The Thread of Democrats

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Re: The Thread of Democrats

Post by pErvinalia » Wed Sep 15, 2021 3:39 am

Scot knows the answer to that.
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Re: The Thread of Democrats

Post by L'Emmerdeur » Wed Sep 15, 2021 4:07 am

The California recall election was stolen from Larry Elder--the corporate toady Newsom maintains his position as governor of the state. Of course a scheduled election for Governor of California is coming up next year, so the forces of God have about a year to expose the horrible fraud and triumph in the end. :smoke:

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Re: The Thread of Democrats

Post by Hermit » Wed Sep 15, 2021 6:57 am

Joe wrote:
Wed Sep 15, 2021 12:55 am
As for American democracy, our Framers meant us to be a Republic. Between that and the concessions to the States, and the rise of political parties, just how secure has our "democracy" ever really been?
Democracy as we conceive of it today is young, accidental - and as history keeps showing us - fragile. No revolution was motivated to bring it about until the 20th century. From the Magna Carta through the English civil wars, the so-called Glorious Revolution, the French revolution, the disturbances in the 1830s to the rash of revolutions all over Europe in 1848 and 1849, the rights and freedoms that were fought for were meant to apply to propertied males only. The rest were fobbed of with vague promises of a better life under the new rulers when they were needed to fight the existing ones. We arrived at universal suffrage like sleepwalkers.
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Re: The Thread of Democrats

Post by Scot Dutchy » Wed Sep 15, 2021 10:26 am

The trouble comes when the country is divided up into areas geographically. This opens the system to the first form of corruption; gerrymandering. The trouble further in the US is the introduction of the Electoral College and creating a upper house like the Senate which has far to much power and is totally undemocratic. While in the UK you have a totally unelected second house whose members are chosen on privilege.
Another thing in the US you dont have universal suffrage but only qualified suffrage which varies from state to state.

Regarding monarchy, our king is appointed by the Tweedekamer it is not natural right and he is not crowned but installed. Liz still thinks she is appointed by god.
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Re: The Thread of Democrats

Post by Hermit » Wed Sep 15, 2021 11:01 am

Scot Dutchy wrote:
Wed Sep 15, 2021 10:26 am
Liz still thinks she is appointed by god.
Unsubstantiated assertion.
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Re: The Thread of Democrats

Post by pErvinalia » Wed Sep 15, 2021 11:12 am

We never hear Scot railing against the undemocratic EU. It's almost as if his hatred of the US and UK clouds his thinking.
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Re: The Thread of Democrats

Post by Scot Dutchy » Wed Sep 15, 2021 11:14 am

pErvinalia wrote:
Wed Sep 15, 2021 11:12 am
We never hear Scot railing against the undemocratic EU. It's almost as if his hatred of the US and UK clouds his thinking.
Unsupported claims.
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Re: The Thread of Democrats

Post by Scot Dutchy » Wed Sep 15, 2021 11:15 am

Hermit wrote:
Wed Sep 15, 2021 11:01 am
Scot Dutchy wrote:
Wed Sep 15, 2021 10:26 am
Liz still thinks she is appointed by god.
Unsubstantiated assertion.
Read her speeches.
"Wat is het een gezellig boel hier".

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Re: The Thread of Democrats

Post by pErvinalia » Wed Sep 15, 2021 11:16 am

The apportionment of seats within the European Parliament to each member state of the European Union is set out by the EU treaties. According to European Union treaties, the distribution of seats is "degressively proportional" to the population of the member states, with negotiations and agreements between member states playing a role.[1] Thus the allocation of seats is not strictly proportional to the size of a state's population, nor does it reflect any other automatically triggered or fixed mathematical formula. The process can be compared to the composition of the electoral college used to elect the President of the United States of America in that, pro rata, the smaller state received more places in the electoral college than the more populous states.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apportion ... Parliament
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Re: The Thread of Democrats

Post by Scot Dutchy » Wed Sep 15, 2021 11:20 am

An unsupported claim. Nothing is equivalent to the Electoral College. The electors are free to vote the way they want to and ignore the people that elected them.
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Re: The Thread of Democrats

