Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[Jacob]

@sheilbh and @garbon - isn't "safe third country" just a political designation that means "if you're escaping your own country in search of asylum, this country is decent enough that you don't need to continue to ours"?

[grumbler]

The concept of "Res Publica" as the Romans saw it was just the issue of "who owns everything." In a monarchy, the kingdom was the demesne of the monarch, who could grant portions of demesne to others but could revoke those grants.  The Romans rejected that concept in favor of the idea that the lands of the state were owned by the public.  The Roman Republic was a direct democracy (all laws had to be enacted by one or the other of the popular assemblies) until the reign of Tiberius, but the Emperors continued the fiction that the people were sovereign and that the state was still a "thing of the people."

Most modern monarchies are republics in all but name.   

[grumbler]

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.

Tamas is confusing democracy and republic.  If they were synonymous, all those "People's Democratic Republics" would have shortened their names.

[Tamas]

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.

Tamas is confusing democracy and republic.  If they were synonymous, all those "People's Democratic Republics" would have shortened their names.

Am not. I was not aware of the English definition being "well there's no monarch so what else to call it". Any definition going past that (e.g. Wikipedia's sovereignty of the public) breaks down completely for most non-democratic countries (although it would still apply to places like Russia or Hungary).

So it's mostly a language thing. In Hungary the dropping of communism was officially marked by renaming from People's Republic of Hungary to Republic of Hungary so was made a big deal. And then Orban years ago dropped the "Republic of" bit from the official designation which was made into a big deal by his opponents (made out to be an admission that it is him and not the people who are in power).

[Sheilbh]

@sheilbh and @garbon - isn't "safe third country" just a political designation that means "if you're escaping your own country in search of asylum, this country is decent enough that you don't need to continue to ours"?

Basically yes. But the other side of that is that the courts don't need to investigate. You don't need to prove that that person would be safe if you deport them to that country, because that country has been declared safe. Its main effect is to narrow the ability of an individual to challenge their deportation.

It came up recently because of the government's Rwanda scheme - which won't happen anyway. One of the reasons the Supreme Court ruled against it was that Rwanda was not a safe country.

So the government is legislating not to make Rwanda a "safe third country" in general (so we could still have asylum claims from Rwanda) but to basically say that, for the purpose of the Rwanda scheme, the courts should treat Rwanda as a safe country.

A criticism of this has been that it is contrary to the rule of law etc etc. I think that's wrong factually. The legal mechanism that's being used for this is one that's in tens of thousands of statutory provisions - including asylum law such as the process for designating a country a "safe third country". I think it's wrong on its merits, and even on its own terms I think as a policy it won't work at a very high cost. But I don't think it's a threat to the rule of law or anything like that.

[Sheilbh]

So it's mostly a language thing. In Hungary the dropping of communism was officially marked by renaming from People's Republic of Hungary to Republic of Hungary so was made a big deal. And then Orban years ago dropped the "Republic of" bit from the official designation which was made into a big deal by his opponents (made out to be an admission that it is him and not the people who are in power).

I wouldn't be surprised if it's not just a Hungarian thing - as I say look at the way the French use "republican". It carries values beyond not being hereditary. I suspect, but could be wrong, that in Poland "rzeczpospolita" also has similar extra meaning. A bit like the German idea of rechtstaat which is really influential across Europe and, to my knowledge, has no real equivalent in English language legal writing (from my understanding, the closest we come is maybe some very "thick" definitions of rule of law).

I think in English it's purely a descriptive term, but in other languages might have an idealist component too against which the reality can be measured.

[Tamas]

So it's mostly a language thing. In Hungary the dropping of communism was officially marked by renaming from People's Republic of Hungary to Republic of Hungary so was made a big deal. And then Orban years ago dropped the "Republic of" bit from the official designation which was made into a big deal by his opponents (made out to be an admission that it is him and not the people who are in power).

I wouldn't be surprised if it's not just a Hungarian thing - as I say look at the way the French use "republican". It carries values beyond not being hereditary. I suspect, but could be wrong, that in Poland "rzeczpospolita" also has similar extra meaning. A bit like the German idea of rechtstaat which is really influential across Europe and, to my knowledge, has no real equivalent in English language legal writing (from my understanding, the closest we come is maybe some very "thick" definitions of rule of law).

I think in English it's purely a descriptive term, but in other languages might have an idealist component too against which the reality can be measured.

I know attribute it to English-speaker's obsession with ancient Rome.

