Rusty Shackleford @ RustyShackleford @programming.dev

I can neither confirm, nor deny that I am in fact D̵̡̮̻̗̖̮͔̜͈̙͖͙͍̺̀̒̍̌̑͐̓͡a

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Joined

1 yr. ago

Suprisingly to everyone, happily married, brah.

FilthyHookerSpit

Discount for you, but on one condition:

You gotta spit on all of my tankie "friends" over at lemmy.ml, hexbear, and lemmygrad and say, "This service was prepaid, and I made a handsome profit, ultimately at your expense and exploitation."

So you were there and knew everything about it? Are you going to provide some evidence of whatever point you're trying to make, or should we do this tit-for-tat some more?

Either way, no sweat. Happy to yell at the clouds with you until the heat-death of the universe.

The argument is that they were a democratic republic.

several popular assemblies of all free citizens, possessing the power to elect magistrates from the populace and pass laws; and a series of magistracies with varying types of civil and political authority.

If you're referring to direct democracy, I suppose we could consider the Athenian democracy, though I think there are other examples from different regions on the planet through antiquity.

The ancient Roman Republic, lasting from the overthrow of the kings in 509 BC to the establishment of the Empire in 27 BC. This constitution was characterized by a Senate composed of wealthy aristocrats wielding significant influence; several popular assemblies of all free citizens, possessing the power to elect magistrates from the populace and pass laws; and a series of magistracies with varying types of civil and political authority.

• 482 years

There may be longer ones (e.g. Ancient Egyptian, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese dynasties), but the Habsburg's rule is listed from 1282-1918. The Habsburg monarchy, also known as Habsburg Empire, or Habsburg Realm (/ˈhæpsbɜːrɡ/), was the collection of empires, kingdoms, duchies, counties and other polities that were ruled by the House of Habsburg.

• 636 years

If the question is "What's the difference?", then, as is tradition, we must figuratively clear our throats before such discourse with the well-worn adage, "It depends."

As a disclaimer, much of this content was copied from Wikipedia and arranged in a way to support my opinion; none of this should be taken as Gospel. This is not financial advice. And please accept my apologies for the tedious length.

If we limit our terms' definitions to their etymological roots, then:

Democracy

• The term democracy first appeared in ancient Greek political and philosophical thought in the city-state of Athens during classical antiquity. The word comes from dêmos '(common) people' and krátos 'force/might'.
• In a direct democracy, the people have the direct authority to deliberate and decide legislation. In a representative democracy, the people choose governing officials through elections to do so. The definition of "the people" and the ways authority is shared among them or delegated by them have changed over time and at varying rates in different countries.

Republic

• The term originates from the Latin translation of Greek word politeia. Cicero, among other Latin writers, translated politeia into Latin as res publica, and it was in turn translated by Renaissance scholars as republic (or similar terms in various European languages). The term can literally be translated as 'public matter'. It was used by Roman writers to refer to the state and government, even during the period of the Roman Empire. The term politeia can be translated as form of government, polity, or regime, and it does not necessarily imply any specific type of regime as the modern word republic sometimes does.
• A republic, based on the Latin phrase res publica ('public affair' or 'people's affair'), is a state in which political power rests with the public (people) through their representatives—in contrast to a monarchy. Although a republic is most often a single sovereign state, subnational state entities that have governments that are republican in nature may be referred to as republics.
• Representation in a republic may or may not be freely elected by the general citizenry. In many historical republics, representation has been based on personal status and the role of elections has been limited. This remains true today; among the 159 states that use republic in their official names as of 2017, and other states formally constituted as republics, are states that narrowly constrain both the right of representation and the process of election.
• The term developed its modern meaning in reference to the constitution of the ancient Roman Republic, lasting from the overthrow of the kings in 509 BC to the establishment of the Empire in 27 BC. This constitution was characterized by a Senate composed of wealthy aristocrats wielding significant influence; several popular assemblies of all free citizens, possessing the power to elect magistrates from the populace and pass laws; and a series of magistracies with varying types of civil and political authority.

Plutocracy

• A plutocracy (from Ancient Greek πλοῦτος (ploûtos) 'wealth' and κράτος (krátos) 'power') or plutarchy is a society that is ruled or controlled by people of great wealth or income. The first known use of the term in English dates from 1631. Unlike most political systems, plutocracy is not rooted in any established political philosophy.
• Some modern historians, politicians, and economists argue that the U.S. was effectively plutocratic for at least part of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era periods between the end of the Civil War until the beginning of the Great Depression. 
• President Theodore Roosevelt became known as the "trust-buster" for his aggressive use of antitrust law, through which he managed to break up such major combinations as the largest railroad and Standard Oil, the largest oil company. According to historian David Burton, "When it came to domestic political concerns, TR's bête noire was the plutocracy." In his autobiographical account of taking on monopolistic corporations as president, Roosevelt recounted:

...we had come to the stage where for our people what was needed was a real democracy; and of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of a plutocracy.

On paper, we (the U.S.) are a not a direct democracy, though we do vote directly about some issues via referendums; our constitution codifies the extents and limitations of legislation, enforcement, and jurisprudence of our laws and our rights as citizens.

We directly elect representatives to carry out the business of governance from local, state, to the federal level as our country's political union is a federation of States that simultaneously retain their autonomy via the parameters outlined within the constitution and cede ultimate authority of jurisprudence to our bicameral national assembly (in our case, Congress) and Supreme Court.

In practice, due to regulatory capture, political expedience and corruption, and the realities of our global economic expansion, our country is effectively ruled by 2 factions of a political class of wealth that use faux-populism to maintain their power and influence.

What a sad and absurd irony of history.

My favorite president, Abraham Lincoln, was a Republican. I think a secular federal republic is a pretty decent form of democratic governance. The "Radical Republican" wing of the antebellum Republican Party were the most ardent and vocal supporters of abolition in Congress.

Now the very word is tainted by association by these scumbags.

We await patiently for your demonstration.

Required reading in my history class at a public school.

we're a constitutional federal republic, with democratically elected representatives, but a plutocracy, in practice

• me, a political science pedant of highest/worst order

goFuckYourself(Microsoft)

Okay, I think I get the comment now; thanks.

Got it.

Sorry, just trying to curate my feed; nothing against you specifically.

"Civilian casualty"?

I'm sorry, but I don't understand your reference and/or sarcasm.

Based on your reply, should the takeaway be that there is no way to block entire instances?

@neomachino,

You will never get the time back to be with your offspring during these formative months into years. I would scoff at any "scoffers" and tell them their bragging about not taking time off to be with their family isn't the flex they think it is. Life is more than just your occupation. I'm an American living in the Netherlands with my Dutch wife these days, and I can guarantee with certainty my European colleagues would scoff at me if I didn't take the time off. Attitudes towards this are changing in the U.S., albeit too slowly in my opinion, but our culture is fundamentally sick. I primarily blame puritanical christian zealotry that made its pact with the devil (pun fully intended) with avaricious capital for much of the woes found in our society, for what its worth. The gods willing, this will die out in a few generations.

Take the time and cherish it; your future self and children will thank you.

How does one block entire lemmy instances? I want to block hexbear, lemmygrad, and lemmy.ml, but I'm not seeing where I can do that on the UI? I'm on programming.dev.

That's true. An awkward, autistic, Nazi.

chooae better words

Ironic.

I agree. What really disheartened me and cemented them as "Corpo-fascist Lite" was the DNCs fuckery against Bernie Sanders and his willingness to let the chairwoman and Hillary get away with it.

It's a figure of speech.