BaldProphet @ BaldProphet @kbin.social

2 Kings 2:23-24: A story about what happens when you make fun of bald dudes

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2 yr. ago

I concede to your point, but remonstrate by arguing that 15% of countries by number is not necessarily a useful statistic. I’d argue that the proportion by population, land area and political/cultural influence is a better metric (and I don’t have a source for that but expect by population it’d be closer to 50:50). Fair?

No, I don't think that's fair, because 1) I was specifically referring to the relative scarcity of federal governments out of all the governments in the world, and 2) you're moving the goalpost in order to win the argument. You stated:

Your wording has a distinct bias of American exceptionalism, since your first sentence is patently incorrect - federal and unitary governments are roughly evenly represented across the world’s 200-odd governments.

In reality, your statement was patently incorrect. Federal and unitary governments are not roughly evenly represented across the world's governments. In fact, the percentage of the world's population that resides in a country with a federal system of government is only 38.05%, and that drops to 20.28% if you don't count India, a significant outlier. The total physical area of the world claimed by countries with federal systems is closer to your 50% guess, at 42.53%, but that drops to 29.89% if you don't count the Russian Federation, another significant outlier.

Your claim of roughly even representation between federal and unitary governments isn't accurate by any of the metrics you used: Number of governments, population, and land area. I'm not sure how political/cultural influence can be quantified, but I dispute its relevance.

Sources: I sourced my populations from World Meter, Wikipedia, and Census.gov, and I used Wikipedia as a source for land areas.

They fucking sucked, most of them were morally bankrupt businessmen who would love Trump.

It's pretty much impossible to support the idea that the Founding Fathers were "morally bankrupt". There is no unmoving foundation of morality that remains unchanged throughout human history, and judging historical figures from over 200 years ago by today's moral standards simply makes no sense.

Were they immoral by today's standards? Yes, absolutely. Where they immoral by 19th century standards? I'd say they were about average, but I'm not from that time so I couldn't say for sure.

Eh, King George wasn't immune. We have this supervirus called Revolutionary War.

This is an RF engineer, probably. Definitely not a network engineer.

They're cliches that only apply to affluent boomers.

Oh, that makes sense. You're not talking specifically about countries with federal systems of government, you're talking about countries that have any form of local government in addition to a national government. That's technically not federalism, but I see what you're talking about.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about this:

In a federation, the division of power between federal and regional governments is usually outlined in the constitution. Almost every country allows some degree of regional self-government, but in federations the right to self-government of the component states is constitutionally entrenched. Component states often also possess their own constitutions which they may amend as they see fit, although in the event of conflict the federal constitution usually takes precedence.

According to the textbook my American Government class uses (We the People, 14th Essentials Edition by Ginsberg, Lowi, Tolbert, and Campbell), less than 15% of the world's countries use federal systems.

The only thing that I've seen is Framework's customer service is unbelievably fantastic--until it's not. They had some deceptive marketing on their SSD modules, which they marketed as being useful for booting an OS on, but then later said on their forums that they weren't designed to be used that way.

The average customer won't have any issues, but every once in a while a customer reports feeling burned because they had persistent issues that Framework was unable to solve. After RMAing a number of times their support tells you to pound sand.

If you drop it and break the frame you can easily replace it.

Thanks for explaining this. Your wording has a distinct bias of American exceptionalism, since your first sentence is patently incorrect - federal and unitary governments are roughly evenly represented across the world’s 200-odd governments. Not an attack, just a reasoned criticism, which may help explain the downvotes.

Thanks for your response. I am currently taking an American government course in my university and in the class it was explained that relatively few countries have federal systems. The Wikipedia page on the topic only lists 20 countries that currently have federal systems.

I'm always looking for more knowledge and information, so I'm curious what your source is that around 100 countries have federal systems of government. It seems like a large discrepancy from the information that I am aware of.

Good luck with it all - your insights will help me keep a keener eye on Australian developments to slow Australia’s slide towards the corruption of the fine American model. As seen in the (alarmist and fearful) question posed by the OP, the decay of democracy happens slowly until it becomes utterly obvious to most that the rot has spread throughout.

Yeah, it's definitely alarming. The fact that the US government has basically given itself power that it's not supposed to have freaks me out a bit whenever I think about it. Something for citizens of any country to watch out for.

My question is who thought it was a good idea to put a test account on a production system?

