Now I got inspired, and started wondering due to the death penalty post.. or was immunity from UN? Doesn't matter, because it always end up in the US baddie talk. Besides, not the point here.

I was wondering what is the modern meaning of the word democracy? Because I must admit, I have no clue. In my mind a democrat would be the same as a capitalist, but I'm probably far off. Anyone able to clear this up for me?

Democracy is rule by majority vote. But the US is not a democracy. It is a representative republic, in which the population votes for others to make the rules for them. This is a far cry from democracy.
Also, much of US law and policy is also written to protect the minority from the majority, as best as any government can. It's as flawed as any system, but IMO, any time humans get involved, there cannot be perfection.

Capitalism is only an economic system, characterized mainly by capital goods and their distribution by private companies and so forth. A democracy is supposedly government of the people - or, at least, supreme power for the people (for what that's worth). A Republic, something America claims to be, is simply a government with a leader who is not a monarch, i.e., President "They Call Me W" Bush.

None of these are deserving of acrimonious thoughts, because they are definitions, not realities. Every government consists on the basis of the search for Utopia, a warless, always-happy land of opportunity, and each seperate type of government is a different window to jump through to get there. Some have bigger dropoffs and potholes on the other side than others.

A Democracy is a big window, but if all its supremely-powerful people jump through at the same time, then it's gonna be floodin' down in Texas... or should I say it's gonna be Rome # 2.

Democracy...Democracy you ask a very difficult question one that you arent able to get a satisfactory answer to. Generally speaking Democracy means and is rule by the people. Demos = people.
But to try to define it any further is too difficult for little me.


Sooo Xaelifer, the US is a republic and not a democracy, then I gather that Great Britain and Sweden are monarchies and not democracies. That they have all powerful monarch no? Sure some people may find some arguments for the US not being a democracy but they are atleast more so than many other nations and atleast it is supposed to be a democracy. The people do have alot of power.

I suppose modern day democracy was meant in opposition to the original Greek democracy, which was something entirely different than what we imagine as democracy today. That democracy only allowed tax-paying adult male members of a certain city-state (they had to be born there!) the right to vote on certain matters. Women, slaves and foreigners living in the city-state were excluded from any decision making.

Modern democracy allows practically any adult to vote, as long as they're legal members of a certain country. It is also a representative democracy, since you do not vote on every single thing (you'd have to spend the whole year just voting on govt. issues in this case), but pass that power onto the representatives you elect via voting, i.e. you transfer your sovereignty to the members of the parliament who, in turn, make these decisions instead of (and for) you.

But not many countries have this exact system. (Slovenia does, for example.)

USA differs from it somewhat, and UK is something else entirely, though it achieves more or less the same in the end...

Well, to use an argiument from my history teacher, in modern day a democracy it is impossible to have everyone doing the decisions. How would our life be if we got a text message, to use his analogy, every five minutes concerning the governing of our country? The goverment does massive amounnts of work, so many decisions, that to ask everyoneäs opinion would be literally impossible! A representative goverment is the closest thing to democracy we can get... or something like that.

Ara
(Back from the land of the insane... at least for a while)

Sooo Xaelifer, the US is a republic and not a democracy, then I gather that Great Britain and Sweden are monarchies and not democracies.

Not certain about Sweden, however Great Britain is a Republic, just like the United States. However, Great Britain has a parliamentary system and the United States has a Presidential System. Parliamentary is far more common in the world.

Capitalism and Socialism are both extremes on the bar of economic systems and the crossbar has Totalitarianism and Democracy as the governmental systems extremes. Together, the two bars combine to form a Societal Government, and no government can exist without one of the two components.

Just to settle the debate, the United States is a Federal Republic. This is basically a representative democracy with a central government ruling over several smaller governments (read: states).

UK is a constitutional monarchy.

Isn't a corrupted government by the people what supposedly destroyed Rome? What happened there?

Rome got destroyed mainly but constant attacks from nomadic tribes from the outskirts of Europe, that and alot of internal strife brought the empire down. But dont forget that the Byzantine Empire lasted for almost another 1000 years and thats was most of the eastern part of the Empire.

Rastor, how can you possibly say we are a Republic!? Countrys like the US and France are Republics, we have a monarchy, come on, keep up. ;)

joaquin, be a little more specific. What kind of internal strife? riots? rebellion? civil war? political backstabing?

hey guys, I appreciate the feedback!

Capitalism and Socialism are both extremes on the bar of economic systems and the crossbar has Totalitarianism and Democracy as the governmental systems extremes. Together, the two bars combine to form a Societal Government, and no government can exist without one of the two components.

I think this is the reason I got them mixed up in the first post.


As for the roman empire, I believe the internal strife was partially two things.
One being that the corruption was in form of a democratic voting for people in the republic that was lured into voting for them by using gifts, debts, threats etc.
The second would be that the empire offered protection to the all the outlandish "states" or areas that they had conquered. In return, these lands paied tribute to the ceasar. When the protection of these lands where no longer efficient, the tribute stopped, causing revolts etc.
You could say that the roman empire became too great for it's good.

Anyone with more accurate knowledge is welcome to correct me :)

well, i must say that the people in the democratic nations have not much to say, once every fourth year we put a piece of paper in a box, so we are somewhat able to decide wich people are to get to decide over us. Ofcource you can demonstrate and stuff, but most of us are not intrested enough to do that kind of stuff, so the power of the people is almost none.

capitalism = Give the money to the rich, and let the poor starve.

Socialism = Somewhat like robin hood, devide the income so there is more equal but not totaly equal in econmoics between the people.

