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I felt to register after longetime lurking, after reading Op.
On April 19 2013 05:00 Arctic Daishi wrote:
While certainly some countries have very strong republican histories, such as the Czech Republic and Poland,
So much wrongness in the very first sentence. Trying to state some facts here for you:
Czech Republic: Former Kingdom of Boehmia and Maehria, other parts belonged to the Kingdom of Hungaria, Part of the Holy Roman Empire and later on Austria - Hungarian Empire, Capital Prague is the City with the first German speaking University founded in the 13. century.
Poland: Kingdom in Medieval times, splitted between German and Russian Interests. An actual Polish Kingdom with a Polish Crown only lastet for about 150 years split over the last 700 years, Polish areas were mostly lead by german stemming nobles since the middle ages.
Republic in czechia from 1918 to 1939, and from 1993 (1989-1993 Republic of Czecho-Slovakia) to now. In Poland from 1918 - 1936 , and from 1998 to now.
Thats for sure a "Very strong republican history".
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On April 20 2013 23:41 Iyerbeth wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2013 01:57 Iyerbeth wrote:
[spoiler=For Length]
The Stability Argument
The Claim
Many of the most developed countries in the world have monarchies. Indeed, many of the most stable in the world too. Without a monarchy, we would lose that stability.
Response
To this claim there is the obvious retort that many countries, including the US, are able to be stable and developed without a monarchy, and the fact that many monarchs around the world are anything but (for example, Saudi Arabia and Thailand). The point is that, it's more likely that stable countries keep their monarchs than that monarchs produce stable countries, not least because of the examples throughout history of countries after the removal of monarchs. Britain won't fall apart if the Windsors are removed from power.
In many of those countries, the monarchy, even if they don't use this power, control the army. The lastest attempt of coup on Spain (1981) was stopped thanks to our king, rejecting to seize that power to gain control of the country and condeming it. There are different cases for everything, Spain for example, withouth our king, we wouldn't have a democracy nowadays. And while i think it's an institution that should dissappear over time, many people is still thankful enough about it, except younger generations.
You also speak about the training from birth and you claim that a regular joe ambassador has the same image than a king. That's not true, specially when acting as diplomats with dictatorships, that they can go with a more neutral approach to be regarded differently. Hell, our king said something along the lines "are you going to shut up ?" to Chavez once when he was talking crazyness, and he just closed his mouth A regular diplomat never will have the same power by presence and title.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
the stable monarchies also have a strong liberal tradition in their politics. if you replace say, the north korean dictator guy with a king, that monarchy would not be very stable.
i guess an argument would be that, an awareness that it is the 'soft' tradition and ideals that keep stability rather than a formalistic, written system makes people more conscious of their active role in maintaining and upholding their political ideals. much like how a written constitution can sometimes give you clarence thomas while british jurisprudence doesn't have that kind of nonsense.
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On April 19 2013 08:05 DeepElemBlues wrote:
I really find those kinds of things hard to believe considering 1: The Tea Party 2: Obama's OFA organization 3: you can set up just about any kind of PAC you want these days and raise money for it without limit 4: referendums are used very frequently in the US at the state level 5: I'd have to look at how these things were measured by these studies, but quite frankly I think the facts of political participation in the US contradict them.
It's a very difficult question to measure. All attempts to measure it will be subject to criticism. But there are some attempts, such as the democracy index:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Democracy_Index_2012_green_and_red.svg
US is a 'full democracy', but far from the top performer.
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A survey was just held in the Netherlands; 73% of our population believes we should remain a kingdom, while 21% would rather become a republic.
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"The idea of being born into power or nobility has always been abhorrent and foreign to us. Many have even pointed out that the reason the European Union is allowed to exist in it's current form, is because the idea of being ruled by unelected elites is a fundamental part of their cultures."
The usa is no different realy, the usa is also ruled by an unelected elite and while the idea of beeing born into power and nobility might seem foreign to you, manny americans are born into power as well, for instance the rockefeller clan or the bush clan, or other rich clans. They might not have the nobility but that doesnt realy matter. The nobility is just a token, its the power that matters and in that regard the usa is no different.
Its also worth noting that officially the monarch has no power in the netherlands, its just a symbolic function. Our system can be described as a constitutional monarchy (wich i could not find as option in the opening post) where the administration/government is 100% responsible for everything the queen says and does, the queen therefor has to follow all directions and recommandations given to her by the administration/government and is not allowed to voice her own opinnion basicly.
