You think in a very narrow way about what makes a countr a free country. (BTW, I never wanted to say that the US are no free country, they sure are). Do you know about the concept of polyarchy (not sure about the expression in english. It's a term you use in political sience when you talk about states, which would be called democracies in popular language. Democracy itself is an Ideal that never will be reached. In every politcal system there are certain defects that take them more or less away from this ideal. What you do above is this: You say: Because our media and our opposition are free to put the finger on the problems in our political system we don't have a problem. There is a famous study by two american sientists about democracies in the the 50ies and 60ies. It's called "The Civic Culture". In this study germany ranks pretty poor. yet, allready in this time germany had a full developped system of checks and balances, a working opoosition and free media. the problem was the people. they were still in this "I am nothing more than a subject thinking and I'll do what they say".
As I said, I don't argue taht the problem with defects in the political system is an american problem, but it is a problem inherent to all political systems.
I don't think I've talked about what I think makes a country free -- I pointed out that one particular example because it was part of our argument and it showed an amount of freedom. Freedom of the press is certainly not the end all mark of freedom -- but the United States has certainly taken that particular aspect of common law to heart (although, really, the issue here is omnisciousness of the press).
I haven't taken a political science class in a long, long time, but I seem to recall polyarchy is some form of measure based on a societal attributes -- free press, sufferage, representation of elections and such. Is that right?
An aside, I don't think people in Europe appreciate how bland the American political spectrum is. You have people in Europe whose opinions run the gamut -- there are 'far right' supporters (or left, I know some countries switch them) who will actually advocate dictatorship and there are far left beleivers who'd advocate putting down government all together.
In the United States we don't have this *at all*. The political spectrum is much, much, much narrower -- and I wonder if the rest of the world doesn't understand that. The actual difference between an Republican and a Democrat is how his party tells him to vote on a few symbolic issues and nothing more. The rest of the world sees our political battles, assigns how the system works in their own country and takes it as some kind of epic battle that doesn't exist.
When Americans complain about someone being "far right", it means they're a few centimeters right of the center -- you find a lot more variety in other countries, and I think a lot of the misunderstanding regarding what's going on in the US comes from this.
I can ensure you that not one of my posts (except the posts about WC) is based on internetknowledge or knowlegde from newspapers or something. But the matter we are discussing here could be easyly discussed in very long papers and I try to keep it short. By the way, I posted the US Patriot Act to illustrate what I'm talking about. The original URL is un the upper line of the doc.
USA PATRIOT act -- it's an acronym.
Again, though, this is part of the everyday American system that for some reason the media (and then by extension the world) decided to pick out. They're opening up the body, ripping out the liver and calling it disgusting. Duh.
The Congress can pass any law it wants -- and it does. The legislature is not required to determine the constitutionality or the appropriateness of a law by itself. The system doesn't end when the president signs something into law -- it's the ordinary duty/job of the court to declare bad laws unconstitutional.
Note that this is exactly what is happening with the internet-vaunted Patriot act -- more and more parts of it are going to the Supreme Court, and the court is ruling on whether or not they're constitutional (some are, some aren't). *That's* how the system works, and it is working.
The purpose of the American media complaining about a bad law isn't to say that the coutnry is doing something awful -- it's because the electioneering system in the US involve attaching names to bills when yuo're campaigning. So and so voted for {X bad law}!
I guess this is our strcutural defect. That not one constitutional body controlls the other ones.But that the parties are in charge to controll each other.
I'm talking about political parties, not parts of the government.
You are sure right this is a popular discussion. But there is some importance in it, not such grave importance as your examples suggested but it's interting in order to learn about the behavior of people in democracies and about how different democratic systems work. I guess the misstake I made was this: I study political science and american literature (I do know my english is lousy, no need to point this out ) and I have a professional interst on this topic.... aditional... I really enjoy internet discussions because they are fats and well structured by nature.
I guess the little stuff i'm intersted in is taken here to make a big deal out of things... I'm sorry for this.
Your English is fine -- besides, there's a big difference between studying Literature and being able to interact with the language. I have an English Lit degree myself, and I couldn't teach grammar to save my life.
But then they should say: "Work it out or take it out" and not just "take it out, you can't do this"
As far as I know, no one here has talked about it outside this thread -- I certainly haven't... so, I'm not sure if we can ascribe some kind of royal decision regarding that element it as coming from anywhere but your own Vega Strike forums.
Great argument. Let's argue about a country with a history of a few hundred years compared to others with histories of thousands of years. That's really relative.
