Post #72,496
1/4/03 2:48:54 PM
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What constitutes legitimacy of a political regime?
How about these as minimum requirements:
1. A functional rule of law as the general case for all citizens and members of government.
2. Basic human rights for citizens given substantial practical support.
3. A working mechanism by which widely unpopular leaders can be removed, explicitly because they are unpopular with the citizens.
Note that even if we grant the specifics - such as they are - of the wilder hysterics of critics, the United States easily meets these requirements. As does Israel. Saddam's Ba'ath regime doesn't even come close. Nor do Pyongyang or Communist China, or the Palestinian Authority. Also failing to meet all requirements are Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Ethiopia, Libya and others. Russia and Mexico are perhaps a bit iffy, but we'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Chavez is very iffy.
Where's Abdul Rahman Yasin?
The reason I don't budge is I'm waiting for you to catch up.
"What must it feel like to lose an election to a retarded monkey?" - Andrew Sullivan
"The US party calls in mortar fire on the enemy positions. The UN party stands up, climbs over the lip of the trench, and recites Robert\ufffds Rules of Order as it approaches the machine-gun positions." - Lileks
[link|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html|http://www.angelfire...arlowe/index.html]
With luck: [link|http://pascal.rockford.com:8888/SSK@jbf~W~x49RjZfyJwplqwurpNmg0PAgM/marlowe//|http://pascal.rockfo...mg0PAgM/marlowe//]
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Post #72,501
1/4/03 3:16:03 PM
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Wrong on all counts
"legitimacy of a political regime" exists only as recognition as such by others. In 1916 UK met all of your requirements for all of Ireland and was completely out of pace with the facts on the ground. The Taliban were almost legit and would have been legit if Iran had accepted them. Only Pakistan and Saudi recognised them as the rulers. NK is legitimate because they exist and no one has the required will to remove the regime.
thanx,
bill
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
You think that you can trust the government to look after your rights? ask an Indian
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Post #72,505
1/4/03 3:37:05 PM
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Full Agreement
Marlowe would make an excellent dictator - he already has a plan for totalitarianism in hand with his obsessive definitionizing.
-drl
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Post #73,363
1/8/03 10:20:44 AM
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Recognition by which others?
By other "legitimate" regimes? Who magically legitimizes those, then? Seems to me you've got an infinite regress. Your code won't run. You'll get a stack overflow. Relativism eats its own tail again.
Whether anyone has the required will to remove Kim Jong-Il's regime remains to be seen. But a failure of nerve on the world's part is no credit to his regime.
I am a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy of one.
Where's Abdul Rahman Yasin?
The reason I don't budge is I'm waiting for you to catch up.
[link|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html|http://www.angelfire...arlowe/index.html]
[link|http://pascal.rockford.com:8888/SSK@jbf~W~x49RjZfyJwplqwurpNmg0PAgM/marlowe//|http://pascal.rockfo...mg0PAgM/marlowe//]
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Post #73,372
1/8/03 11:05:56 AM
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Well present your list of legitimate governments
and all of us on the board will choose collectively to recognise them or not. After we choose you will be forced to accept any regimes whether you like them or consider them legitimate or not. That is called peer review. On governmental scales it works the same way. Do you accept the legitimacy of England and France? The current owners of the UK were chosen by a mad dog who sliced off the head of his wife because he couldnt shoot male sperm. That is legitimate? Or is it legitimate because of historical cohesiveness? Geopolitics is not for the narrow minded. It is often holding ones nose to acheive long term goals. The problem is American cant think past 6 yesrs of the election cycle.
thanx,
bill
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
You think that you can trust the government to look after your rights? ask an Indian
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Post #73,482
1/8/03 6:14:41 PM
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Peer review has a similar problem.
Who gets to choose the peers? Somehow the notion that this particular group alone has some special authority to declare a government legitimate seems farfetched to me.
A regime either satisifes the conditions of a definition (such as mine) or it doesn't. You may have your opinion, I may have mine, but don't conflate our opinions with the things the opinions are regarding. Reality is not a democracy.