She does off course have some influence due to the network of her family wich dates back centurys.But this influence is rather limited and officially there is none. Maybe it can be compared with the influence lobby groups have on the usa government, though i doubt the influence of our queen can even be compared to that (i think the lobby groups in the usa have far more influence on usa politics then the queen has on the politics of the netherlands)
There has been 1 big scandal in the netherlands in the 70,s. Where prince bernhard (may he rest in piece) took a bribe from lockheed of about 4m$ i believe to influence the dutch government into buying lockheed fighter jets. This then became public and an investigation was done and the prince was punished.
The prince got stripped of pretty much all his priviliges due to this and he was more or less publicly humiliated. They definatly dont stand above the law.
Personally i dont like the influence lobby groups have on national politics and as such i am not to happy with the netherlands beeing a monarchy,what we should not forget though is that if we remove the monarchy, the influence will stay. The influence is a result of the important position the royal family had in the past 100,s of years and the network and wealth they aquired in thoose years. This can not be erased by erasing the monarchy and the monarchy has a few important benefits for the netherlands as a whole. As such i do support the monarchy we have in the netherlands, i think her majesty queen beatrix specially did a verry good job in supporting dutch interest all over the world in manny cases.
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On April 21 2013 08:22 Holo82 wrote:I felt to register after longetime lurking, after reading Op. Show nested quote +On April 19 2013 05:00 Arctic Daishi wrote:
While certainly some countries have very strong republican histories, such as the Czech Republic and Poland, So much wrongness in the very first sentence. Trying to state some facts here for you: Czech Republic: Former Kingdom of Boehmia and Maehria, other parts belonged to the Kingdom of Hungaria, Part of the Holy Roman Empire and later on Austria - Hungarian Empire, Capital Prague is the City with the first German speaking University founded in the 13. century. Poland: Kingdom in Medieval times, splitted between German and Russian Interests. An actual Polish Kingdom with a Polish Crown only lastet for about 150 years split over the last 700 years, Polish areas were mostly lead by german stemming nobles since the middle ages. Republic in czechia from 1918 to 1939, and from 1993 (1989-1993 Republic of Czecho-Slovakia) to now. In Poland from 1918 - 1936 , and from 1998 to now. Thats for sure a "Very strong republican history".
So much wrong, basically every sentence is either wrong or misleading.
It was Republic of Czechoslovakia from 1918-1939, after that in exile, then from 1945-1949, after that still republic, but communist one. Poland was also republic fro 1989, not 1998. Poland was also first country in Europe to have a constitution (modern democratic one) in 1791, second in the world after US.
And yes Czechoslovakia has strong republican (democratic would be better) history, he did not claim long, just strong. Also thank you for reminding us that we were conquered and dominated by Germans for hundreds of years. Also note that Charles University was not a German one when it was founded, it was multi-national one as it was founded before we were incorporated into Austria. But yes it was first one in Central Europe, tough luck for nationalist Germans who would like to claim it for themselves.
Polish Kingdom was founded around year 1000 and existed until 1795, that is much more than 150 years you claim. Polish lands were not lead by German-based nobles, Poland was in alliance with Lithuania and was except for short time in 18th century lead by Polish and Lithuanian kings. You know absolutely nothing about history of Poland.
