When trying to sound smart, don’t quote the Random House Dictionary (or, in your words, the dictionary). It’s not a work of scholarship; it’s more like a primer. For beginners.
Now, if they had said “1932 ALL OVER AGAIN” (referring to FDR’s election), then they would have a . . . aw, shit . . . if only! If only Obama could be another FDR instead of another Clinton! 
Of course, in the eyes of these assclowns there’s probably not much choose, anyway, between Hitler, Stalin, and FDR. And Clinton, for that matter.
Direct your criticism to the poster to whom I was responding. It was he (or she) who implied that East Germany was lying when it called itself a republic. By your very own citation, this implication is incorrect.
Um, you do realize the merriam webster link you posted says the same damn thing, right? Do you still think “a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law” is a, in your words, “connotation”?
Look, you’re the asshole that was trying to sound smart by saying that the damn meaning of the word was just a connotation that the U.S. people merely “believe.” If you want to be pedantic, at least get it right. You didn’t, so I posted.
On preview, psychonaut, you have my apologies, I shouldn’t have included you in my post.
Even as a fifty-one-year old myself who trends towards the extremely casual in dress, and hates being asked to wear anything other than jeans or a swimsuit, I find my nose figuratively wrinkling and my eyes squinting with disdain at forty- and fifty-somethings who are willing to display themselves publicly in message T-shirts. I imagine the letters are in dark print on a light background color, the better to display their substantial torsos.
It doesn’t bother me nearly as much as their politics, but still.
I have little doubt that it was specifically referring to the year Hitler was made Chancellor.
Its the year Obama was really born. You won’t be hearing from those people again, they disappeared. In the night.
Wow, I never knew that. I’ve lived in the United Kingdom all my life and never realised it was a republic. Best not tell the Queen. Or Martin McGuinness.
For fucks sake, it’s not a Republic it’s a Constitutional monarchy.
Here’s a clue, Parliament *passes *laws, who signs the assent *into *law?
That’s not to say a parliamentary democracy can’t be a Republic and it’s not to say the distinction can’t be slight, but the former is not the case in the UK and I don’t think the latter is the case in the UK at the moment.
Case in point: Queen has lunch with Mervyn King, half a world away Gordon Brown shits his pants and commits a 180’ turn on a second stimulas package.
Are you suggesting that the Queen has any sort of leverage on economic policy? I call bullshit. She wasn’t involved in the debate, public or otherwise.
Of couse she wasn’t involved in the debate. That’s not how it works.
And then the date on this.
Same day, Gordon Brown did a 180’ on a second stimulas package.
I may not have described what happened clearly, but it did happen and it happened because matters had got to the point where Brown’s policy was impinging on the national interest, the nation state. It was time to say enough.
Hmm, I wasn’t aware of the timing issue with regard to Mervyn King’s statement. I suppose it’ll be a few decades before we find out what was said behind those doors, or more likely never. I’ll admit it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that she supported and privately advocated King making a statement, though I find it difficult to believe he would have acted under her direction alone. His position was already against the second bail-out. If push come to shove, and if it was simply the monarchy trying to dictate the moves, rather than the balance of public and economic opinion, parliament would win out. Charles, as king, is definitely going to prove a more vocal problem.
Let him get on a plane with Prince Philip and he’ll never be king.
Someone made a phone call, didn’t they. You have to presume it was King going outside the chain of command, and that he wouldn’t have called in Brown’s credit card without first getting the support of Her Madge. Unique times, of course.
Brown had lost the plot though, well perspective anyway.
The funny part was Brown’s response; he was half way around the world in Chile when King went to the palace for tea - trying to drum up support for his soon to be forgotton second stimulas - and before you know it, he’s in a tv studio mumbling about Primogeniture. In the middle of the worst econmic crisis imaginable, and a week before te G20 in London. Lost it.
I’ve also heard it characterized as a “crowned republic.”
Arguably it was a constitutional monarchy in the 18th Century, a crowned republic in the 20th, and the shift came sometime in the 19th.
You know, this is great and all, but when you get right down to it, what you are really describing has all the hallmarks of a classic conspiracy theory: if virtually any move the government makes can be envisioned as the first step toward totalitarianism – even things that are eminently sensible by any rational standard of governmental responsibility – then no move by the government (save doing nothing) can allay those fears; and no reasoned argument will be accepted.
If you’re right, then you’re not so much saying that understanding them might lead to effective debate; you’re saying that there is no way to debate them at all.
You just figured that out!?
From The Nation:
I wouldn’t go that far, though.
I think they can be reasoned with, if we pitch it as a change in degree without being a change in kind. Forget the jokes about ignorant hicks who scream about keeping the government about of my Medicare; just take that as a starting point, and pitch reform as making Medicare available to every citizen.
Y’all know Medicare, right? We’ve had it for decades? Your uncle is on it?
Don’t get roped into talking about some new initiative called a public option. Just talk about this fine bit of Americana that’s been working so well for so long, under so many Republican presidents, and et cetera. Do not talk about how they do things over in Europe. Do not talk about bold sweeping change. Just emphasize only that you’re doing more of the same, while emphasizing big heaping gobs of transparency.
All IMHO, of course.
Really Not All That Bright: If your classification scheme classifies Germany with North Korea and the UK with Saudi Arabia, it’s broken. You can argue for the 19th Century definition of ‘republic’ or you can move into a post-WWI universe of discourse.
Here’s how the words are used now: If people can vote and those votes matter (modulo relatively short-lived irregularities), the country is a Democracy. Let go of the stupid Middle School Civics definition that equated Democracy with Direct Democracy, for it was wrong even before 1917. Democracy, then, contrasts with Dictatorship, and Republic is a subset of Democracy that contrasts (to the extent it has to) with Direct Democracy.
This also means the UK and Canada are both functionally Republics (and, thus, Democracies) in the common use of the term. This actually makes real-world sense: The real power in those countries rests in Parliaments, and those bodies are formed of MPs chosen by free and fair elections. They are, in short, much closer to America and Germany than they are to North Korea or Saudi Arabia.
Your definitions made sense when Republics were rare in the world and most (important) Monarchies were European Monarchies and, thus, one big feuding family. That was perfectly true in the 18th Century and I’m sure Locke, Jefferson, and George III would all agree with you, once George consulted with the mighty oaks. It became less true throughout the 19th Century and was taken out and shot in 1917-1918. The final blow was the rise of Dictatorships without monarchs as the primary movers in world politics.
Saudi Arabia is an Islamic absolute monarchy. It does not fit the descriptor of concurrent parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy, which describes the UK. I have never heard the UK ever described as a republic by anyone, ever. My Oxford Dictionary agrees with me.