The only reason I say that you are a republic is that as far as I have heard, the monarchs have little true power. Most of that lies with an elected parliament. Elections generally mean democratic systems, with communism as perhaps the only exception to them. I looked it up, and technically Taluntain is correct that the UK is a constitutional monarchy, but I am merely looking at the fact that the royal family serves merely to represent the nation as a diplomat, not as the head of the government.

Turandil, true socialism is true equality. What you are thinking of is a modified form of it, such as is exhibited in communism.

[This message has been edited by Rastor (edited July 14, 2002).]

AMaster, all of the things you said were reasons for the fall of Rome and what Lokken said, there are never one singly cause for anything. It might have stuck together even with all that internal strife but Rome was under constant attack and keeping its legionaires paied and happy was expensive. Germanic tribes attacked from the northwest, persians in the east, mongollike hordes from northeast etc etc all of that drained the republic until it could no longer keep in existance.

The Rome that fell was a government by the people? Since when is a dictatorship by the people? The Roman Republic ended whenever Julius Caesar became the emperor. And yes, it fell due to both external and internal circumstances.

I heard that Rome fell because some emperor decided that he was a Christian and they had a civil war as well as other attacks from elseware.
And I was under the impression that Julius Caesar was asassinated some time before Romes fall

Julius Caesar was assassinated long before the fall of Rome. And the Roman Empire had been Christian for a decades (if not centuries -- I don't have a history book at hand) before it "fell." Although it's hard to pick a date as to when Rome actually fell, strife between the Eastern Orthodox in Constantinople and Catholics in Rome contributed heavily to its downfall. Not, as was suggested earlier, strife between Christians and non-Christians.

...Julius Caesar became the emperor


Julius Caesar was never emperor. Augustus was the first emperor of Rome.

[This message has been edited by Wildfire (edited July 15, 2002).]

I don't know if this has been mentioned but i'll mention it anyway.

Rastor, The UK is not a republician state. It is in actual fact a democratic state that has retained the values of a monarchy.

In terms of wether the Monarchy actually holds power is another thing. Define what you mean by power. Do you mean through the power to rule a country and make decisions or do you mean so by the popularity that they hold with the general public? If it is the first, then, you are right, the Queen etc. hold little or no power but if we refer to the latter then, in terms of popularity, the Royal family are a popular icon that people look up to. Now that is power! :)

Anyway, just to finish off, that'll teach Labour to try and de-grade the royals! See! the people still love the Queen and her family! So there! :p

Rome was plundered by the ancient Germans :p
410 and 455. The Germans funded states on the terrritory of romes Westempire. Old Odoaker pushed Romulus Augustus 476 from (?) his throne. And it finally ended with the dead of Julius Nepos (480).
Hard facts in bad english. :shame:

Oblate, the germanic tribes had sacked Rome alot of times before that and most of the latter emperors had been germans that had taken the throne. The Roman empire split a bit before in two parts East and West Rome. West Rome fell as you stated Oblate but the eastern part stood for almost another century.

I believe Ceaser is a title, which means Emperor. So I'd assume he was emperor at some point

Jupp, ceacar is the same word as tzar and kjejsare wich is emperor.

Btw, the hunnic horde swept west, and pushed the other barabarian tribes even more west into roman territory, when the romans denied them home within their borders battles emerged.

West Rome fell as you stated Oblate but the eastern part stood for almost another century.

Eastern Rome was the Byzantine empire, and that lasted until the 16th century.

Sniper, I meant the first definition that you pointed out. Also, the UK is not a "democratic" state. In a democracy, every person votes on every issue. Somehow I doubt that is true in the UK. In a Republic, the citizens elect people to represent them in a Congress or Parliament. So I stand by my original statement that the UK is a republic with feudalistic values.

Julius Caesar was not a true emperor, he was a consul who managed to oust his partners just before he was assassinated. Would that not have happened, he would have become an emperor. Either way, the Roman Republic ended with him.

His name was Gajus Julius Caesar, Julius was the family name and Caeser was the name you used when you talked to him. His adoptive son Octavianus (Octavian) who changed his name to Augustus also took the name Caesar and it changed from being a sur name to being a title. Caeser = Kaizer = Tzar = Kejsare etc it is only the english that uses another word for emperor, namely emperor ;)
But this is highly off topic! :yot:

"Capitalism= Give the money to the rich, and let the poor starve."

Really?

I'm neither starving nor rich, nobody gives me any money, and I would consider myself a capitalist. (I own a teency-weency fraction of a major oil company, for example.)

Capitalism is a very, very murky cocktail of hope, greed, good intention, and guile. And it works. Which is why socialist governments keep putting up their industries for auction to the public these days..

Capitalism is a very, very murky cocktail of hope, greed, good intention, and guile. And it works.

Of course. Whenever you can actually see a real benefit to it over other jobs, you're more likely to care enough to make it work.

Joacquin is correct about the origin of the title of Caesar, thanks for clearing that up.

Capitalism=Give the money to the rich, and let the poor starve?

Heh, he's probably going after us in the USA. Our rich people keep buying up more companies and such, making them richer, and (most) of them are greedy, and can't seem to pay their workers enough or donate to charity. Yes, I do consider myself a capitalist, but this is one of the problems with the US system.

[Corrected a spelling error I didn't catch earlier]

[This message has been edited by Rastor (edited July 17, 2002).]

Shouldn´t the world be more like give money to the poor and rich and let none starve??

something like Marxism perhaps??

Oh, and about that fall off Rome thing, the emperor neglected its armies and gave more money to culture (orgies and the likes). So when the Huns under the rule of Attila invaded Eastern Europe the "barbarians" panicked and crossed over the Rhine and Donau into Roman territory. Finally resulting in the overthrow of the Roman Empire

:coffee:

[This message has been edited by Morgoth (edited July 25, 2002).]