Civics Education in the US

How is fairness a stereotype?

 

That isn't the purpose of the electoral college. But you knew that.

 

Well, ours has lasted two centuries, and it was the first on earth. But, still, it needs reworking. (Even DaVinci had to rework some of his inventions ;^)

And turbulence is not destruction or disruption. It's just rough-going between two parties one of which wants determinedly to dominate. (Guess of which one I am thinking! ;^) And it needn't be as such were more women elected to legislatures of both parties (Men had fought over the carcass of a hunted animal for thousands of years before any semblance of communal sharing became the norm as the human race arranged itself into communities. And they still have that bad-habit.)

Our democracy was, and still is, the original invention of democratic governance. It was so good it ultimately brought about the demise of Monarchic Rule throughout Europe.

Inventions have a way of becoming improvements on whatever came before. The only "positive element" that Europe got out of WW2 was the ability to, finally, adopt multi-partisan democracies throughout. And, over time, they even developed a united-states of Europe. (Though they preferred to call it differently - that is, the "European Union".)

And the EU has neither an Electoral College nor Gerrymandering of voting-districts - though after WW2 many visited the US with just that question in mind. I have met one such a person here in France. Anecdote: Despite Eisenhower's visceral dislike of DeGaulle, the latter created in France the Senate. Which damn few European countries adopted.

And here is a zinger-for-you - the types of European government, from here:

The Constitutional Monarchies have highly limited powers of governance and no singular party in any national parliament. Royalty is a kind of "namesake" from a long-distance period of time where one family pulled-all-the-strings. That is long since gone ...

 

EUROPEAN SENATES

NB: But your question did provoke another.

That of a European Senate, which does not exist, though some countries do indeed have one. In France, it became on official voting body. In the rest of Europe it is still at the point of being a "good idea".

Many state-senates do exist, but have no legislative voting-power. And of note - the Italian Senate in September managed to vote the election of a Head of government but Italy's parliament was unable to do so. (Politics in Italy is a joke at which nobody laughs.)

If interested, see further here: EUROPEAN SENATES - Association of European Senates
- extract:

 

It is as important to our system of government t today as it was then. In our system of government the STATES elect the President. That many especially our younger generations do not know this our understand this shows how lacking civics education has become in our school systems.

 

And?

 

You ever hear the phrase, "Walk it like you talk it?"

 

80% of today’s high school grads think we fought against France in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War was fought in the 1960’s.

So pathetic.

 

Fallacious. If you want to discuss relatively ancient American political history, please make a thread. My claim about what prevents third parties in the U.S. applies to the present.

 

Utter bullshit.

1. Dictionaries are not authoritative sources of anything other than a very general nature of definition and usage; many find this plain, irrefutable fact surprising, but that does not make it any less a fact. They are very useful and convenient shorthand tools for getting a rough estimate, nothing more, and are subject to the same exact biases as all media. This is why in legal documents and statecraft, definitions are -negotiated terms-, and though a dictionary definition -can- be included in those negotiations, mostly they are not. Interestingly, it's almost always LW posters here who make the mistake of appealing to dictionary definitions IME. That explains so much about their level of political and general awareness of the world around them.

2. The VAST functional differences between a Democracy and a Republic are neither esoteric nor vague, but striking. In a Democracy, public referenda are near omnipresent in the creation of laws. In a Republic there may be some few referenda, usually highly limited though. In a Democracy, intricate levels of baffles between the "will of the majority" and the making of laws and policy are weak or nonexistent. In a Republic they are numerous and strong. A Constitutional form of government, i.e. the rule of law instead of men, is inescapably inconsistent with a Democracy, the rule of men. There is much more, read the Federalist Papers and the numerous various records of the various colonial and early confederate conventions, something almost no Leftists I've ever met have done. Not going to bother with more, it's futile to try to explain the reality of American Civics to the average Leftist, ironic given the topic.

3. I have never seen a favorable reference to Democracy as a governing form, and especially not a goal of governance, in ANY of the formative writings of the United States. Democracy was rightfully and universally scorned by learned men, considered as something to avoid in reference after reference. This was not a capricious belief on their part but the product of an infinitely more broad and meaningful education process than most people undergo today. Madison, et. al. spent THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of hours studying the advantages and disadvantages of governing forms in practice throughout history. The form of government in the United States is and has always been a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC, never a Democracy, never some hybrid weasel term, never any NOTION of a Democracy as a matter of legal fact and not opinion.

