A few thoughts

These are just a few thoughts that have been running around my head for a few days.

1. Our colleges and universities are not dominated by liberals, but it is quite possible for conservatives to feel that they are under attack when they get into a classroom. This is for a very simple reason:

Conservatives believe stupid shit.

For example, there is a right wing nut job in my class on constitutional design. He was angered a couple weeks ago when the Professor was discussing whether or not it is important that a country chooses to include a mention of religion or God in a preamble to a constitution. Apparently, the dipshit thought the Professor was trying to argue that the U.S. is not a Christian nation, which besides being entirely irrelevant to the actual discussion, is a perfect example of the stupid shit that conservatives believe.

A second example comes from said winger, who, in the same discussion, became angry because I characterized the United States as a 'democracy' and not a 'republic.' Of course, I quickly reminded him that there is no difference between the two. See October of 2005 for my history with that argument.

2. Let me now clear up that argument about republics and democracies. First, my understanding from a political science standpoint is that there are really only two regime types: authoritarianism and democracy. Those can be the only two types of government, or possibly conceived of as opposite extremes on a continuum of possible government types.

In any case, authoritarianism is generally defined by a lack of effective popular control. Democracy, on the other hand, can be thought of as having three essential elements: a) free, fair, and regular elections; b) inclusion of all groups or individuals in the political processes and civil society; and c) legal (and effective) protections for civil rights and civil liberties, especially freedom of conscience and freedom of association.

What is noticeably missing from this definition is representation. Of course, there are subtypes of democratic regime types. So, it is possible that the free, fair, and regular elections are not for representatives but for referenda, propositions, or other forms of direct participation. Alternatively, the elections can select representatives who will later make policy. In other words, the above definition works for both direct democracy and representative democracy.

And "representative democracy" is precisely what most people mean when they say 'republic.' Thus, 'republic' is a subtype of 'democracy,' and all republics are democracies.

It is now important to note that, to the best of my knowledge, there is no direct democracy existing in the world. So, although there is a theoretical subset of "democratic regimes" that are direct democracies, no such democracies exist, and therefore, in reality all democracies are representative democracies or 'republics'.

Thus, all democracies are republics, and all republics are democracies. Hence, there is no difference between a republic and a democracy.

3. The nutjob in my class is the type of person who wants the U.S. to be a republic because he is a Republican. That is another example of stupid shit that conservatives believe.

4. Electoral systems: One argument for Proportional Representation is that it allows political parties to mirror the beliefs of the public, and therefore increases representation. One argument for a first past the post system is that it produces majoritarian governments, i.e. there is one party that is a clear winner and controls the government, and therefore FPTP systems produce more effective government. These two arguments are supposed to be opposed to each other such that PR produces better representation, but less effective government and FPTP produces the reverse--better government but worse representation.

To me, this is a fatal to FPTP. After all, it is not at all clear that our government is more effective for having a single party control a majority in the House or the Senate.

The argument for FPTP, however, often goes that it forces the contending parties to moderate their positions in order to appeal to the widest plurality possible in order to win elections. This is wrong for at least two reasons.

First, FPTP, under normal conditions has a tendency to produce two party systems. This occurs when there are no geographically concentrated interests that cannot be appealed to through general policy goals, and when parties can be relatively strong, i.e. there are high barriers to entry for new parties. Under a two party system, the voter is manipulated by the electoral system in so far as an individual voter is presented with only two options, and they have to decide which the lesser evil.

The point is that even if a particular candidate did not try to "move to the center" in order to appeal to a wide audience, many people would still vote for that candidate because the opposition would look worse.

Second, even when candidates do try to build coalitions before an election in order to establish broad support, there is no protection for those interests after the election. In FPTP systems that produce single party majorities in a congress or parliament, after the candidate has your vote and his party is in the majority, there is no effective check on the party enacting its agenda in congress. Put simply, a candidate may say one thing during the campaign but do another when sitting in Congress.

PR, on the other hand, when it produces multiple parties, ensures that no one party can control congress and unilaterally enact its agenda. Thus, there is a check on a party that would seek to lie to the public in order to get elected.

Just a thought.