I've offered a definition that makes good moral sense to me. You've offered, um, it's not clear just what it is you have offered.
I am a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy of one.
Where's Abdul Rahman Yasin?
The reason I don't budge is I'm waiting for you to catch up.
[link|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html|http://www.angelfire...arlowe/index.html]
[link|http://pascal.rockford.com:8888/SSK@jbf~W~x49RjZfyJwplqwurpNmg0PAgM/marlowe//|http://pascal.rockfo...mg0PAgM/marlowe//]
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Post #73,486
1/8/03 6:38:37 PM
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of course reality is not a democracy, that is why Saddam is
legitimate. Hoisted on your own petard.hiss.... zing. hooked and landed.
thanx,
bill
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
You think that you can trust the government to look after your rights? ask an Indian
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Post #72,523
1/4/03 4:43:46 PM
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You are a result of public education at its finest.
First off, as Boxley stated a "legitimate regime" is "legitimate" because it is recognized as "legitimate" by a sufficient number of other "legitimate" regimes. But I will give you the benefit of a doubt and guess that you're attempting to define some criteria for which regimes the US should view as "legitimate" and which should be "illegitimate". 1. A functional rule of law as the general case for all citizens and members of government. Nazi Germany would meet those criteria. Fucking Jews. Gotta keep them out of government. Better relocate them. And get rid of those damn darkies, too. How about if you remove the stipulation of "citizens"? A rule of law applicable for ALL people living in that nation. Equal. 2. Basic human rights for citizens given substantial practical support. Again, Nazi Germany. When you get to define who is and is not a "citizen" and "basic human rights" only apply to "citizens"..... Well, we've already established that you're a fascist wannabe. Why is it that you keep including "citizen" in your criteria? 3. A working mechanism by which widely unpopular leaders can be removed, explicitly because they are unpopular with the citizens. Again, you define who a "citizen" is. Then those "citizens" can determine who will be their leader. I've already posted a history of Nazi Germany showing how they were LEGALLY ELECTED. Of course, those "citizens" who disliked him were, usually, "traitors". It seems to me that you're trying to create criteria that match your views of which regimes are "legitimate" and which aren't. The problem is that you don't know enough history to do anything more than bungle your way through this. You have to put the US on the "good" side and the people you don't like on the "bad" side. But, thoughout history, "bad" regimes have done the same things that the US is doing now. But I've gone over this in the past. It all comes down to you wanting to believe that the US is "good" and that people who don't agree with us are "bad".
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Post #72,526
1/4/03 5:03:14 PM
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I think he is a highschool history teacher :-)
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
You think that you can trust the government to look after your rights? ask an Indian
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Post #72,577
1/4/03 8:41:37 PM
1/4/03 8:55:25 PM
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legitimate regimes
I second Brandioch: the "citizens" proviso is a loophole wide enough to drive the Exxon Valdez through. If the regime is unwilling to extend "rule of law" to non-citizens--or if it's willing to rescind the privileges of citizenship for its own nationals, who may be deemed "enemy combatants" by executive fiat and killed out of hand (as in Yemen the other month) without oversight or appeal, the "enemy combatant" determination being made retroactively--then "rule of law" doesn't mean very much.
The American citizens in this forum were all of us born into the arrangement: none of us signed the Constitution (which I do regard as a damned fine piece of work overall, although I suspect that many of the signatories would keel over could they but see the powers this King George and his predecessors of the past couple of generations have asserted), but we are nominally bound by its provisions, even if our masters are obliged only to pay it lip service.
I'd submit that "consent of the governed" is an important element in the legitimacy of a regime, and that ours has gone by degrees from "consent" to "acquiescence" to "apathy" with regard to the attitude of the governed. Face it: for all of our lives this country has been transforming itself by fits and starts into a police state (I'm subject to drug testing at work [although, weirdly, in the fifteen years since the policy was implemented the moving finger has always passed me by], something Stalin himself never demanded of his slaves), and the process has been on afterburners these past fifteen months.
