists. Promoting freedom/liberty is the right’s doctrine. Our constitution has this term, i.e. the constitution is on conservative side.
The difference between democracy and freedom is that democracy is affairs in public sector, i.e. eligible citizens vote about public officials/matters in the public domain. On the other hand, freedom is concerned with the matters and relationships among people in the private sector. In this country, 30% is public sector and 70% is private sector. 30% administrators are elected based on popularity (votes) in public domain and 70% administrators are selected based on merits.
What has made this country so great is not those 30% elected administrators, most time they suck, just take a look at their approval rating. It’s those 70% unelected administrators, such as CEOs, generals, school principals, church leaders, head coach’s….who made this country so great.
The left’s agenda is expending public domain by invading and reducing the private domain and using vote to attack and limit freedom.
There are 2 extreme examples in real world to show the difference between democracy and freedom. The first is this speaker’s home country India. India after independence chose both democracy and socialism as their system. That is 100% public domain and a democratic voting system in this domain. We all know this resulted India being the poorest country in the world between 1945 to 1980.
The second example is my favorite place, Hong Kong. HK has no democracy under UK. Their highest official was appointed, not elected, by UK government. For 100 years Britain was wise not to make HK democratic. But HK had freedom and perhaps was the most free place in the world (see freedom index by Heritage Foundation). The result is a prosperous jewel in the East.
I’d rather live in autocracy with no democracy, but a lot of private domain with freedom, than live in 100% public domain with democracy.
I take issue with Dinesh in his labeling America’s form of governance as a “Constitutional Democracy”. America is a Constitutional Republic whose representatives are elected through a democratic process.
Though originally the people did not vote for Senators. Rather State Legislatures chose the State’s Senators, the theory being that members of the State Legislatures would have the knowledge of who would best represent the States interests, which are by definition not limited to the particular individual’s point of view.
Many today argue that a return to that methodology is to be desired. My concern with that is that State Legislatures are as easily corrupted as are federal legislatures and a corrupt State legislature is less connected to the people’s feedback mechanisms. Every six years the voters can send a Senator packing but gaining the needed majority to do so when dealing with a corrupted legislature is much more difficult.
It’s obvious that the founders chose a representative republic for America’s governance realizing that most citizens have neither the inclination, the time or access to the information needed in making decisions on complex subjects. The House is meant to be more closely in touch with the people’s thoughts and desires, while the Senate is meant for careful, thoughtful and deliberative consideration of proposed legislation. It’s by far the best means of governance yet devised and the ignorant, apathetic, arrogant and self-absorbed are throwing it away.
Mankind’s feet of clay are the problem.
“Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.” “The quote, from a postapocalyptic novel by the author G. Michael Hopf, sums up a stunningly pervasive cyclical vision of history.”
Madison, Hamilton and Jay and now Dinesh spun a glib story about how we have a representative democracy which is not the same as a “pure” democracy. Elections in the USA are won either by a plurality or by 50%+1. SCOTUS has the 50%+1 rule. Congress wins on 50%+1. Governors are not chosen like the President but by 50%+1. Mayors are chosen by 50%+1. Every elected entity down to HOA’s wins by 50%+1. Everywhere we look we see that the “republic” is honored more by mention than by fact. Seems like a pretty pure democracy to me. And the penultimate proof is in our history. Every 50%+1 society has ended in blood and flame. We are headed down the same path. Instead of a politically moderating winning vote like 55-45, we are edging closer to a destabilizing 50%-1 versus a 50%+1 split in our society. It can only end in conflict.
“…destabilizing…”
Nonetheless, that WOULD NOT be a problem if people were not being encouraged 24/7 to demonize and hate (their neighbors and THEMSELVES), if TRIBALISM (or if you prefer, FACTIONALISM) was NOT being promoted—by our betters—as the greatest thing since sliced bread (or napkins, if you prefer…whatever), or if ALL SENSE OF TRUST in ANYTHING and EVERYTHING was being intentionally eroded: a matter of government policy purposely designed to elevate levels of hatred, uncertainty, fear, distress, anxiety and panic.
State legislatures might be corrupted, regarding election of senators, but at least they wouldn’t be as dominated by single big cities in states,
I think the problem with our republic is that we’ve abandoned our moderating norms. We used to have strong norms that the executive enforced the law, even when he or she didn’t personally agree with it. We used to have strong norms that major legislation had to be bipartisan. We used to have strong norms that the executive and the congress were to stay within the bounds of the law, even if it meant that they could not achieve all of their policy goals.
