OT: US President (US Dom Players only)

[Tifone]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Cute. Godwins Law I knew of course. But thats the first time I remember seeing it put into logic rules as Reducto_ad_Hitlerium.

It's actually a so called fallacy
Still works among us lil' wannabe lawyers

[Tichy]

It's a circular argument form of a very rare type. It actually requires two arguers.

It goes approximately like this:

Arguer A: Your guy's a fascist!
Arguer B: No! Your guy's a fascist!
Repeat.

It is closely related to two other well known argumentative fallacies, the Argument from Say the Same thing Louder, and the Argument from I say X therefore X.

[JimMorrison]

Well apparently after GW Bush had the audacity and ill-sense to speak of Nazi appeasement while speaking to Isreal, Nazi/Hitler references are in vogue again.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by lch

It runs in parallel because there was a stock market crash, too. The things that are done to combat hyperinflation are the same. But what brought down the Weimar Republic was that the chancellor could abuse power too easily and subvert the system by emergency decrees, in times of war for example.

Where have you been seven years ago?

That is *far* too simplistic an argument on what down the Weimar republic. Massive unemployment, war debts, disaffected youth, hyperinflation, and a belief that the country had been betrayed.
Looking from the german perspective, at the time of the armistice it was not nearly so obvious that germany had lost - and so what was a smart move by the germans military .. turned against them politically as rabble rousers drummed up a distrust of the govt.

[Gregstrom]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

Otherwise, we must both bow to the assumption that Despotism is the superior form of government, as the greatest empires of all time, Alexander the Great's Greece, and Ghengis Khan's Mongolia, were essentially led by intensely charismatic and intelligent dictators. Ignoring that fact, is arbitrarily skewing results towards some sort of representative government, and thus ignoring the ability of a strong dictator to make a nation grow and flourish beyond expectations.

Just to stir a little , but I can think of two other greatest empires of all time: British (certainly covered the greatest area) and Roman (pretty impressive longevity and impact on western ways of thinking). Both ran a form of democracy (I wouldn't call them very representative democracies, though - OTOH, is a system where a 52%/48% split of the popular vote can equate to a 70%/30% college vote really that representative?), with a noticeable proportion of politicians who were corrupt or held extreme viewpoints. They had two-house systems of government, and rich and influential families kept on getting members elected to positions of political power on the basis of name and family influence for multiple generations.

I match you, and raise you one herring!

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

That is *far* too simplistic an argument on what down the Weimar republic. Massive unemployment, war debts, disaffected youth, hyperinflation, and a belief that the country had been betrayed.
Looking from the german perspective, at the time of the armistice it was not nearly so obvious that germany had lost - and so what was a smart move by the germans military .. turned against them politically as rabble rousers drummed up a distrust of the govt.

For someone who argues for the validity of extraneous circumstances, it seems like there is an incredibly thin comparison between current United States, and Germany between WW1 and WW2. That said, -your- description of the problems that Germany was facing, does very much sound like the America that GW Bush has gifted us all with.

[lch]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

That is *far* too simplistic an argument on what down the Weimar republic.

I won't get into lengths about it on an internet forum, but it's, distilled into one sentence, what managed to end the Weimar republic being a republic with multiple parties and turning it into a dictatorship. As to the why and how, the reasons, and the "dagger-thrust" legend and so on, I expect that people educate themselves about that elsewhere, but not on an internet forum.

[chrispedersen]

We just got through 8 of the worst years of governance in this nation's history, and McCain looked to want to continue walking down that same path - at least give the alternative a chance to step into office and prove he can do even just a LITTLE BIT better than what we've been trained to accept.

See,

This is the problem with politics. I felt the 8 years under clinton were *horrible*. A president *lied* under oath, before a court, and then his political allies said party is more important than principle and ensured he got away with it.

Clinton tomahawked sudan - knowing osama wasn't there, and ended up paying restitution just to sway the wavering and distract attention from the impeachment vote. And while you leftists decry that 'bush lied and people died'.. pretty much you ignore the same thing when Clinton did it.