EDIT: should be 1945-48
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On April 24 2013 02:11 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2013 08:22 Holo82 wrote:I felt to register after longetime lurking, after reading Op. On April 19 2013 05:00 Arctic Daishi wrote:
While certainly some countries have very strong republican histories, such as the Czech Republic and Poland, So much wrongness in the very first sentence. Trying to state some facts here for you: Czech Republic: Former Kingdom of Boehmia and Maehria, other parts belonged to the Kingdom of Hungaria, Part of the Holy Roman Empire and later on Austria - Hungarian Empire, Capital Prague is the City with the first German speaking University founded in the 13. century. Poland: Kingdom in Medieval times, splitted between German and Russian Interests. An actual Polish Kingdom with a Polish Crown only lastet for about 150 years split over the last 700 years, Polish areas were mostly lead by german stemming nobles since the middle ages. Republic in czechia from 1918 to 1939, and from 1993 (1989-1993 Republic of Czecho-Slovakia) to now. In Poland from 1918 - 1936 , and from 1998 to now. Thats for sure a "Very strong republican history". So much wrong, basically every sentence is either wrong or misleading. It was Republic of Czechoslovakia from 1918-1939, after that in exile, then from 1945-1949, after that still republic, but communist one. Poland was also republic fro 1989, not 1998. Poland was also first country in Europe to have a constitution (modern democratic one) in 1791, second in the world after US. And yes Czechoslovakia has strong republican (democratic would be better) history, he did not claim long, just strong. Also thank you for reminding us that we were conquered and dominated by Germans for hundreds of years. Also note that Charles University was not a German one when it was founded, it was multi-national one as it was founded before we were incorporated into Austria. But yes it was first one in Central Europe, tough luck for nationalist Germans who would like to claim it for themselves. Polish Kingdom was founded around year 1000 and existed until 1795, that is much more than 150 years you claim. Polish lands were not lead by German-based nobles, Poland was in alliance with Lithuania and was except for short time in 18th century lead by Polish and Lithuanian kings. You know absolutely nothing about history of Poland. EDIT: should be 1945-48
If we're going to be pedantic, half of your statements are either wrong or deceptive.
-Holo did not claim that the Kingdom of Poland only existed for 150 years, he claimed, although awkwardly, that it only possessed a Polish dynasty for 150 years.
-It was the Czecho-slovak/Czechoslovak Republic up until 1938
-Second Czecho-Slovak Republic October 38-March 39
-Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia/Slovak Republic thereafter
-The Czech National Congress was not the legal successor of the Second Czecho-Slovak Republic, as it was not set up until 7 months after the dissolution of Czecho-Slovakia, and no one recognised it until 1941.
-The Polish Constitution, like the American Constitution was based on Montesquieuian precepts of a mixed government and separation of powers. It was not 'Democratic.'
-The Saxon dynasty was not the only non-Polish, non-Lithuanian dynasty to ascend to the Polish throne in history, although it was the only instance of a dynastic union between the Polish crown and any German prince.
-If Prague of 1348 is seen as a bi-national town, and its university seen as a multi-national establishment, and the HRE is seen as a Medieval-Roman entity rather than the predecessor state of the modern Germanies, then in all fairness the status of the Kingdom of Bohemia as a member of the HRE of the German Nation, where it possessed greater legal autonomy and more rights than any other integral unit, cannot be viewed as a period of German domination, nor could the Habsburg crown lands be connected with the German national identity until the official Germanisation decrees of Joseph II. The period between the Czech National Awakening and the establishment of a Czechoslovak state was less than a century, and not 'many centuries.' If on the other hand you want to anachronistically project national identity into periods when it was relatively unimportant, then you must accept that Prague was already by the 14th century a largely Germanised town, and remained a predominantly German town until the 19th century.
P.S. I thought the first 'Central European' University was the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, but I suppose you would refer to that as Eastern Europe. What mcc means by calling the Charles University the first 'Central European' University, is to say that it was the first University established within the confines of the HRE, which is in his mind synonymous with 'Central Europe.' In other words, he's telling us that the Charles University was the first university in Germany, and it was non-German.
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i think unitary republic is so much better, no more it depends on what state you live in. Just
what the federal law is, is the law of the land, also taxes are easier to understand.
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On April 24 2013 07:30 MoltkeWarding wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2013 02:11 mcc wrote:On April 21 2013 08:22 Holo82 wrote:I felt to register after longetime lurking, after reading Op. On April 19 2013 05:00 Arctic Daishi wrote:
While certainly some countries have very strong republican histories, such as the Czech Republic and Poland, So much wrongness in the very first sentence. Trying to state some facts here for you: Czech Republic: Former Kingdom of Boehmia and Maehria, other parts belonged to the Kingdom of Hungaria, Part of the Holy Roman Empire and later on Austria - Hungarian Empire, Capital Prague is the City with the first German speaking University founded in the 13. century. Poland: Kingdom in Medieval times, splitted between German and Russian Interests. An actual Polish Kingdom with a Polish Crown only lastet for about 150 years split over the last 700 years, Polish areas were mostly lead by german stemming nobles since the middle ages. Republic in czechia from 1918 to 1939, and from 1993 (1989-1993 Republic of Czecho-Slovakia) to now. In Poland from 1918 - 1936 , and from 1998 to now. Thats for sure a "Very strong republican history". So much wrong, basically every sentence is either wrong or misleading. It was Republic of Czechoslovakia from 1918-1939, after that in exile, then from 1945-1949, after that still republic, but communist one. Poland was also republic fro 1989, not 1998. Poland was also first country in Europe to have a constitution (modern democratic one) in 1791, second in the world after US. And yes Czechoslovakia has strong republican (democratic would be better) history, he did not claim long, just strong. Also thank you for reminding us that we were conquered and dominated by Germans for hundreds of years. Also note that Charles University was not a German one when it was founded, it was multi-national one as it was founded before we were incorporated into Austria. But yes it was first one in Central Europe, tough luck for nationalist Germans who would like to claim it for themselves. Polish Kingdom was founded around year 1000 and existed until 1795, that is much more than 150 years you claim. Polish lands were not lead by German-based nobles, Poland was in alliance with Lithuania and was except for short time in 18th century lead by Polish and Lithuanian kings. You know absolutely nothing about history of Poland. EDIT: should be 1945-48 If we're going to be pedantic, half of your statements are either wrong or deceptive. -Holo did not claim that the Kingdom of Poland only existed for 150 years, he claimed, although awkwardly, that it only possessed a Polish dynasty for 150 years.
