Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[Tamas]

My bad, I didn't realise that "voting" on the "candidate" the Party pre-approved counts as exercising your sovereignty through elected representatives. 15 social points for each of you, comrades.

[Josquius]

My bad, I didn't realise that "voting" on the "candidate" the Party pre-approved counts as exercising your sovereignty through elected representatives. 15 social points for each of you, comrades.

Voting has nothing to do with being a republic.
Its a simple flow chart of "Is the country a monarchy?" and "No" leads you to there.

As mentioned North Korea is the weird middle factor where it isn't....but it obviously is.

[Tamas]

My bad, I didn't realise that "voting" on the "candidate" the Party pre-approved counts as exercising your sovereignty through elected representatives. 15 social points for each of you, comrades.

Voting has nothing to do with being a republic.
Its a simple flow chart of "Is the country a monarchy?" and "No" leads you to there.

[Sheilbh]

Voting has nothing to do with being a republic.
Its a simple flow chart of "Is the country a monarchy?" and "No" leads you to there.

Yeah - although I'm wondering if that's just a quirk of English. Think of the way "republican" is used in France, for example.

I think political theory circles republic might have some connotations particularly on requiring active participation of the citizen or it will fall to corruption and oligarchy or mob rule and dicatatorship ("a republic, if you can keep it") or around republican virtue. But I don't think that's widespread and it basically just means "not a monarchy".

It definitely has nothing to do with democracy. Rome, Venice, the Netherlands, Latin America of the caudillos, apartheid South Africa etc - all republics.

[Tamas]

The Webster dictionary agrees with Josq, basically, so it must be a "Romans called what they had without a king a republic so if you don't have a king it must be a republic" weird thing.

Wikipedia isn't too far away from that either to be fair but then again it's not like Chinese etc. can't contribute to that:

A republic, based on the Latin phrase res publica ("public affair"), is a state in which political power rests with the public through their representatives—in contrast to a monarchy.[1][2]

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 the word "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.

I just find it supremely dishonest to say that political power rests with the public if said public has no political power. It does equal to the nazis calling themselves socialist. It dilutes the term on purpose to the point of irrelevance.

[Syt]

I also recall to have learned in school that republic = not a monarchy (i.e. a dictatorship can still be a republic if it has no monarch). But I see that German dictionary authority Duden also defines it as: "Form of government in which the rulers are elected for a certain period of time by the people or by representatives of the people."

[Sheilbh]

Interesting from Wiki - I'd always thought the English translation of res publica was basically commonwealth. That it was (in theory) about the public or common good, not necessarily public participation which is not present in, say, Venice or Rome).

I could be wrong but my assumption is that it comes into English as much from the Italian republics England was interacting with as Republican Rome, but they probably took their own descent as being from Roman traditions in some way. They've got a Doge not a family ruling them.

Which is why that was the name of the country during Britain's republican period. Also the name of Poland-Lithuania, though I'm less sure why.

[Syt]

https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/democracy-and-republic

Democracy or Republic: What's the difference?
A case can be made for either

Is the United States a democracy or a republic? This is one of those "either/or" questions that seems like it should have a straightforward answer; after all, two such different words must have two different definitions, right?

The short answer is that democracy and republic are frequently used to mean the same thing: a government in which the people vote for their leaders. This was the important distinction at the time of the founding of the United States, in direct contrast with the rule of a king, or monarchy, in Great Britain. In part because that context was clear to everyone involved in the American Revolution, these terms were used interchangeably in the late 1700s. Both democracy and republic meant that the power to govern was held by the people rather than a monarch.

At the same time, it's true that there is nuance and difference between these words, according to their historical use and etymology: democracy comes from the Greek roots meaning "rule by the people," and the most basic understanding of the word's original meaning refers to the direct democracy of ancient Greece.

Republic comes from the Latin roots meaning "public good" or "public affair," used in ancient Rome to mean simply "state" or "country" with reference to the representative democracy of the Roman Republic. The elected representatives in Congress are a contemporary example of this kind of government.

Because democracy is an abstract name for a system and republic is the more concrete result of that system, democracy is frequently used when the emphasis is on the system itself. We could say that democracy is to republic as monarchy is to kingdom.

These terms are not mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, a document that nevertheless expresses clearly that governments should be established "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." This reads like a definition of both democracy and republic. In Article IV Section V of the Constitution, the term republican is used as an adjective: "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government."

In the final analysis, what these words share in meaning is much more important than how they differ.