But, I have no problem giving obama a chance - I think we all should. I do think his shutting down gitmo and granting terrorists the rights of us citizens is appauling. I really can't understate that enough. Keep a lawyer employed!

But my real objection was the statement 'the worst governance in our history'. I doubt it actually qualifies as that - I can think of plenty of other stellar examples.

But even if it does, I include democrats in that 'worst governance'. I consider much of this financial debacle to be democrat inspired - from running Fannie and freddie like a democratic piggy bank, to requiring banks to make a certain percentage of their loans be to non credit worthy customers..

I guess what I'm trying to say Jim, is we can continue in this endless cycle of recrimination, or we can tone the invective down, agree that we have problems, and try to solve them civilly.

[Tifone]

Originally Posted by Tichy

It's a circular argument form of a very rare type. It actually requires two arguers.

It goes approximately like this:

Arguer A: Your guy's a fascist!
Arguer B: No! Your guy's a fascist!
Repeat.

Actually, IMHO, it goes more this way:

A: My guy wants to help the poor and lower taxes! And he loves animals so much he became vegetarian!
B: Hey, you know who else lowered taxes? Hitler! And he was also vegetarian! Your guy's exactly like Hitler so! He's gonna put on a Nazist regime, kill the innocents etc. etc.

Totally illogical of course, but of great effect on the weak minds (Star Wars FTW) as every logical fallacy.

This one is often used currently against Atheists. I met and heard people saying that Nazism did what he did because Hitler was atheist
Of course "forgetting" the motto -Gott mit uns- and Hitler's famous speech "Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."; the "German Reich Christian Church" he established in 1933 etc...

Not of course that one would say that he did his utterly evil actions because he was Christian or whatever, it would be crazy c'mon But many today like to go anti-atheism going for "Stalin and Hitler were mass-murder tyrants because they didn't believe in God" I'm not even atheist but you know, some things should really p*ss off any rational being.

Long OT, sorry ^^

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Gregstrom

Just to stir a little , but I can think of two other greatest empires of all time: British (certainly covered the greatest area) and Roman (pretty impressive longevity and impact on western ways of thinking). Both ran a form of democracy (I wouldn't call them very representative democracies, though - OTOH, is a system where a 52%/48% split of the popular vote can equate to a 70%/30% college vote really that representative?), with a noticeable proportion of politicians who were corrupt or held extreme viewpoints. They had two-house systems of government, and rich and influential families kept on getting members elected to positions of political power on the basis of name and family influence for multiple generations.

I match you, and raise you one herring!

Well, Rome was quite proud and wealthy, but the ultimate power was more of an Aristocracy than anything. They had a rather effective means of keeping public favor, by involving the plebes to a degree, essentially letting them deal with petty affairs, while the wealthy elite maintained their own agendas - funded by the state.

Great Britain is not really a good example though. The map that I saw that seemed unreasonably comprehensive - actually was. It seemed to simply highlight every piece of land that Britain ever "claimed". Bear in mind, there are miles of grey area between "claiming" something, and actually governing or administering to it. For example, Australia was largely a penal colony. Britain itself had little dealings with most of the landmass, but in absence of a powerful and organized governing body, they "claimed" the entirety. The irony here is that this did not even begin to occur until America established independence. That is to say, while the map shows most of North America, as well as Australia as being owned by Great Britain, Britain did not own both at the same time. I am not really looking to do a comprehensive search on the rest, but I would postulate that many of the regions of Africa that Britain "claimed", it also simply did so in the absence of any other "claimant" with world power, and they similarly did little with that claim other than show it on maps - for later of course, I'm sure.


As to your point about how our system works - I totally agree. I will not balk at the implication that our political system is broken. I think we'd be in much better shape with 30 parties running, and candidates being victorious with 10% of the vote (though for President I would think 2 rounds of voting would be in order, the first narrowing to 3 candidates, then everyone voting again - something like that, not married to it).

Personally I believe that as far as the Senate goes, that on the state level many more representatives should be elected - but with a very meager salary, and little actual responsibilities. Their responsibility would be mainly to raise awareness in their particular district to the issues at hand, and to collect votes, which they would then forward on a 1:1 basis to the Federal level.