[grumbler]

I know attribute it to English-speaker's obsession with ancient Rome.

English-speakers don't have an "obsession with ancient Rome" so much as they have the knowledge that many of the roots of the English language are traced back to Latin.  In English, for instance, one can use the knowledge that "ante" means "before" to suss out the meaning of words using "ante" without resorting to dictionaries.

Non-native English speakers may not have been educated in the use of Latin forms to decipher new English-language words, so I can understand why the use of Latin in this context might seem like an "obsession" to them.

[grumbler]

Am not. I was not aware of the English definition being "well there's no monarch so what else to call it". Any definition going past that (e.g. Wikipedia's sovereignty of the public) breaks down completely for most non-democratic countries (although it would still apply to places like Russia or Hungary).

I'd be interested to see the Hungarian definition of a nation that does not have a monarch and is not a republic.

In fact, I'd be interested to discover what non-monarchical countries have a government that does not at least pretend to rule using a mandate of some sort from the citizens, barring "emergency" or temporary governments (subsequent to a coup, for instance).  Even the emergency-type governments acknowledge that they are an aberration to the normal process of gaining the people's mandate.

[Barrister]

Am not. I was not aware of the English definition being "well there's no monarch so what else to call it". Any definition going past that (e.g. Wikipedia's sovereignty of the public) breaks down completely for most non-democratic countries (although it would still apply to places like Russia or Hungary).

I'd be interested to see the Hungarian definition of a nation that does not have a monarch and is not a republic.

In fact, I'd be interested to discover what non-monarchical countries have a government that does not at least pretend to rule using a mandate of some sort from the citizens, barring "emergency" or temporary governments (subsequent to a coup, for instance).  Even the emergency-type governments acknowledge that they are an aberration to the normal process of gaining the people's mandate.

So Canada is a "monarchical" country as you would put it.

But we have this notion of "the Crown".  As you probably know my job is a Crown Prosecutor.  Government-owned land is called "Crown land".  (those are probably the biggest two uses of the word "Crown")

But we're very particular in the use of the word "Crown", or maybe Rex/Regina (criminal court names are always R v Name).  Hardly anything is ever in the name of Elizabeth / Charles.  It's because "the Crown" represents the government, and not the individual monarch.

Heck you even have dueling "Crowns" - you have "the Crown in right of Alberta" (in my case), or "the Crown in right of Canada" as both the Federal and provincial governments are imbued with being "the Crown".  By the way - municipal governments, as they are creations of statute, are not "the Crown".

[Zoupa]

I can confirm that republic means more than just non-monarchical in French. I did not know this was what it mean in English.

It feels like a strange, dichotomy way of classifying methods of government.

[Valmy]

I can confirm that republic means more than just non-monarchical in French. I did not know this was what it mean in English.

It feels like a strange, dichotomy way of classifying methods of government.

Just like in the United States there was this expectation that a Republic was in the classical tradition and was radically based on popular sovereignty. For whatever reason there was no thinking that this Republic had anything in common with the Venetian Republic which was still in existence at the time. This was something radical and new.

[OttoVonBismarck]

It wasn't that new, the mother country had elected MPs, elected by commoners, even in 1776.

Now yes, the franchise was quite limited, and issues like rotten and pocket boroughs, the strong Lords, and the remnant powers of the monarch were all anti-democratic elements to the British system, but the initial U.S. government was not that much more democratic than Britain's in the late 18th century. Remember the American franchise expanded rapidly between 1812-1840, it was quite restrictive before then.

[Jacob]

I can confirm that republic means more than just non-monarchical in French. I did not know this was what it mean in English.

It feels like a strange, dichotomy way of classifying methods of government.

It's not really a dichotomy, it's two different and independent categories.

Republic / non-Republic (monarchy) - whether the head of state is an inherited position or not.

Democratic / non-Democracy - whether or not the government is answerable to the people via a popular vote.

Democratic Republic - France
Autocratic Republic - China
Democratic Monarchy - the Netherlands
Autocratic Monarchy - Saudi Arabia

I mean other classification schemes can make sense too, but I don't think it's particularly strange (but maybe that's because it's what I'm used to).

[The Brain]

Republic / non-Republic (monarchy) - whether the head of state is an inherited position or not.

It's all words, but FWIW to my mind elected monarchs doesn't necessarily mean that you have a republic. I think the kings of Rome didn't head a republic, and if Sweden switched back (we went hereditary in the 16th century) we would still be a Democratic Monarchy.