On Thu, September 18, 2008 10:54, Craig Lalley wrote:

>
> I would never want to get into a war of words with someone as prolific as
> James, but.... By definition, a republic is a political unit governed by a
> charter, while a democracy is a government whose prevailing force is
> always that of the majority.
>

At the risk of appearing pedantic I must point out that what is at issue
in this discussion is nothing other than the very definition of the terms
that are bandied about with such abandon.  Terms that are loosely employed
by people, who if put to the test, are incapable of providing an
unambiguous definition. Certainly they have an idea of what the terms mean
to them, at least at the time that they are witting.  But it is an
illusion to believe that that ones personal understanding is congruent
with that of more than a handful of other people.

For example:

Whose definition states that a written charter is necessary to have a
republic?  Where is it written down that a republic must possess itself
first of such a thing to exist? Who made this rule?

Historically, a republic is simply the word used by Plato to describe the
social order of his society.  It was at one time synonymous with an idea
akin to our modern usage of the word state.  Later it came to mean a
government without a hereditary monarch at its head.

However, the word state itself is a problematic term, as are the words
nation and country.

What is a nation, the United States?  What of the Cree, the Blackfoot, the
Cherokee?  Are these nations? Consider the Kurds, Le Quebecois. Are these
nations?

What is a state? Is Haiti a state? Really? How does one consider the
Sudan, whose president (Monarch) has been indicted as a war criminal? 
California is legally a state, does it equate in ones mind to say, France
or Brazil as a political entity?

The soft parity and inherent contradictions of these terms in modern
speech is what makes declarations that "We have a republic, not a
democracy!" so vacuous.  In the modern senses of the words you can, and
often do, have both situations exist at the same time, in the same social
polity.  It all  depends on ones definitions you see.

As for looting the treasury. Any casual perusal of the record readily
reveals that the public treasury of every government on earth is routinely
looted; not by the mob, but by those appointed to protect it.

It was not the public that created the current crisis in confidence
plaguing the financial system.  It was those officials that, elected and
appointed to their posts of trust, turned a blind eye to the corrupt and
venal actions of their "friends" and "fellow travellers".  People who
profited from those positions of trust by advancing the ideologies of
their party or receiving the performance bonuses for hollowing out their
shareholders businesses to the point of collapse.  Officials that
concealed their actions from review by bribing both the citizen and the
investor with their own money, stolen under their very noses.

Now the public is left with two very bad choices.  Let the crash happen
and suffer the social upheaval that may very well follow.  Or, mortgage
their own and their children's future to remedy the excess of a few.  The
prudent course of mortgaging their future to preserve its eventuality as
having some recognizable form is one that most people are bound to
support; simply because it offers the best hope of preserving what they
presently value in society.

In all forms of government, not just democracies, far from looting the
treasury the public are more often fleeced by those that they set in place
to guard it.

-- 
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James B. Byrne                mailto:[log in to unmask]
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