4. The practice of calling the U.S. government a "Democracy" has a long history by statists seeking to confuse the voting public, muddy the waters, so that the carefully crafted mechanics of the Constitutional Republic preventing whimsical, expedient, popular change can be SUBVERTED towards government growth and power at the expense of individual freedom and the rule of law.

Don't be fooled folks. A Republic and a Democracy ARE vastly different, and the United States wasn't, has never been and isn't a form of Democracy in any way, shape or weasel word form.

 

Wow... who taught you civics and governance??

We are not, and never have been, a democracy. We are, and always have been, a republic.

"I pledge allegiance to the flag... and to the republic for which it stands... "

Sound familiar??

And it's obvious you don't understand the basis and nature of either.

Wouldn't it make sense for you to understand how something functions b/4 you run around with your hair on fire suggesting changes to that which you don't understand??

Democracy comes from Greece however many thousands of years ago. And it failed miserably there, just as it's failed miserably everywhere it's been implemented.

Read some history would ya. The Federalist Papers would be a good start.

The Founding Fathers rejected democracy.

 

You're ignorance of Civic History is showing. The definition "democracy" pertains, regardless of what you may think of it.

Besides, you must be blind because the words democracy and republic are synonymous.

The FF did NOT reject democracy, they innovated it!

Moving right along ...

 

What a joke. Keep doubling down on the "dictionary" version of American history and political terminology without realizing how that brands you, it's hilarious but so typical. No wonder you and yours hold the befuddled, muddled, inconsistent beliefs you do.

 

The future of any country is intimately attached to an historical understanding of the past. That's how we, as a nation, avoid mistakes already committed.

As I said previously in a response, any American who comes to Paris should go have lunch at Le Procope - and then on to Lafayette's grave in Picpus Cemetery, the only other place in France where the American flag is allowed to hang day-and-night.

From here: Procope, Birthplace of the USA - excerpt:

And, more detailed, here: How Did the American Revolution Influence the French Revolution? - excerpt:

The shame of it all, as I see it, is this: The French Revolution was against the hegemony of a monarchic elite who had possession of most of France's ability to generate fortunes. And the America Revolution was about the same, only different. The British King was taxing greatly the colonies in America, and the "Yankees" as they became known, simply wanted their fair share. So, they revolted.

MY POINT:

And yet, today, we are still fascinated by riches, and our Income Disparity - that is, the difference in revenues between lower and upper-income classes - is greater now than it was then ... !

 

...is one of the more striking historical elucidations and cautionary illustrations of the differences between an actual Constitutional Republic and one that is a weak sinecure, coopted and corrupted into a Democracy, and the ghastly, chilling, not to mention thoroughly unjust results of a Democratic MOB RULE where they are allowed to arise. In studying the difference and obvious dangers of Democracy, one could do no better than studying the near IMMEDIATE and subsequent aftermath of the French Revolution.

Will just post one of myriad examples of how the world loses and has lost when Democracy prevails, the murder of Lavoisier, perhaps the greatest chemist in history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Lavoisier

"Il ne leur a fallu qu'un moment pour faire tomber cette tête, et cent années peut-être ne suffiront pas pour en reproduire une semblable." ("It took them only an instant to cut off this head, and one hundred years might not suffice to reproduce its like.")

He was murdered at the age of FIFTY by the MOB in a MOB RULE DEMOCRACY for doing something in the monarchy no different than tens of thousands of governmental revenue agents the world over do every day today and MORE EXTENSIVELY, e.g. the U.S. IRS.

Won't even bother with the "blessings" Napoleon bestowed on Europe that could have easily arisen in the U.S. without a stronger, more well-designed Constitutional Republic and NOT a Democracy in place. Please do appeal to the French Revolution some more. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

 

Republic comes from the Latin res publica, the public thing, the law.

It has come down to us meaning the rule of law.

Democracy comes from the Greek demoskratia - people power. The people to rule.

America's FF only gave the FedGov specific, limited, enumerated powers - and beyond those limited powers, the government has no authority to act regardless of the wishes of the people.

If "the people" want something done that is not in the Constitution, they have the power to amend the Constitution; but that process is decidedly UNDEMOCRATIC as well...