We’ve abandoned those norms over the past twenty years or so. We used to say that American politics was always contested “between the 40 yard lines.” That’s not the case anymore. The result has been a drastic increase to the stakes of every election. Previously, you had to win on a 1964 or 1932 scale in order to pass major legislation that the other party didn’t want. Democrats just tried to pass multiple bills with New Deal-level impact and no Republican votes with a five vote majority in the House and a 50-50 Senate.
Why are we fighting so hard over election issues? Why are Democrats rigging our election systems? Because the cost of losing (and the potential reward for winning) is so much higher now. Democrats really believe that they are one good election away from permanently defeating the right and irreversably changing our country. And, truth be told, they are. (FWIW – I think they’ll get a good deal more than they bargained for if they go through with it, but to all of our detriment.)
Depends on the soil take the illinois and california legs please nothing wholesome comes from that ohio and indiana are more sanitary but for how long
There are 2 extreme examples in real world to show the difference between democracy and freedom. The first is this speaker’s home country India. India after independence chose both democracy and socialism as their system. That is 100% public domain and a democratic voting system in this domain. We all know this resulted India being the poorest country in the world between 1945 to 1980.
1. It wasn’t the poorest country in the world.
2. India’s political economy was associated with slow growth over that period. It was not the source of India’s poverty; it just retarded efforts to improve output in India.
I think the problem with our republic is that we’ve abandoned our moderating norms.
1. A foundational phenomenon was the replacement of circumspect judicial review which had an eye on constitutional text and history and an eye on common law with judicial review which acted as a handmaiden of the Democratic Party in Congress; you can date that to 1937. Step 2 was the appellate courts assisted by the law professoriate going into business for themselves, making use of the judicial ukase to impose policy goals which often had scant popular constituency; this began in 1953. Some of these exercises were more justifiable than others.
2. Another phenomenon has been the secular decline in the ability of Congress to compose and enact sensible statutory legislation of any kind. Some part of this is structural (which structures are never repaired) and some part cultural. Legislation today when it gets through is a rococo compendium of carve-outs. The original Social Security Act (1935) was 35 pages long. Obama’s “Affordable Care Act” and the “Dodd-Frank” financial sector legislation had four-digit page counts. Dodd-Frank was composed though bull sessions among lobbyists held in Barney Frank’s office.
3. The mental breakdown of Congress means that standards binding on the public are not incorporated into statutory law, but are left for administrative agencies to compose and promulgate.
4. The courts do not insist Congress and the administrative agencies it empowers stay in their lane, and neither set of actors wishes to do so. Congress spends oodles of time (and globs of money) on issues that are not its proper province. In the regulatory arena, the proper power of Congress concerns (1) the use of natural resources to which the federal government holds what amounts to an allodial title; (2) transactions between parties domiciled in different jurisdictions (the jurisdictions delineated by state lines, the international frontier, and the social boundary between the Indian tribes and the rest); (3) transactions between vendors and travelers; (4) recruitment of labor outside of one’s jurisdiction; (5) labor relations at an enterprise with employees in multiple jurisdictions; (6) considerations of health and safety in re merchandise shipped across jurisdictional lines; (7) considerations of health and safety in re services provided to travelers and shippers; (8) considerations of health and safety for employees of concerns operating in multiple jurisdictions or employed in cross-jurisdictional shipping and transportation; (9) the migration of effluvia across jurisdictional lines; (10) the definition and enforcement of virtual property rights (patents, trademarks, copyright, broadcasting, domain names); (11) the administration of bankruptcies; and (12) the architecture of financial institutions whose facilities and customers are located in multiple jurisdictions. The courts have, since 1942, pretended the distinction between inter-state and intra-state commerce was factitious.
5. Conjoined to that has been the hypertrophy of the federal penal code. The proper province of the federal penal code is the definition and prescription of punishment to (1) contain assaults on the integrity of legal procedure (ex: laws on jury tampering and perjury); (2) contain assaults on the state that act to frustrate its execution of its duties (ex: prohibitions on trespass and burglary on federal property, on assaults on working government employees, on stealing government property, on forging government documents and attestations, on evading taxes, on bribing public officials; (3) contain offenses against national security (treason, espionage, insurrection); (4) contain assaults on a citizen exercising rights he has as a citizen (fraud and intimidation corrupting elections and legal proceedings); (5) contain criminal activity where cross-jurisdictional transactions and shipping are integral (not incidental) to the offense (ex fraud schemes, drug trafficking). Another aspect of the hypertrophy has been the failure to calibrate prescribed sentencing to the median value among the states for crimes of similar severity.
