LIBERTAS (What Pope Leo XIII wrote about Liberals)

[Era Might]

[quote]As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.

--George Washington[/quote]

[Era Might]

[quote]Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.

--Winston Churchill[/quote]



I guess that's bipartisan politics for ya. :

Edited February 12, 2006 by Era Might

[Cam42]

[quote name='Socrates' date='Feb 11 2006, 09:26 PM']Ironmonk is right.

The U.S. was conceived as a constitutional republic, not a pure democracy.
There is a difference.
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[/quote]

Did I say pure democracy? I don't think so. I believe that I said that we were [b]NOT[/b] a direct democracy. Ironmonk is wrong and so are you, if this is the line you are going to support.

Think that you can offer support for the USA being other than what I described? By all means......

[ironmonk]

[quote name='Cam42' date='Feb 11 2006, 09:31 PM']Did I say pure democracy?  I don't think so.  I believe that I said that we were [b]NOT[/b] a direct democracy.  Ironmonk is wrong and so are you, if this is the line you are going to support.

Think that you can offer support for the USA being other than what I described?  By all means......
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and a nah nah na boo boo to you too.

Again... Socrates, your predictions come true.


God Bless,
ironmonk

[Cam42]

What form of government is a "Constitutional Republic?" I have never heard of that form of government.

If by that you mean Repbulican democracy, I would agree. However, that is a restricted from of democracy and not a republic, in the sense that you are promoting.

In political theory and political science, the term "republic" is generally applied to a state where the government's political power depends solely on the consent, however nominal, of the people governed, along with some form of written constitution, limitations against absolute power by a single individual or a combination of individuals, and other characteristic mechanisms of freedom, such as economic freedom, or a "commonwealth".

This however, is a very broad term and not one that is by definition correct. It is a colloquial term applied to Republican democracy.

If by the that term you mean the Presidential system, then you are supporting the idea of a democracy, for that is precisely what it is.

A presidential system, or a congressional system, is a system of government of a republican democracy where the executive branch is elected separately from the legislative. Such systems generally have some combination of historical and/or cultural ties to the former Roman Republic and later Roman Empire and, more commonly, to the United States of America. The Constitution of the United States is credited by some people with being the oldest document constituting a government still in existence, and the Presidential system of government is widely accepted as having originated from it.

[Cam42]

[quote name='ironmonk' date='Feb 11 2006, 09:36 PM']

and a nah nah na boo boo to you too.

Again... Socrates, your predictions come true.
God Bless,
ironmonk
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[/quote]

Good to see you still acting like an adult. Wanna support your position? Or are you going to hold a conversation with my two year old niece, Elizabeth?

[qfnol31]

[quote name='Era Might' date='Feb 11 2006, 02:29 PM']Please tell President Bush to stop spreading democracy, then.


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[/quote]

I have other issues before that anyways.

[qfnol31]

[quote name='Cam42' date='Feb 11 2006, 02:46 PM']Absolutely incorrect.  That is NOT accurate.

A representative democracy is a form of democracy founded on the exercice of popular sovereignty by the people's representants. It is a theory of civics in which voters choose (in free, secret, multi-party elections) representatives to act in their interests, but not as their proxies—i.e., not necessarily according to their voters' wishes, but with enough authority to exercise initiative in the face of changing circumstances. Another form of representative democracy involves impartial selection of representatives through sortition.

This is exactly what type of government we employ.  It was Benjamin Franklin who philosophized this form first, based upon an Iroquois model.

Another name of this type of government is republican democracy.  One meaning of the word republic is "object for the people," which embodies the notion of a democracy, making the term "republican democracy" redundant. An alternative definition of republic is any government that is not a monarchy, and by this definition there are abundant examples of states that are republics but that are not democracies, and of states that are democracies but not republics.

Accuracy, accuracy, accuracy.  I agree with Era Might on this...Bush needs to get his terms straight, as do most Americans.
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[/quote]

I asked my politics roommate before I posted. He studies under a politics program ranked in the top five (not percent, 5) in the nation.

[qfnol31]

[quote name='Cam42' date='Feb 11 2006, 02:47 PM']Move to Great Britain, then.  The United States was founded to be free from that form of suppressive government.

(I am not speaking of the papal monarchy, incidentally.....)
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[/quote]

I would much prefer the Spanish, minus the Bourbons....

[qfnol31]

[quote]NOUN: 1a. A political order whose head of state is not a monarch and in modern times is usually a president. b. A nation that has such a political order. 2a. A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them. b. A nation that has such a political order. 3. often Republic A specific republican government of a nation: the Fourth Republic of France. 4. An autonomous or partially autonomous political and territorial unit belonging to a sovereign federation. 5. A group of people working as equals in the same sphere or field: the republic of letters.[/quote]

What's different about that and our state today?