And he was wrong.
On April 24 2013 07:30 MoltkeWarding wrote:
-It was the Czecho-slovak/Czechoslovak Republic up until 1938
-Second Czecho-Slovak Republic October 38-March 39
-Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia/Slovak Republic thereafter
-The Czech National Congress was not the legal successor of the Second Czecho-Slovak Republic, as it was not set up until 7 months after the dissolution of Czecho-Slovakia, and no one recognised it until 1941.
It was still Czechoslovak Republic until 1939, I have no idea what do you think I said wrong ? I did not mean to imply that exile government was continuation of Czechoslovak Republic, otherwise I would just say it was Czechoslovak Republic from 1918-1948. I specifically excluded that period, but probably bad wording on my part.
On April 24 2013 07:30 MoltkeWarding wrote:
-The Polish Constitution, like the American Constitution was based on Montesquieuian precepts of a mixed government and separation of powers. It was not 'Democratic.'
Well I consider American one democratic, if you want to quibble over details of republic vs democracy we can do that, but does not change the point I was making one bit.
On April 24 2013 07:30 MoltkeWarding wrote:
-The Saxon dynasty was not the only non-Polish, non-Lithuanian dynasty to ascend to the Polish throne in history, although it was the only instance of a dynastic union between the Polish crown and any German prince.
True, there were some others, still his estimate and claim that German nobles ruled Polish lands is wrong.
On April 24 2013 07:30 MoltkeWarding wrote:
-If Prague of 1348 is seen as a bi-national town, and its university seen as a multi-national establishment, and the HRE is seen as a Medieval-Roman entity rather than the predecessor state of the modern Germanies, then in all fairness the status of the Kingdom of Bohemia as a member of the HRE of the German Nation, where it possessed greater legal autonomy and more rights than any other integral unit, cannot be viewed as a period of German domination, nor could the Habsburg crown lands be connected with the German national identity until the official Germanisation decrees of Joseph II. The period between the Czech National Awakening and the establishment of a Czechoslovak state was less than a century, and not 'many centuries.' If on the other hand you want to anachronistically project national identity into periods when it was relatively unimportant, then you must accept that Prague was already by the 14th century a largely Germanised town, and remained a predominantly German town until the 19th century.
P.S. I thought the first 'Central European' University was the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, but I suppose you would refer to that as Eastern Europe. What mcc means by calling the Charles University the first 'Central European' University, is to say that it was the first University established within the confines of the HRE, which is in his mind synonymous with 'Central Europe.' In other words, he's telling us that the Charles University was the first university in Germany, and it was non-German.
Nah, I was just reacting to his blatant nationalism with exaggeration. Your description is mostly on point if we ignore the P.S.. There were periods though where Prague was not predominantly German town in that timeframe. And I would actually never call it predominantly German at all, but that is neither here nor there.
And no, Jagiellonian University is also in Central Europe, but it was not first as it was founded later than Charles University. And no HRE is not synonymous with Central Europe in my mind. Central Europe is much broader term. And it was never in Germany, many territories that were part of HRE were not in Germany. Unless in your mind HRE = Germany, yet you just before claimed how that term is not really applicable in those times. Stop explaining what I am saying if you have no clue what I am actually saying.
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EPT