6. The acceptance by the courts and Congress of promiscuous use of agents provacateurs, of legal procedures which allow defendants to be absurdly overcharged, and the failure to insist as a matter of law that U.S. Attorney’s offices indemnify a defendant pro-rata for his legal expenses. Oliver North was convicted of three counts on a 23 count indictment; the special prosecutors’ office should have been on the hook for 87% of his legal fees.
7. The habit of Congress of gleefully funding anything to build patron-client relationships and manufacture PR. The shining example of this is the National Endowment for the Arts. There is no need for central co-ordination and control even if you fancy public funds should be doled out to individual artists as a matter of course. Twyla Tharp should have been told to try hitting up the New York City government. The one thing this sort of activity does is transfer allocations decisions to the most remote and distracted appropriating body (which was the whole point).
8. As an addendum to the foregoing, please note on federal welfare policy that Congress is, as a rule, properly limited to foreign aid, specialty clientele (veterans, reservation Indians, residents of the territories, Americans living abroad, military families, and migrant populations), programs which operate over a whole life cycle (wherein a subject may live in multiple jurisdictions – Social Security being a prime example), and programs for which the size of the actuarial pool is most salient (disaster relief, unemployment compensation). Subsidies for people’s rent, groceries, and utility bills do not cut it, financing the schooling of aught but specialty clientele does not cut it, and cash doles for random people do not cut it. These are state responsibilities.
9. Please note also that Congress and the executive branch are horribly organized.
10. The Democratic Party is a criminal organization. This is of a piece with the decline in character generally.
Bauxite: I agree, and add something about those good ol’ root causes. A major one is the increasing power and reach of the federal government. Matters that should be left to local discretion become, literally, federal cases. So, given the genuine cultural and other divisions (wrong kind of diversity), control of the federal government starts to seem like a matter of life and death.
This has been going on for so long now that there are a whole lot of people who have no other conception. So if a high school in Podunk, Oklahoma says a prayer over the PA before a football game, the matter will be seen as a choice between nationally mandated prayer and nationally forbidden prayer. To this is added the monarchical power attributed to the presidency. “A Republican president will force us all to pray!” on the one side. On the other side “A Democratic president will prohibit us from praying!”
Left-of-center politics has been the big driver of this, but by now it’s accepted unthinkingly as a norm by others. Among other things, the utopian secular-religious streak in even moderate leftism can’t help but assume that any good thing (from their point of view) should be mandated everywhere.
I agree with st dude. We should be promoting freedom and liberty. My wish is that every Republican leader would speak ceaselessly about the meaning of freedom and liberty, and why these concepts are so important to the life of the individual.
It’s very simple. I picked up on this pretty early on and and it’s made my understanding of the term’s use crystal clear.
It’s coded language, probably derived by one of their George Lakoffs (rhymes with. . . .”.
“Our Democracy” is THEIR term for the ongoing coup.
Every 50%+1 society has ended in blood and flame.
Do you have a list in mind? A specific definition of what you’re talking about?
Every 50%+1 society has ended in blood and flame.
Do you have a list in mind? A specific definition of what you’re talking about?
Ukraine between 1991 and Feb 2022 is a good example. That country never had a leader, either from favoring West camp or from favoring Russia camp, who united the both sides of the country. The politics in that country was always chaotic during that period.
What Mac meant on 50%+1, in my opinion, is a country of roughly equally divided and polarized in which both side don’t trust each other and view the other side as a threat to the country. But neither can marginalize the other side since they are roughly equal in size.
Not any more.
Ukraine between 1991 and Feb 2022 is a good example.
No it isn’t.
That country never had a leader, either from favoring West camp or from favoring Russia camp, who united the both sides of the country. The politics in that country was always chaotic during that period.
It’s a policy difference. Working political societies finesse that all the time. In any case, after 2014, the Russophile segment of the Ukrainian political spectrum fell to 16% of the total and competed well only in the Donbass. Intramural disputes are not the problem in the Ukraine. Russia is.
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This way to explain democracy is a losing discourse to the left. I wish we conservatives should never use the term democracy and certainly not promote democracy. Our constitution doesn’t have this term. Instead we should focus on promoting freedom/liberty. Promoting democracy is the left’s doctrine. I call them democracy fundamentalists. Promoting freedom/liberty is the right’s doctrine. Our constitution has this term, i.e. the constitution is on conservative side.