"legitimate regimes?" We in this country have no right to talk about these after the 2000 Selection.
cordially,
"Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist."
Edited by rcareaga
Jan. 4, 2003, 08:55:25 PM EST
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Post #72,590
1/4/03 11:00:11 PM
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the amrican citizens in this forum were not all born ins
I know of at least 2 myself included that chose this country over all other systems available to us.
thanx,
bill
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
You think that you can trust the government to look after your rights? ask an Indian
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Post #72,666
1/5/03 12:02:54 PM
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At least 3. You, Arkadiy, and me.
Alex
"No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session."\t-- Mark Twain
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Post #72,744
1/5/03 6:17:14 PM
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Re: At least 3. You, Arkadiy, and me.
What can I say? Brain-fart. I stand corrected.
cordially,
"Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist."
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Post #73,708
1/9/03 3:16:08 PM
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Who needs drug testing,
when you get 10 years of hard labor for being 10 minutes late for work? IOW, who needs to test slaves for drugs?
--
We have only 2 things to worry about: That
things will never get back to normal, and that they already have.
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Post #72,540
1/4/03 5:56:54 PM
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Actually quite arguable
Even if we make the assumption that by citizens you mean everybody that lives in that territory, it's still arguable if the US really passes.
On point one, we sorta make the grade right now, but are activly breaking down as we speak. The rich, politically connected and companies all have more rights then the general population and the situation is getting worse.
On point two, we can pass only if you go for a narrow definition of basic rights. If you take things like the right to shelter, food, and such to be basic rights then we fail.
As for point three, we will find out if that part of the system still works in a few years.
And personally, I would also add a free press to the list of key ingredients. Without a free press the people won't know enough to have any idea who they should be supporting. In that regards the US is still fairly good but media mergers and rating wars are activly eroding it also.
Jay
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Post #72,554
1/4/03 6:43:23 PM
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right to shelter food?
There is and should not be a right to shelter and food. If you are hungry get food, you want to sleep inside get shelter. If you cannot provide it for yourself do not expect the collective to assist you. Me, if I need it I take it.
thanx,
bill
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
You think that you can trust the government to look after your rights? ask an Indian
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Post #72,592
1/4/03 11:11:04 PM
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Re: right to shelter food?
Actually I think claiming either of those things goes to far also. What I was trying to point out tought, is that what is and what is not a basic right is a complex and open question.
Take the right to bear arms, the right to have privacy, the right to live without government interference, or the right to medical care. There are lots of things that people claim as rights or claim are not rights. Why some and not others?
The way you put the question made it seem that you where taking the rights we have in the US as being the basic rights, making the statement that the US meets those requirments a bit of circular logic. If you want to judge if the US meets the requirements of supporting basic rights, you need to better define what they are.
Jay
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Post #72,596
1/4/03 11:16:55 PM
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As defined by the bill of rights and ammendments to the
constitution. In America anyway. Any rights not implicitly granted by the feds or the states are held by the people. However the crux comes when rights held by the people(individually) are requested by preassure groups to be paid for collectively by the government. This is where all social conflict in America comes from.
thanx,
bill
will work for cash and other incentives [link|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/resume/Resume.html|skill set]
You think that you can trust the government to look after your rights? ask an Indian
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Post #73,399
1/8/03 1:58:47 PM
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Definition divorced from purpose, again?
You're not asking for the definition of something like "apple*" here. Tell me for what purpose you intend to use the word, and I'll discuss definitions with you. Otherwise, you're just asking for discursive trouble.
T.S.
* and yes, even "apple" can have overtones. That's actually my fourth attempt at a word in that sentence, having rejected "chair" (which could imply group leadership), "bed" (which could have something to do with homeless shelters or whatnot), and "book" (which is one of the more loaded terms in English).
Many fears are born of stupidity and ignorance -
Which you should be feeding with rumour and generalisation.
BOfH, 2002 "Episode" 10
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Post #73,668
1/9/03 11:49:49 AM
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How about democratically elected leaders? Oops...
that leaves the US out doesn't it?
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