The vast majority of governments around the world are not federal. However, it is a popular system in countries that have diverse territory and demographics.

From Wikipedia:

Dual federalism, also known as layer-cake federalism or divided sovereignty, is a political arrangement in which power is divided between the federal and state governments in clearly defined terms, with state governments exercising those powers accorded to them without interference from the federal government. Dual federalism is defined in contrast to cooperative federalism ("marble-cake federalism"), in which federal and state governments collaborate on policy.

If you grew up in the United States, it stands to reason that dual federalism would be the default form of federalism to you. Also, since the 1930s, the 10th Amendment has been largely (and illegally) ignored, so today we mostly experience "marble cake federalism". The way the Constitution is written, however, does not legitimize any form other than dual federalism with distinct and separate powers granted to the federal government and the states.

Context: The United States government has a federal structure, unlike most governments. This means that the federal/national government and the state governments have distinct divisions in power and responsibility. For example, the highest level of law enforcement that can legally exist is at the state level. Rogue Supreme Courts have made illegitimate and tyrannical rulings to grant the federal government some police power, even though the Constitution and Bill of Rights clearly reserve police power to the states.

That only the states have police power was implicitly understood prior to the ratification of the Tenth Amendment, the final amendment in the Bill of Rights. The Tenth Amendment states that whatever powers and rights are not expressly granted to the federal government in the Constitution shall be reserved to the states or to the people. Since police powers are not expressly granted to the federal government, only the states may enforce laws. Again, illegitimate rulings by rogue Supreme Courts have granted this power to the federal government with no legal basis.

Dual federalism is this divide between the power of the federal government and the state governments. Over time, especially since the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, dual federalism has been eroded without meaningful constitutional amendments. Most people are generally satisfied with this, but when a state has significant differences with the federal government on the enforcement of the law or on matters of authority, the easy solution without having a civil war is to return to the state that which rightfully belongs to it: The powers implicitly reserved to it by the Constitution.

Other than those illegitimate Supreme Court rulings, only Texas has the authority to enforce border laws in Texas. The federal government, technically speaking, has no authority to enforce border laws anywhere, unless a constitutional amendment is ratified granting it such power.

All of the recent news surrounding Texas tells me we need to return to a more literal reading of the 10th Amendment. Bring back dual federalism.

Another thing the world ought to know is that the folks who are identified by “red” and “right” in America are in the minority.

Significantly so.

This isn't accurate. In 2020, 29% of voters identified as Republican, 33% as Democrat, and 34% as independent. There certainly were more Democrats, but only by a 5% margin.

Playing up exaggerated differences between the number of Democrats and Republicans and emphasizing the "we outnumber you" rhetoric is extremist and should be avoided. It makes you a part of the problem.

This is oversimplifying the problem. Democrats from urban areas have failed for decades to adequately address the needs and concerns of rural voters. When one party ignores you (and often speaks of you with open contempt), it's a no-brainer that you would be inclined to vote for the party that caters to your concerns. The Democrats handed rural voters to Trump on a golden platter.

Your view of the political spectrum is heavily skewed to the left if you think Obama was center-right.

I'm not saying you're wrong about how originally only white male landowners were able to vote. But... That's completely irrelevant to the issue of apportioning representation. The bicameral legislature provides fair representation to every state, whether it's big or small. I don't see how that could be anything but beneficial to everyone, whether they be a white male landowner in California or a black female renter in Rhode Island.

Anyway, you aren't going to convince me that your folly is the best course for this nation. I'm not too concerned because, like I said, you'll never get enough states to go along with such a horrible plan to replace the Constitution.

Good day.

You gotta return to your grade-school history textbooks, my friend. You can even read what the Framers wrote as they debated, at length, this very topic. It was the major sticking point between the populous states and the less populous states, and the bicameral legislature was the compromise.

Either way, I'm not concerned. You'll never get enough states to give up their representation so it'll never happen.

There's a reason the people who wrote the Constitution decided upon federalism as our form of government. It protects the minority from the tyranny of the majority. This concept is especially important as the urban majority seeks to assert its ignorant tyranny on the rural minority these days.

The United States isn't a single government like most non-federal nations. There is plenty of democracy in our local and state governments, and we have our bicameral Congress which accounts for both the equality of the states, no matter their populations, as well as the inequality of the states, taking into account their populations. Remove that equality and you will be unable to get enough states to ratify your new constitution.

Your suggestion would only usher in a different kind of tyranny.