The difference between democracy and freedom is that democracy is affairs in public sector, i.e. eligible citizens vote about public officials/matters in the public domain. On the other hand, freedom is concerned with the matters and relationships among people in the private sector. In this country, 30% is public sector and 70% is private sector. 30% administrators are elected based on popularity (votes) in public domain and 70% administrators are selected based on merits.
What has made this country so great is not those 30% elected administrators, most time they suck, just take a look at their approval rating. It’s those 70% unelected administrators, such as CEOs, generals, school principals, church leaders, head coach’s….who made this country so great.
The left’s agenda is expending public domain by invading and reducing the private domain and using vote to attack and limit freedom.
There are 2 extreme examples in real world to show the difference between democracy and freedom. The first is this speaker’s home country India. India after independence chose both democracy and socialism as their system. That is 100% public domain and a democratic voting system in this domain. We all know this resulted India being the poorest country in the world between 1945 to 1980.
The second example is my favorite place, Hong Kong. HK has no democracy under UK. Their highest official was appointed, not elected, by UK government. For 100 years Britain was wise not to make HK democratic. But HK had freedom and perhaps was the most free place in the world (see freedom index by Heritage Foundation). The result is a prosperous jewel in the East.
I’d rather live in autocracy with no democracy, but a lot of private domain with freedom, than live in 100% public domain with democracy.
I take issue with Dinesh in his labeling America’s form of governance as a “Constitutional Democracy”. America is a Constitutional Republic whose representatives are elected through a democratic process.
Though originally the people did not vote for Senators. Rather State Legislatures chose the State’s Senators, the theory being that members of the State Legislatures would have the knowledge of who would best represent the States interests, which are by definition not limited to the particular individual’s point of view.
Many today argue that a return to that methodology is to be desired. My concern with that is that State Legislatures are as easily corrupted as are federal legislatures and a corrupt State legislature is less connected to the people’s feedback mechanisms. Every six years the voters can send a Senator packing but gaining the needed majority to do so when dealing with a corrupted legislature is much more difficult.
It’s obvious that the founders chose a representative republic for America’s governance realizing that most citizens have neither the inclination, the time or access to the information needed in making decisions on complex subjects. The House is meant to be more closely in touch with the people’s thoughts and desires, while the Senate is meant for careful, thoughtful and deliberative consideration of proposed legislation. It’s by far the best means of governance yet devised and the ignorant, apathetic, arrogant and self-absorbed are throwing it away.
Mankind’s feet of clay are the problem.
“Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.” “The quote, from a postapocalyptic novel by the author G. Michael Hopf, sums up a stunningly pervasive cyclical vision of history.”
Madison, Hamilton and Jay and now Dinesh spun a glib story about how we have a representative democracy which is not the same as a “pure” democracy. Elections in the USA are won either by a plurality or by 50%+1. SCOTUS has the 50%+1 rule. Congress wins on 50%+1. Governors are not chosen like the President but by 50%+1. Mayors are chosen by 50%+1. Every elected entity down to HOA’s wins by 50%+1. Everywhere we look we see that the “republic” is honored more by mention than by fact. Seems like a pretty pure democracy to me. And the penultimate proof is in our history. Every 50%+1 society has ended in blood and flame. We are headed down the same path. Instead of a politically moderating winning vote like 55-45, we are edging closer to a destabilizing 50%-1 versus a 50%+1 split in our society. It can only end in conflict.
“…destabilizing…”
Nonetheless, that WOULD NOT be a problem if people were not being encouraged 24/7 to demonize and hate (their neighbors and THEMSELVES), if TRIBALISM (or if you prefer, FACTIONALISM) was NOT being promoted—by our betters—as the greatest thing since sliced bread (or napkins, if you prefer…whatever), or if ALL SENSE OF TRUST in ANYTHING and EVERYTHING was being intentionally eroded: a matter of government policy purposely designed to elevate levels of hatred, uncertainty, fear, distress, anxiety and panic.
Explaining our Democracy?
Um, no.
Rather, Explaining our Democrats…
Here’s the “missing link”—Listen up, y’all…(and try not to be too dismayed if you find the author a bit harsh and/or not entirely fair…)
“Election-Fraud Corruption Is Deeper than Anyone Can Imagine”—
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/12/electionfraud_corruption_is_deeper_than_anyone_can_imagine.html
H/T Instapundit.