[Cam42]

[quote name='qfnol31' date='Feb 11 2006, 11:31 PM']I asked my politics roommate before I posted.  He studies under a politics program ranked in the top five (not percent, 5) in the nation.
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[/quote]

So what.

Appeal to authority doesn't solidify your position.

[Nathan]

[quote name='qfnol31' date='Feb 11 2006, 09:31 PM']I asked my politics roommate before I posted.  He studies under a politics program ranked in the top five (not percent, 5) in the nation.
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He's probably failing, too.

[qfnol31]

[quote name='Nathan' date='Feb 11 2006, 10:37 PM']He's probably failing, too.
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Umm, no.

Besides ad hominem, he's actually one of the brightest students I know.

[qfnol31]

[quote name='Cam42' date='Feb 11 2006, 10:36 PM']So what.   

Appeal to authority doesn't solidify your position.
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Don't most people appeal to authority here? Normally that works well.

He knows what he's talking about. I know my politics department pretty well and they all say what he said.

[Nathan]

Buncha liberals!

[qfnol31]

Yikes!

LoL!!! That's scary....If I'm a liberal, what are you?

[Cam42]

[quote name='qfnol31' date='Feb 11 2006, 11:41 PM']Don't most people appeal to authority here?  Normally that works well.

He knows what he's talking about.    I know my politics department pretty well and they all say what he said. 
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Nope. Most people don't fall into that fallacy.

Zach's roomate is (claimed to be) an authority on governmental rule.
Zach's roomate (through Zach) makes the claim listed in posts #23 and #48 about governmental rule.
Therefore, said statement about governmental rule is true.

Appeal to Authority is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject. More formally, if Zach's roomate is not qualified to make reliable claims on governmental rule, then the argument will be fallacious.

This sort of reasoning is fallacious when the person in question is not an expert. In such cases the reasoning is flawed because the fact that an unqualified person makes a claim does not provide any justification for the claim. The claim could be true, but the fact that an unqualified person made the claim does not provide any rational reason to accept the claim as true.

When a person falls prey to this fallacy, they are accepting a claim as true without there being adequate evidence to do so. More specifically, the person is accepting the claim because they erroneously believe that the person making the claim is a legitimate expert and hence that the claim is reasonable to accept. Since people have a tendency to believe authorities (and there are, in fact, good reasons to accept some claims made by authorities) this fallacy is a fairly common one.

Since this sort of reasoning is fallacious only when the person is not a legitimate authority in a particular context, it is necessary to provide some acceptable standards of assessment. The following standards are widely accepted:

1. The person has sufficient expertise in the subject matter in question.
2. The claim being made by the person is within her area(s) of expertise.
3. There is an adequate degree of agreement among the other experts in the subject in question.
4. The person in question is not significantly biased.
5. The area of expertise is a legitimate area or discipline.
6. The authority in question must be identified.

I am almost certain that your roomate doesn't meet these standards.

No, most people don't fall into this fallacy, because most people don't tout their current college roomate as an authority.

[smeagol]

i like how nobody argues what is being said. nowhere on phatmass. everyone argues about where you get your information from. who told you that? where did you read it?
nobody says your logic is incorrect because so-and-so conclusion doesn't follow from so-and-so premise. instead, read this stuff that ironmunk spoon-fed you and go off your merry way as though you were brainwashed.

this is why we have freewill. God doesn't want robots!

don't believe everything the church authorities have to say to you. don't do everything the administration tells you to do. don't think how they think. THINK FOR YOURSELVES!

[Era Might]

?

I disagreed strongly with what Ironmonk had to say in this thread.

As for believing the testimony of the Church, Chesterton noted that there is no such thing as true freedom. The very act of rejecting the authority of the Church is a submission to the slavery of your own intellect. If that is who you want to serve, feel free. But don't imagine you are any more free than the Catholic Church, which, as Chesterton would put it, "is the only thing which saves a man the degradation of being a child of his age."

[quote name='smeagol' date='Feb 12 2006, 03:30 AM']i like how nobody argues what is being said. nowhere on phatmass. everyone argues about where you get your information from. who told you that? where did you read it?
nobody says your logic is incorrect because so-and-so conclusion doesn't follow from so-and-so premise. instead, read this stuff that ironmunk spoon-fed you and go off your merry way as though you were brainwashed.

this is why we have freewill. God doesn't want robots!

don't believe everything the church authorities have to say to you. don't do everything the administration tells you to do. don't think how they think. THINK FOR YOURSELVES!
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[/quote]

Edited February 12, 2006 by Era Might

[Akalyte]

all i know is, if this "its ok to be a little liberal" stuff keeps going on here, im taking a long vacation until its gone.