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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Even traditionally, monarchies were never really absolute in their power. The ones who were are quite notable of course, but it wasn't par for the course (except perhaps officially), and such absolute power decreased the larger and more prosperous the nation was.
Small principalities on the other hand, it was far more common, but economics and urbanization forced most of those to merge with the advent of industrialization.
@Rationalinsanity: A Republican Congress with a Trump Presidency wouldn't be doing anything that they otherwise wouldn't already be willing to do with say, Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio as President. The difference between Trump and other Republican candidates for President is that Trump replaces the dogwhistle with a bullhorn.
edited 3rd Jul '16 5:50:52 PM by GameGuruGG
Wizard Needs Food Badly@Euodiachloris - My point is that the article is arguing to those shelves "hey, maybe y'all have taken your point a bit too far and shouldn't diss the Revolution as much as you do". (And it's written by a liberal for liberals.) It's also not talking just about the landed gentry.
I don't really care about convincing you but I think it has some good points.
Also, when talking about the image of the founders as "gentry" it's worth considering that when the signers of the Declaration of Independence pledged their "lives, fortunes and sacred honor", it cost a number of them real hardship and suffering
. (Sorry for the right-wingnut link but it was the least troublesome I could find on short notice Link replaced by Snopes link which sorts out the ones that are true with ones that are mythical.)
edited 3rd Jul '16 6:23:54 PM by Elle
Absolutism was only limited by technology and infrastructure. Highly distributed power systems like fuedalism prevailed because the Roman highways deteriorated and the king of France had no way of directly administering outlying provinces, but as soon as the kings had the power, they tried to consolidate. The ones who failed (namely Charles II and the Glorious Revolution) were where the seeds of democracy were planted, because distributed power became normalized as an ideal rather than a reality. Those who succeeded in consolidating, like Louis XIV, set the tone for dictator-kings in Europe.
Yup.
"Feudalism" wasn't a single... thing. And, it wasn't as absolute as many today see it as having been. When most people think of "feudalism", what they're actually picturing is Absolute Monarchy, the various flavours of which evolved around the time of the Enlightenment.
Bargaining, factional and regional horse-trading between power blocs was a big thing in any medieval system. And, although weighted against those at the bottom... the unspoken reality was: piss them off too much, and everybody suffered. So, they did have rights and a form of representation. It was cruddy, but it was there (and the Catholic Church was a major part of it, funnily enough). When the very early signs of industrialisation started to arrive on the scene... that's when those rights started to get seriously eroded (and, the onset of the Reformation only added to the confusion). And, this was not, initially, at the hands of kings; it was more at the level of the local lords, barons and other landholders getting greedy and interpreting the old rules in this relatively new situation to their own favour in many small ways. None of it coordinated.
Russians also only started really converting their serf system into the horrendous beast it became... when technology allowed those in power to communicate and move more easily between areas. They were actively trying to restrict a huge part of the population from doing so as a control thing (and to keep cheap labour cheap). Something they could only get away with, ironically, because, although it got easier to travel, it remained freaking expensive over their long distances... and, the incredibly challenging terrain.
edited 3rd Jul '16 7:25:09 PM by Euodiachloris
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/bernie-sanders-democratic-platform-225070?cmpid=sf
At this point, the Dems just need to tell him to fuck off, explicitly. He LOST. The loser doesn't get to dictate the winner's platform.
New Survey coming this weekend!The Dems are ultimately a free trade party, and while TPP has its issues there is no way they will just reject it outright.
Sanders lost, he doesn't get to recreate the party in his image. Hell, he couldn't do that if he had won.
edited 3rd Jul '16 9:44:20 PM by Rationalinsanity
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.Someone, publicly, going off and giving Sanders a "Reason You Suck" Speech would give me nirvana.
New Survey coming this weekend!Seeing how the TPP needs to go and not opposing it would be a U Turn by Hillary... Go go Bernie!
I would vote for Trump over that thing.
I know people here have gone over why it being the end of the internet is hyperbole in the extreme, but I'm not one of those people, so I'll let someone else with more insight handle that. But frankly, thinking that saving the internet is worth a Trump presidency strikes me very much as, and I hate this term, first-world problems.
edited 3rd Jul '16 10:14:50 PM by LSBK
Yeah, I'm thinking that the idea that any one piece of legislation can destroy the internet (which in this case means letting companies pay for premium bandwidth or something I think) is kind of overstating the issue. Frankly, if you think Trump is somehow better than the TTP, which I don't think he's actually against, then your priorities are terribly skewed and you should re-examine your values. Trump isn't really against the TTP, he's just using it so he can talk tough and sound like he's for the American worker while espousing tons of other economic and foreign policy that quite frankly would be disastrous for everyone.
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Can we not go down that road, please? I'd like this thread to remain civil.
edited 3rd Jul '16 10:17:46 PM by AceofSpades
Even at its very worst (which is entirely hyperbolic), TPP would be better than a Trump presidency. You can undo a bad trade deal, if it really did result in corporations suing governments over laws or in the internet being threatened, then either governments would repeal it or protests/opposition parties winning elections would result in its repeal.
A Trump presidency (which might not stop TPP anyway, a good chunk of the GOP is still pro-free trade) would do irreversible damage in a variety of areas. The Supreme Court alone (next president gets to replace Scalia, probably Ginsberg and maybe Bayer at least) is reason to fight Trump like hell.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Checks and balances.
edited 3rd Jul '16 5:26:58 PM by Euodiachloris