State legislatures might be corrupted, regarding election of senators, but at least they wouldn’t be as dominated by single big cities in states,
I think the problem with our republic is that we’ve abandoned our moderating norms. We used to have strong norms that the executive enforced the law, even when he or she didn’t personally agree with it. We used to have strong norms that major legislation had to be bipartisan. We used to have strong norms that the executive and the congress were to stay within the bounds of the law, even if it meant that they could not achieve all of their policy goals.
We’ve abandoned those norms over the past twenty years or so. We used to say that American politics was always contested “between the 40 yard lines.” That’s not the case anymore. The result has been a drastic increase to the stakes of every election. Previously, you had to win on a 1964 or 1932 scale in order to pass major legislation that the other party didn’t want. Democrats just tried to pass multiple bills with New Deal-level impact and no Republican votes with a five vote majority in the House and a 50-50 Senate.
Why are we fighting so hard over election issues? Why are Democrats rigging our election systems? Because the cost of losing (and the potential reward for winning) is so much higher now. Democrats really believe that they are one good election away from permanently defeating the right and irreversably changing our country. And, truth be told, they are. (FWIW – I think they’ll get a good deal more than they bargained for if they go through with it, but to all of our detriment.)
Depends on the soil take the illinois and california legs please nothing wholesome comes from that ohio and indiana are more sanitary but for how long
Insert joke here
https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2022/12/14/exclusive-analysis-of-rnc-spending-since-2017-shows-millions-were-spent-on-private-jets-limousines-luxury-retreats-broadway-shows-and-more-n673852
There are 2 extreme examples in real world to show the difference between democracy and freedom. The first is this speaker’s home country India. India after independence chose both democracy and socialism as their system. That is 100% public domain and a democratic voting system in this domain. We all know this resulted India being the poorest country in the world between 1945 to 1980.
1. It wasn’t the poorest country in the world.
2. India’s political economy was associated with slow growth over that period. It was not the source of India’s poverty; it just retarded efforts to improve output in India.
I think the problem with our republic is that we’ve abandoned our moderating norms.
1. A foundational phenomenon was the replacement of circumspect judicial review which had an eye on constitutional text and history and an eye on common law with judicial review which acted as a handmaiden of the Democratic Party in Congress; you can date that to 1937. Step 2 was the appellate courts assisted by the law professoriate going into business for themselves, making use of the judicial ukase to impose policy goals which often had scant popular constituency; this began in 1953. Some of these exercises were more justifiable than others.
2. Another phenomenon has been the secular decline in the ability of Congress to compose and enact sensible statutory legislation of any kind. Some part of this is structural (which structures are never repaired) and some part cultural. Legislation today when it gets through is a rococo compendium of carve-outs. The original Social Security Act (1935) was 35 pages long. Obama’s “Affordable Care Act” and the “Dodd-Frank” financial sector legislation had four-digit page counts. Dodd-Frank was composed though bull sessions among lobbyists held in Barney Frank’s office.
3. The mental breakdown of Congress means that standards binding on the public are not incorporated into statutory law, but are left for administrative agencies to compose and promulgate.
4. The courts do not insist Congress and the administrative agencies it empowers stay in their lane, and neither set of actors wishes to do so. Congress spends oodles of time (and globs of money) on issues that are not its proper province. In the regulatory arena, the proper power of Congress concerns (1) the use of natural resources to which the federal government holds what amounts to an allodial title; (2) transactions between parties domiciled in different jurisdictions (the jurisdictions delineated by state lines, the international frontier, and the social boundary between the Indian tribes and the rest); (3) transactions between vendors and travelers; (4) recruitment of labor outside of one’s jurisdiction; (5) labor relations at an enterprise with employees in multiple jurisdictions; (6) considerations of health and safety in re merchandise shipped across jurisdictional lines; (7) considerations of health and safety in re services provided to travelers and shippers; (8) considerations of health and safety for employees of concerns operating in multiple jurisdictions or employed in cross-jurisdictional shipping and transportation; (9) the migration of effluvia across jurisdictional lines; (10) the definition and enforcement of virtual property rights (patents, trademarks, copyright, broadcasting, domain names); (11) the administration of bankruptcies; and (12) the architecture of financial institutions whose facilities and customers are located in multiple jurisdictions. The courts have, since 1942, pretended the distinction between inter-state and intra-state commerce was factitious.
