Those two are the same - outside of crude websites who try to build ideologic rhetoric. And episodes of "The West Wing". Republic, from the latin "res publica" - public matter - means the land belongs to the people and is governed on their behalf. It has therefore got to be an indirect democracy. E...

People who have served their sentences for their convictions should then be allowed to participate in society again -- how else can they be reintegrated into society? They have to be given a stake; otherwise they would be encouraged to commit more crimes. You are entitled to your opinion, but is is...

Thanks, now we can be under no illusion that the US is a democracy. It has been clearly stated in this thread and many others that the US is a republic, not a democracy. However, most experts would classify it as a democratic republic, which is still not a pure democracy. But none of this has anyth...

In the city I live in (and most nearby cities) one must present a drivers license or state id to buy a beer or any alcoholic beverage, regardless of how old you are or how old you look. Since prohibition of alcohol was specifically repealed by a US Constitutional amendment, clearly the right to purc...

Agreed. Debattable for criminals. Should being in prison remove yet another one of your right as a citizen ? You don't loose your duties (you still pay taxes for example), and you already loose your right to freedom... I haven't thought about this much until now... interesting topic... Convicted fe...

This seems like a weak point. If the main mechanism (general election) of a national democracy is able to be influenced by local laws then this undermines the point of a national democracy. Someone in one area may have the ability to vote while in another area they wouldn't so therefore not all vot...

simple : not sure... you need a bunch of paperwork and you need to be free during the DMVs business hours (9am to 4 pm if you're lucky) to get a drivers license, which is not that easy when can't really get out of work... logical, and rational requirement : subjective... it's not in the Constitutio...

Furthermore these denials disproportionally hit people of color and the poor. Both groups tend to vote for Democrats. This in itself should cause one to pause to consider if these laws are motivated by partisan politics. Yes, this subject is motivated by partisan politics. If it were not true that ...

Voter fraud is a problem in the US to varying degrees. For one thing, The US government estimates that there are about 12 million illegal aliens in the US who are not qualified to vote (since this is a US government estimate, the real number is probably much higher). There are also many convicted fe...

Speaking of spectacles, it appears to me that Kate is qualified to be in Bally's Jubilee Show I mentioned above. After all, she meets the height requirements (5'8") and her other assets appear to check out also.

Hard drives have gotten a lot bigger in capacity, also quieter and less expensive. Have you thought about consolodating into a smaller number of drives? Even if you do get a new case, might be a good idea.

I am just curious whether sending a fan that requires 6.5V to run a lower voltage (say ~4.7V, the fan would essentially be turned off) if it will damage either the fan or the controller, or worse the PSU. Thanks! It will not damage a PSU, because 12V will still be sent to the fan controller. I doub...

And your point is... petty, all because the American press cant manage to sort a spreadsheet by the correct column You are the one who suggested the 3,2,1 scoring, so I was just tallying the results for you. I wasn't making any point. I feel very sorry for your people, not just for being misinforme...

I congratulate you sir on an excellent post, especially the part about what the constitution actually say and backing up my point about "some people" deliberately misinterpreting the meaning, and claim that they have a "right to own machine guns, sniper rifles, pump-action shotguns and multi-shot c...

I think your proposed scoring is good (3 for gold, 2 for silver, 1 for bronze). I would even be OK with 5,3,1. If the OC adopts such as method, I am quite sure the media in the US would comply, although there is freedom of the press in the US and we can't force them to do anything. Your statement "...

Yes, and that's one reason why your institutional setup is worse than the one of pre-Nazi Germany. I refuse to believe you're so thick as to fail to understand that you've made this point already and that it was already acknowledged. As I have explain upteen times since, it was easier for the Nazis...

I have corrected you enough times already. Now you're purposely ignoring the facts and just plain lying. Germans didn't elect Hitler.Germany's former constitutional arrangements allowed for more Marxists to be elected than would have been under the US system. As a result, Germany managed to keep fa...

In your last post, you didn't say that. You said liberals, conservatives and other non-Marxists in the US wouldn't have voted for a dictatorship whereas they voted for Hitler's dictatorship in Germany, hinting at some kind of essential differences between yanks and Germans but certainly not at inst...

I really don't want to get into this with you, but here is the basic facts. Before 1492, there were no Europeans in North America, and millions of Native Americans. By 1900, there were millions of Europeans and almost no Native Americans. The Europeans had almost all the good land all of the power....

Guns and especially weapons like the AR-15 are great for self-defense and are more effective than any constitution at keeping the likes of Hitler at bay. It is the US Constitution which allows people to have guns. That part you mention about "keeping the likes of Hitler at bay" is why the framers o...

(A.) I am not "obsessed" with scoring, just the way some idiots lay the table out, which directly contradicts the way that the people who run the Olympics say that the medals should be counted. B.) I expect the Colombians to feel that they almost had 7-Gold medals and that the position that they ar...

Actually, I think we've gone far beyond off-topic in the last month. What about opening a new thread on legislation in the US? I agree we are getting off topic (even in an off-topic thread). But it is somewhat useful to understand why: The discussion about gun legislation came up, and that led to a...

I've been following this thread for a while, and wow. That is just crazy-talk. The difference between the Holocaust and the treatment of the American Indians by the United States is a matter of degree, speed, mobilization, and industrialization. It is actually a reasonable topic of discussion. What...

So according to your logic, everyone who thinks that a amateurishly committed crime has to be punished exactly as a perfectly executed crime hates the United States? I think that Andrew Jackson committed a treasonous crime against the US Constitution by ignoring the rule of law as decided by the US...

I understand federalism (the local constitution being based on yours) but how do you go from a *unanimous* vote in Congress (excepting Marxists) to 1/4 of state legislatures voting the other way? Do you figure 1/4 of state legislatures in the US are controlled by Marxists? Which ones? You're being ...

It was the German equivalent to the Congress which gave dictatorial powers to Hitler, according to the constitutional process. As in most countries, you need more than a mere 50%+1 majority for such changes (in this case, 67%). Hitler got this super-majority because most of the "democratic" represe...

That is the most stupid thing I have read today - why would you say such a stupid thing that has no bearing on the subject at all or in any way - the only answer I can consider is that you want people to treat you as though your are stupid - you might be in luck there my friend. I was told that Bri...

Aks those that have been killed and they will tell you that the difference between being murdered because you belong to the cherokees or being murdered because you belong to the jewish people doesn't entirely feel different. The holocaust did add a new dimension to genocid, that's not to be denied....

This is just embarassing. For many posts you insisted that something like Hitler can't happen in the U.S., only to now claim Andrew Jackson was pretty much almost there. That is a lie. I repeatedly said that a despot being elected and creating a dictatorship is much less likely to happen in the US ...

Your right, m0002a, if something has past congress, then of course it was Jackson on his own. Furthermore, they used the US army to let 4000 Cherokees die and made the rest captives. So the President of the US, the congress and the US army acted against the Cherokees. Comes pretty close to the defi...