It requires 2/3 of the Senate and 3/4 of the state legislatures.

Seriously, do some research before you go off half cocked.

 

And let's continue with a little contrast of what happens under Democracies, which inevitably lead to chaos most likely to result in reversion to monarchy v Strong Constitutional Republics by examining one of the darker aspects of U.S. history, slavery, versus one of the darkest aspects of post Revolution Democratic>Monarchial history, slavery in what were French colonies that STILL EXISTS TODAY, namely the troubled prior imperial French colony of Mauritania.

Many adults don't realize (and practically -0- leftists) that slave trafficking in the United States only existed for ~18 years. That's right, it was abolished by Congress in 1808, less than 20 years after the formation of the United States. Whether this eradication of slavery in the U.S. could have happened under a Democracy is debatable but unlikely, the fact that it DID happen under a Constitutional Republic is noncontroversial fact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_Prohibiting_Importation_of_Slaves

Preexisting slaves were emancipated 55 years later as part and parcel of the most bloody, costly war in U.S. history, a MIRACLE in light of how dependent certain aspects of the nascent U.S. economy were on slave labor. Today in the U.S., progress has been rapid in terms of world historical time, such that we have universal voting, and end to racial segregation, things we already know.

CONTRAST

The beleaguered Imperial French colony of Mauritania, a past Napoleonic Colony that has been the subject of immense governmental shakeups and turmoil since its escape from French Colonialism in the mid-late 1800s practices slavery to this day, real slavery, not fake "voter suppression," not race-baiting appeals to long dead Jim Crow and the like, REAL, AGONIZING, EVIL, chattel slavery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauritania

"Modern-day slavery still exists in different forms in Mauritania.[21] According to some estimates, thousands of Mauritanians are still enslaved.[22][23][24] A 2012 CNN report, "Slavery's Last Stronghold," by John D. Sutter, describes and documents the ongoing slave-owning cultures.[25] This social discrimination is applied chiefly against the "black Moors" (Haratin) in the northern part of the country, where tribal elites among "white Moors" (Bidh'an, Hassaniya-speaking Arabs and Arabized Berbers) hold sway.[26] Slavery practices exist also within the sub-Saharan African ethnic groups of the south."

The vacuum left by French Colonial Monarchy, a DIRECT consequence of a weak Republic that led to Democracy and a near instantaneous reversion to the Napoleonic Monarchy is the debatable cause of slavery today in that country. I say it is the direct cause as we have seen the exact same thing in numerous post Colonial regimes. Feel free to make a case against that clear causal chain, I can't wait. As far as I'm concerned, this and many other examples lead to the valid conclusion that DEMOCRACY, by way of MOB RULE and eventual reversion to Monarchy or Dictatorship, LEADS TO SLAVERY.

And to cap it off, lefties, for S&G, please do name some actual "Colonies" of the United States... ever. Colonialism and slavery are ANATHEMA to our form of government, the Constitutional Republic, and that is why one never arose and the other, despite becoming entrenched in the prior Monarchial COLONIAL government, was swiftly eradicated under the Constitutional Republic, EC and ALL. OTOH, Democracies time and time again lead to monarchy/dictatorship and right back to slavery and other unfortunate realities of FAILED, unjust human governance. The fact is that Colonialism and Slavery can be and often are directly correlated with the quasi form of government known as DEMOCRACY, a transient, unsustainable governing form most often replaced by monarchy if not outright dictatorship, and then resulting in innumerable forms of malicious governance that lead to immense human suffering.

 

There is another governing form that has an inevitable, well-documented, inescapable, irrefutable history, just like the "Democracy" that idiot leftists love to idolize, of leading directly to enslavement, murder, human misery, turmoil, pollution, genocide, famine, war, etc., every single evil that man has perpetuated against man writ large.

What is that form of government? What could it possibly be? It's no accident that morons who espouse one also tend to espouse the other.

But surely, this time it will be different.

 

Our system has not proven to be resilient against returning to a strong man type system.

Our system depends on the public and those in office choosing to follow various principles that aren't fully codified in law.

The result is that in OUR system we CAN have a president who is fully above the law.

Plus, our representative democracy does not offer reasonable equality in representation due to a number of serious faults - making elections inconsistent with our claims of offering equal representation.