Post by Hermit » Wed Sep 15, 2021 11:30 am

Scot Dutchy wrote:
Wed Sep 15, 2021 11:15 am
Hermit wrote:
Wed Sep 15, 2021 11:01 am
Scot Dutchy wrote:
Wed Sep 15, 2021 10:26 am
Liz still thinks she is appointed by god.
Unsubstantiated assertion.
Read her speeches.
Provide links to where Elizabeth II said she still thinks she is appointed by god. It's up to you to substantiate your assertions.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. - Stephen J. Gould

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Re: The Thread of Democrats

Post by pErvinalia » Wed Sep 15, 2021 11:30 am

The wiki article has links to its sources. Something you wholly lack.
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Re: The Thread of Democrats

Post by pErvinalia » Wed Sep 15, 2021 11:33 am

Untitled.png
Maltese residents have about 10 times the voting power than a German.
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Re: The Thread of Democrats

Post by Scot Dutchy » Wed Sep 15, 2021 2:55 pm

They dont but of course European politics are for you in Ozland difficult to understand. The last column is the important one. They may have more influence but their numbers are small in fact tiny and it is nothing like the Electoral College.

Here is an article from the Brexit time explaining further the slight drawbacks of the EU system:

How democratic is the European Union?
One of the constant arguments raised by critics of the EU is that it is “undemocratic”. Those arguing for the UK to vote to leave in the June referendum present it as an opportunity to hand control of British affairs back to the British parliament, the only body with a mandate to make decisions for the country.

On the face of it, the EU has a democratic structure. The European Commission is not elected but it is fully accountable to the European Parliament. And all the EU member states are represented in the Council of Ministers. But does that make it democratic or does it have, as some argue, a democratic deficit?

I suggest that we expect certain characteristics to be present in the structures of any liberal democracy. They should be representative, transparent and accountable. If these characteristics are present then the democratic institutions will normally enjoy legitimacy and authority. So I propose to discuss the presence or absence in the EU of these characteristics.

The EU is undoubtedly representative – more so than many national parliaments, including Britain’s. The European Parliament is made up of MEPs from all 28 EU member states, each elected using various forms of proportional representation (unlike the House of Commons, which is elected through a widely criticised first-past-the-post system).

Smaller states are over-represented in the European Parliament and voter turnout at elections is usually significantly lower than turnout for national government elections – although this is hardly the European Parliament’s fault.

By definition all member states are represented in the Council of Ministers but, if votes are taken, the smaller states again have disproportionate voting rights to prevent their interests being sidelined by the six biggest states, who, combined, have 70% of the EU’s population.

The European Commission itself is made up of civil servants recruited from all the member states, although there are always difficulties in recruiting Commission officials from Britain because so few qualified candidates can speak another European language.


The verdict

Clearly the EU structure has defects when assessed by the normal standards of Western democracy – but I would argue that the British parliament, with its unelected House of Lords and an unrepresentative House of Commons (in terms of the balance of political parties to votes cast), is even less democratic.

Eurosceptics have for a long time questioned the legitimacy of the EU – but that charge is difficult to sustain. Of course national parliaments have all agreed to pool sovereignty in the EU institutions, but they are entitled to do that and have done so with their eyes wide open. Many even asked their citizens to vote on the decision in a referendum.

What’s more, national governments, through the Council of Ministers, are still the most powerful collective influence in shaping EU decisions – not the European Parliament. They have the right to raise a yellow card about EU legislation, which can cause the Commission to change it.

And the EU is in the process of strengthening the ability of national parliaments to call a halt to EU legislation if they object to it.

So all in all, the EU is, or is at least working to be, a democratic organisation. It has its failings but national governments have just as many – if not more.
Nothing has changed since UK withdrawal.
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Re: The Thread of Democrats

Post by JimC » Wed Sep 15, 2021 9:17 pm

It is interesting that at least some (if not many) of the political tensions in western democracies are between the political forces controlling states, and the political forces controlling the national government. When such political structures were first created, there was little ability for movement and rapid communication across vast areas, meaning that the states simply had to exercise many of the normal functions of government. This has become anachronistic in the modern era.

In Oz at the moment, there is considerable tension over covid related issues between the states and the federal government, and indeed between the states themselves, particularly in the area of border closures.
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