Halman was answering a question Klaus asked about history, he's not arguing anything.
Anyway, still, that's overestimating the power of armies. Yes, the US could destroy the whole world, and that is one thing preocupying people: noone should have that power - hey, the Americans say that from time to time, but their "noone" means "noone else". Well... those who don't have that power (everyone else), when they say "noone", they mean it.
But, in any practical sitation of the modern world, like economic and electronic warfare, an army is less than useful. Destroying the whole world isn't useful.
I think it's more complex than this -- America's unique nuclear perspective has lead to a lot of things... not the least of them, a certain guilt about the technology. If North Korea drops the bomb, it's a straight shot through history back to the fact that the United States created the thing in the first place (and allowed the Soviets to copy it).
As I mentioned earlier, vis a vis ICBMs, it doesn't matter to the *United States* in a practical sense whether or not every rogue country in the world gets their own nuclear warhead -- they will never have the capacity to launch a missile attack on the US. There's something more to it, which is where America's belief (and lets be fair, the rest of the worlds frequent claim) that it should police the world comes from.
Take a look at Iraq... after occupying it, did they accomplish anything? (I'm actually asking - was there any economic benefit from the occupation, which is what the US was seeking out?) Well... it's probably too early to answer propperly... it should be answered 10 or 20 years from now.
Well, there's your problem right there -- the claim that the US was looking for an economic benefit isn't a given. Rather, it's a cheap criticism that
For all the ranting and raving that the opposition does about America going to Iraq for oil, there was no practical way for the country to *ever* do that.
The US has spent billions of dollars rebuilding Iraq -- but it's not getting that money back. It's the Iraqis who are going to be able to sell and profit from their oil, not some kind of fictional American Empire.
The United States went to Iraq for several reasons, but economics wasn't one of them. A ground war in 2005 is not the economic boost it was in 1940. When the US went to war with Germany and Japan it meant that an entire war industry was created -- but that doesn't happen during a tiny little war today. There's no call for troops (the US has a modern volunteer army), there's no building of new weapons, there's no technological advances made to help win the conflict. For all the arguing about Halliburton and a war for oil, the Iraq war is and always was going to be a huge economic loss.
Rather, the country went to war (well, define war) for several reasons, completely separate from the 'war for oil versus weapons of mass destruction' debate that everyone pretends to have:
* To destabilize the region and create an American military presence. The United States invaded Iraq as a "check" on countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Libya, etc. These countries were all 'off limits' no matter what their involvement in recent terrorism. By nature of its previous relationship with the United States, Saddam Hussein's Iraq was not -- the country took advantage of this fact, and can now garrison all the military power it wants right in the center of Middle East.
* Revenge. Iraq probably wasn't involved in the September 11th attacks -- but the individual hijackers did claim that the United States' 1990 war was American's big offense against them. It was a supremely satisfying move to the American populace on the part of the executive to invade Iraq. There was also a necessity here -- the US needed to respond to the terrorist attacks in a visible, military way... Afghanistan worked great, Iraq was the next logical choice. Iraq was the 'safe' target - because from the perspective of American politicians, it was an old enemy *and* a legitimate reason to put down a terrible dictator.
* Guilt/political necessity. Anyone who tells you they're shocked that Mr. Bush invaded Iraq is either a liar or an idiot - it was a given the day we voted him into office. What was the *one* thing that his father did that gained him immense popular support? The Persian Guilf War. In eight years Hussein had remained the boogeyman, and we had gone on to harshly criticize the original PResident Bush for 'abandoning' Iraq at the eleventh hour... and then President Clinton for his indecisive handling of the situation (lots of bombing raids, nothing more over two terms). When you elected George W. Bush, the *one thing* you knew about him was that he was going to 'finish' the job in Iraq.
And about America's unwlilingness to use its power to destroy the entire world (or the entire opposition) proving it's trustworty, well, that's an overstatement. That someone didn't do something yet doesn't prove that he won't do it ever, or that he's unwilling to do it. And... that kind of fate is not to be left to just faith in America's integrity. Mostly since the prevalent idea that "the US can invade whoever they want, and they do it" is contrary to the former idea.
Can they? Because there's lots of countries we'd like to invade but can't for political reasons -- places like Iran, North Korea or Saudi Arabia. Iraq was the 'safe choice' -- the rest of the world just got stuck thinking it was impo rtant to what's essentially an internal debate.
) and I have a professional interst on this topic.... aditional... I really enjoy internet discussions because they are fats and well structured by nature.