The American form of Gov't

[Jay]

http://www.flixxy.com/political-systems.htm

I found this interesting.

[*T*]

Re: The American form of Gov't

http://www.flixxy.com/political-systems.htm

I found this interesting.

It's also untrue, or at least too 1-dimensional. [I'm referring to the left-right classification].

I think this is a more useful measure http://www.politicalcompass.org/. They use a statistical methodology to come up with two major axes that predict the candidate's political opinions, based on a standardised test.

Take the test, it's very interesting.

The old one-dimensional categories of 'right' and 'left', established for the seating arrangement of the French National Assembly of 1789, are overly simplistic for today's complex political landscape. For example, who are the 'conservatives' in today's Russia? Are they the unreconstructed Stalinists, or the reformers who have adopted the right-wing views of conservatives like Margaret Thatcher?
On the standard left-right scale, how do you distinguish leftists like Stalin and Gandhi? It's not sufficient to say that Stalin was simply more left than Gandhi. There are fundamental political differences between them that the old categories on their own can't explain. Similarly, we generally describe social reactionaries as 'right-wingers', yet that leaves left-wing reactionaries like Robert Mugabe and Pol Pot off the hook.

A reference:



US primaries:


UK parties:




And on the page http://www.politicalcompass.org/iconochasms such gems as

Who wrote of the "impeccable economic logic" of dumping the west's "health impairing" toxic waste in "under polluted" Africa, because the resultant cancers wouldn't have time to develop in a population with such a low life expectancy ?

Lawrence Summers, as Chief Econonomist for the World Bank, in a leaked memo, December 12,1991. Brazil's Environment Minister, Jose Lutzenburger, wrote to Summers that his proposal was "perfectly logical but toally insane". Lutzenburger was fired for writing the letter. Summers went on to greater things, initially as Treasury Secretary in the final 18 months of the Clinton administration, and now as Barak Obama's Chair of the National Economic Council.

Who said that the introduction of nuclear power will both provide for the growing needs of Iran's economy and free remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals?

Henry Kissinger , as Secretary of State in the Ford administration, 1976.

When the Know-Nothings get control, it [the Declaration of Independence] will read: "All men are created equal except negroes, foreigners and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy?

Abraham Lincoln, letter to Joshua F Speed, August 24, 1855, from Albert J Menendez and Edd Doerr The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom

Who said I have a horrible feeling that we are sinking into a police state ?

George Churchill-Coleman on the U.K., reported in The Guardian January 28, 2005

"These so-called ill-treatments and torturing in concentration camps, stories of which were spread everywhere amongst the people, and particularly by detainees who were liberated by the occupying armies, were not, as assumed, inflicted methodically, but by individual leaders, sub-leaders , and men who laid violent hands on them. "

Rudolf Höss, Commandant of Auschwitz until 1943, in his post-war testimony

[D-Mack]

Re: The American form of Gov't

It's clear that it's a oligarchy now.
But I'm not sure that this was the intention like others claim.

Sandro Cruz: ¿Could you explain how that election, that electoral system works?

Thierry Meyssan: It is a puzzle that most citizens do not understand. Since the founding of the United States itself, they voluntarily chose a very complex electoral system and it became even more complicated with the passage of time. The Constitution of the United States was conceived according to the Declaration of Independence. The objective was to stop a potentially revolutionary process and set up a national oligarchy that would replace British aristocracy. Alexander Hamilton –the father of the Constitution – designed a system that would avoid any and all kind of popular sovereignty: Federalism.

The term is ambiguous. In Old Europe it is used to identify a kind of political and democratic unity that respects identities and partially maintains some forms of sovereignty. For instance, you recall the Helvetic Confederation. Hamilton, on his part, did not perceive the system from the basis up to the upper layers, but on the other way around, from the upper layers down to the basis. He did not federate local communities to create the states; he divided the estate by using local communities. Such ambiguity gave birth to the American Civil War (and we must recall that such a war had nothing to do with slavery, since slavery was abolished by the North during that war in order to massively recruit black soldiers). (…)

Sandro Cruz: Let’s make a pause here…It is, in fact, a very complex system and we have to slow down so that it can be understood. I would like this interview to become a sort of manual for those who are not specialists in this subject. You just said that: «he did not federate local communities to create states but divided the state using local communities.» It is hard for me to understand the second part of your statement. As a matter of fact, someone rules those states and that someone comes from a local community. Then, who has the political power in those states? And is there a real democratic selection at that social level?

Thierry Meyssan: For Alexander Hamilton, his fear of the «pleb» and his desire of setting up a US oligarchy equivalent to the British gentry were like an obsession. With the time, his political ideas included all kinds of hurdles to keep the people out of US policy.

http://www.voltairenet.org/article157308.html

[Jay]

Re: The American form of Gov't

Thanks *T* interesting test and perspective.