[Josquius]

Voting has nothing to do with being a republic.
Its a simple flow chart of "Is the country a monarchy?" and "No" leads you to there.

Yeah - although I'm wondering if that's just a quirk of English. Think of the way "republican" is used in France, for example.

I think political theory circles republic might have some connotations particularly on requiring active participation of the citizen or it will fall to corruption and oligarchy or mob rule and dicatatorship ("a republic, if you can keep it") or around republican virtue. But I don't think that's widespread and it basically just means "not a monarchy".

It definitely has nothing to do with democracy. Rome, Venice, the Netherlands, Latin America of the caudillos, apartheid South Africa etc - all republics.

Something I often do when I'm feeling snarky with die-hard (UK) republicans is point out that in the world today countries that are monarchies are far more likely to be functional democracies.

Huge correlation != causation issues of course. And the monarchy hanging on is far more a product of the democracy than vice-versa. But still. A factoid that many just don't compute.

[Sheilbh]

I'd be inclined to say the opposite of this:

Because democracy is an abstract name for a system and republic is the more concrete result of that system, democracy is frequently used when the emphasis is on the system itself. We could say that democracy is to republic as monarchy is to kingdom.

You can have democratic republics and monarchies and non-democratic ones. It seems very of the moment to propose a definition of republic that excludes its source (Rome) and large numbers of historic republics (Venice, Genoa, the Netherlands) - and indeed many current republics (I'd guess the majority are non-democratic). What are those states? I think non-democratic republic works, I'm not sure non-republican republic does

I also think historically - certainly in the 18th century - republic and democracy are not interchangeable. I mentioned the political theory things I'd associate with republicanism, I think those are key in the 18th century. It's about citizenship and what it means to be a citizen, which is active, participative, virtuous. It's David's Oath of the Horatii.

There is always a fear of democracy and that it will, inevitably, slide to mob rule, demagoguery or three wolves and two sheep. I think that the virtuous, active citizenship of republicanism was seen as a way of countering that threat.

[garbon]

Something I often do when I'm feeling snarky with die-hard (UK) republicans is point out that in the world today countries that are monarchies are far more likely to be functional democracies.

Huge correlation != causation issues of course. And the monarchy hanging on is far more a product of the democracy than vice-versa. But still. A factoid that many just don't compute.

It also feels a bit hard when right now you have the UK government pushing a bill to change Rwanda a not safe country, into a safe country just by passing a law to say that it is safe.

Is that functional?

[Josquius]

Something I often do when I'm feeling snarky with die-hard (UK) republicans is point out that in the world today countries that are monarchies are far more likely to be functional democracies.

Huge correlation != causation issues of course. And the monarchy hanging on is far more a product of the democracy than vice-versa. But still. A factoid that many just don't compute.

It also feels a bit hard when right now you have the UK government pushing a bill to change Rwanda a not safe country, into a safe country just by passing a law to say that it is safe.

Is that functional?

I said more likely, there's enough that losing the UK doesn't change the picture completely :p
The UK absolutely is dipping below acceptability this past decade or two.

[Sheilbh]

It also feels a bit hard when right now you have the UK government pushing a bill to change Rwanda a not safe country, into a safe country just by passing a law to say that it is safe.

Is that functional?

Legally that's not that unusual and has been done before - there's tens of thousands of similar provisions that by legislation for the purpose of the courts "x is deemed to be y".

It's been used in asylum legislation in the past, which is arguably even worse. In 2004, the EU developed the concept of a common list of "safe third countries of origin" which was based on certain criteria assessed by member states not their courts. Wildly but before the invasion Denmark considered Russia a safe third country, I assume that's changed but I don't know. That was implemented in the UK (I think it was through  directive) in the exact same way as the government are proposing with Rwanda.

I think it is wrong in this case because it's unjust, it won't work and it's very expensive. But formally there's nothing particularly special about it.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I don't think Republic has intrinsically modern democratic meanings, either. In the English language there is a reason we have always used that term for entities like all the Italian republics, which were not meaningfully democratic in a modern sense. Most republics in pre-modern times, when the word was firmed up in its usage, were really cabal states ran by some form of oligarchy.

[Jacob]

I also recall to have learned in school that republic = not a monarchy (i.e. a dictatorship can still be a republic if it has no monarch). But I see that German dictionary authority Duden also defines it as: "Form of government in which the rulers are elected for a certain period of time by the people or by representatives of the people."

Yeah - I have no issue with Tamas' critiques of China, Russia, Iran etc. But basically everything I've been taught or read on the subject is a Republic is a state in which the head of state is not hereditary, basically.