5. Conjoined to that has been the hypertrophy of the federal penal code. The proper province of the federal penal code is the definition and prescription of punishment to (1) contain assaults on the integrity of legal procedure (ex: laws on jury tampering and perjury); (2) contain assaults on the state that act to frustrate its execution of its duties (ex: prohibitions on trespass and burglary on federal property, on assaults on working government employees, on stealing government property, on forging government documents and attestations, on evading taxes, on bribing public officials; (3) contain offenses against national security (treason, espionage, insurrection); (4) contain assaults on a citizen exercising rights he has as a citizen (fraud and intimidation corrupting elections and legal proceedings); (5) contain criminal activity where cross-jurisdictional transactions and shipping are integral (not incidental) to the offense (ex fraud schemes, drug trafficking). Another aspect of the hypertrophy has been the failure to calibrate prescribed sentencing to the median value among the states for crimes of similar severity.
6. The acceptance by the courts and Congress of promiscuous use of agents provacateurs, of legal procedures which allow defendants to be absurdly overcharged, and the failure to insist as a matter of law that U.S. Attorney’s offices indemnify a defendant pro-rata for his legal expenses. Oliver North was convicted of three counts on a 23 count indictment; the special prosecutors’ office should have been on the hook for 87% of his legal fees.
7. The habit of Congress of gleefully funding anything to build patron-client relationships and manufacture PR. The shining example of this is the National Endowment for the Arts. There is no need for central co-ordination and control even if you fancy public funds should be doled out to individual artists as a matter of course. Twyla Tharp should have been told to try hitting up the New York City government. The one thing this sort of activity does is transfer allocations decisions to the most remote and distracted appropriating body (which was the whole point).
8. As an addendum to the foregoing, please note on federal welfare policy that Congress is, as a rule, properly limited to foreign aid, specialty clientele (veterans, reservation Indians, residents of the territories, Americans living abroad, military families, and migrant populations), programs which operate over a whole life cycle (wherein a subject may live in multiple jurisdictions – Social Security being a prime example), and programs for which the size of the actuarial pool is most salient (disaster relief, unemployment compensation). Subsidies for people’s rent, groceries, and utility bills do not cut it, financing the schooling of aught but specialty clientele does not cut it, and cash doles for random people do not cut it. These are state responsibilities.
9. Please note also that Congress and the executive branch are horribly organized.
10. The Democratic Party is a criminal organization. This is of a piece with the decline in character generally.
Bauxite: I agree, and add something about those good ol’ root causes. A major one is the increasing power and reach of the federal government. Matters that should be left to local discretion become, literally, federal cases. So, given the genuine cultural and other divisions (wrong kind of diversity), control of the federal government starts to seem like a matter of life and death.
This has been going on for so long now that there are a whole lot of people who have no other conception. So if a high school in Podunk, Oklahoma says a prayer over the PA before a football game, the matter will be seen as a choice between nationally mandated prayer and nationally forbidden prayer. To this is added the monarchical power attributed to the presidency. “A Republican president will force us all to pray!” on the one side. On the other side “A Democratic president will prohibit us from praying!”
Left-of-center politics has been the big driver of this, but by now it’s accepted unthinkingly as a norm by others. Among other things, the utopian secular-religious streak in even moderate leftism can’t help but assume that any good thing (from their point of view) should be mandated everywhere.
I agree with st dude. We should be promoting freedom and liberty. My wish is that every Republican leader would speak ceaselessly about the meaning of freedom and liberty, and why these concepts are so important to the life of the individual.
It’s very simple. I picked up on this pretty early on and and it’s made my understanding of the term’s use crystal clear.
It’s coded language, probably derived by one of their George Lakoffs (rhymes with. . . .”.
“Our Democracy” is THEIR term for the ongoing coup.
Every 50%+1 society has ended in blood and flame.
Do you have a list in mind? A specific definition of what you’re talking about?
Every 50%+1 society has ended in blood and flame.
Do you have a list in mind? A specific definition of what you’re talking about?
Ukraine between 1991 and Feb 2022 is a good example. That country never had a leader, either from favoring West camp or from favoring Russia camp, who united the both sides of the country. The politics in that country was always chaotic during that period.
What Mac meant on 50%+1, in my opinion, is a country of roughly equally divided and polarized in which both side don’t trust each other and view the other side as a threat to the country. But neither can marginalize the other side since they are roughly equal in size.
Not any more.
Ukraine between 1991 and Feb 2022 is a good example.
No it isn’t.
That country never had a leader, either from favoring West camp or from favoring Russia camp, who united the both sides of the country. The politics in that country was always chaotic during that period.
It’s a policy difference. Working political societies finesse that all the time. In any case, after 2014, the Russophile segment of the Ukrainian political spectrum fell to 16% of the total and competed well only in the Donbass. Intramural disputes are not the problem in the Ukraine. Russia is.