I would point out that when the USA helps to set up new governmets we do NOT propose our own system, because of those serious problems.

That is, not even our own government thinks our government is the best solution!!

We need to recognize that and think about what those faults are, because THOSE are faults that we have to find ways of defending ourselves against. Those are the faults that could end the USA as we know it - or think we know it.

 

Yet it has not and will not... unless it degrades into a Democracy via removal of necessary baffles like the EC. Anyone who claims that any of the numerous peaceful transitions of power accomplished by our Constitutional Republic over the CENTURIES now remotely resembles some kind of strong man system is a fool or a liar. And that holds the same for those who said Obama was threatening to become a dictator as for Trump and really believed that. Didn't happen, never has happened, never will happen... so long as the Constitutional Republic is not weakened any more than it was in the 20th century. It's one thing to hyperbolize the instant struggles of party politics towards political gain and soundbites, "dictator this, banana republic that," quite another to really believe that hyperbole is factual. Fun and games to call Trump or Obama "dictators," moronic to truly believe that is the factual state of affairs. It is not, and nowhere REMOTELY close.

Vague.

If you truly believe that, you will advocate with me to dismantle a large portion of the Federal Government and turn it back to the states, especially the Executive Branch that grew exponentially and unconstitutionally with the blessings of a LW activist judicial branch in the 20th century. Sure let's undo most of that so NO ONE is above the law, right there with you.

Again, vague to the point of nebulous. Did you have anything to say -specifically- about my -specific- claims regarding the existing and legislative historical nature of U.S. government and contrasts of that with Democracy? Anything specific to say about my Mauritania example, or the French Revolution example?

We do not mandate or even propose our form of government because we are not Monarchial Colonialists, Mercantilists, an Empire, a Conqueror or a Democracy rapidly devolving into those, but rather a Constitutional Republic that abhors that kind of force.

Why would we colonize others instead of freeing them towards their own sovereign designs to conduct their affairs as they choose? and how on earth does that suggest we don't believe in our own form of government? You lefties are the biggest "strong man" advocates going and ironically don't even realize it.

Whatever that means. The strong private sector that flourished under our Constitutional Republic produced the following, summarized on pg 6 IIRC, which dwarfs anything else anyone else has ever done for the world in so short a time by an immense magnitude:

https://www.cato.org/publications/p...-ever-was-25-miraculous-trends-past-100-years

That is why the Constitutional Republic, not "our Democracy," not "a government of the people," not "a Democratic Republic," and the personal freedom it engenders to conduct one's life as one sees fit, but MOSTLY -stability- illustrated by its time tested ability to survive the inevitable cries of those who would blithely practice majority tyranny in the name of expediency, is the most crucial, benevolent, important development in human history and must be preserved at all costs.

 

You need to be a little more focused. Surely you don't see all that you wrote as being central.

My point with what our government does in helping others set up new governments is that WE do not believe that OUR form of government is optimal. So, WE suggest a different form of government than our own.

As for Trump, he demonstrates that the checks and balances we're so gosh darn proud of are total CRAP.

And, that is one of the weaknesses that causes US to believe that OUR system should not be propagated.

 

O the irony. Thanks for the block quote though!

 

I made ONE point, backed by evidence from today.

If you have a comment, go for it.

 

You haven't made any point backed by anything, but the point you attempted was refuted by me and ignored. You have done what you (and most of you) always do, post vague and nebulous nonspecific, nonresponsive things, and utterly ignored all the direct, on point, crystal clear responses to the few coherent things you did manage to post. Sorry bout that, written record and all, just two posts up.

It's why folks, you should never, ever engage in ANY political discussion with a Leftist without a written record of what was said. Complete waste of time otherwise.

 

Since leftists took over in California, the middle class has dwindled and the wealth disparity has increased tremendously. That's what happens when the left takes power ... you get the top 10%-20% clumped in the upper class, and the bottom 80%-90% groveling for crumbs. The middle class withers away.

There are many similarities between the American and French revolutions. One difference is the meaning of "equality" in both places. In America, equality has traditionally meant equality of opportunity. Everyone should be given an equal opportunity. Then, what a person does with that opportunity is up to them and their hard work, talent, and plain luck (being in the right place at the right time).

French/European equality is far more concerned with the equality of results and narrowing the gap between rich and poor.