LIBERTAS (What Pope Leo XIII wrote about Liberals)

[Cam42]

[quote name='Era Might' date='Feb 12 2006, 05:59 PM']That's from the 1913 Catholic Encylopedia.

[url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15013a.htm"]http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15013a.htm[/url]

If I cited that condemnation, against the SSPX, would it be valid? After all, it says the Church condemns "Traditionalism". The word is used, so it must be valid today, yes?

Well, not exactly. "Traditionalism" in an SSPX context is not the same "Traditionalism" spoken of here, which was a philosophical error. So we see that just because a word is used, and condemned, does not mean it cannot change in meaning over time, in a different context.

This, as I have proposed, is exactly the nuance we must keep in mind when reading pre-modern Encyclicals, and their treatment of "liberalism".
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Yep...exactly right.

[qfnol31]

[quote name='Cam42' date='Feb 12 2006, 04:52 PM']Nope.  You used your roommate as the basis for your discernment and set him up as the authority.  Because you simply state the politics department exists, in a later post doesn't give it any credence.  That is the classic example of the fallacy.  Thanks for confirming it for me.

I have already posted several times on how we understand the title of republic.  Why can't you post your class notes?  You know how to type don't you?  There is more to this site than cutting and pasting.

You may not have quoted your roommate, however, you did use him as a resource and then set him up as the authority on the matter; NOT the politics department (as stated in post #48).

I have not taken your quote out of context.  I don't have to refute your claim.  You have not made one.  You have yet to refute MY position.  So, I will will wait for you to offer some proof, Zach.

You are looking quite foolish.
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I do not have my notes anymore. I remembered them well enough and figured I wouldn't need them anymore. However, my roommate (authority or not, he has the notes of the authorities) says you're welcome to his own. Since it is his field of studies, he has kept them all.

Now, leaving this aside, because I have used the politics department as an authoritative source for continuing this argument. I think it's in #67, where I tried both to answer your claims and to keep going. But since I don't have any sources for you to read (I guess I could ask another friend sitting here for his class notes as well). However, since you probably would not accept this, I offer for you our own Constitution:

[quote]Section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.[/quote]

That is in Article IV Section 4 of the Constitution.

[quote name='OED']Republic - 2. a. A state in which the supreme power rests in the people and their elected representatives or officers, as opposed to one governed by a king or similar ruler; a commonwealth. Now also applied loosely to any state which claims this designation.[/quote]

[quote name='OED']Democracy - 1. Government by the people; that form of government in which the sovereign power resides in the people as a whole, and is exercised either directly by them (as in the small republics of antiquity) or by officers elected by them. In mod. use often more vaguely denoting a social state in which all have equal rights, without hereditary or arbitrary differences of rank or privilege.[/quote]

[Cam42]

In other words, AS I HAVE SAID, we are a representative democracy. Thanks for supporting my position.

I think that you simply can't bring yourself to agree with me on any topic. I have sufficently spoken to those points which prove nothing more than what I have offered.

Perhaps you'd like to speak to my posts? Perhaps not. In any case, the representative democracy in which we live is loosely called a republic.

In summation:

[quote name='Cam42']However, we live in a representative democracy. This is the case, precisely because we were founded on the exercice of popular sovereignty by the people's representants. But we are not a republic in the sense that you are speaking.

Benjamin Franklin knew this, as did most Americans of the day. This is based upon the philosophies of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Most republics (in the sense defined above) and many constitutional monarchies are theoretically based on popular sovereignty. However, a legalistic notion of popular sovereignty does not necessarily imply an effective, functioning democracy: a party or even an individual dictator may claim to represent the will of the people, and rule in its name, pretending to detain auctoritas.

In U.S. history, the terms popular sovereignty and the equivalent but more disparaging squatter sovereignty refer generally to the right claimed by the squatters, or actual residents, of a territory of the United States to make their own laws, and in particular to the idea championed by Stephen A. Douglas that the residents of each territory were allowed to determine whether it would accept or reject the practice of slavery, for example.

This is why we are not a direct democracy nor are we a participatory democracy. We are a representative democracy, which is often called (incorrectly) a republic. Again, Ironmonk, we are a republic insofar as we have no monarch, but we are not a republic in the sense that you are proposing.

Remember the war cry of the Revolution: "Taxation without Representation."

Representation usually refers to representative democracies, where elected representatives speak for their constituents in the legislature. Generally, only citizens are granted representation in the government in the form of voting rights, however some democracies have extended this right further. In the United States and other democracies, typically the lower house of a bicameral (two-chamber) system is based on population - more or less - while the upper House is based on area.[/quote]

[quote name='Cam42']In political theory and political science, the term "republic" is generally applied to a state where the government's political power depends solely on the consent, however nominal, of the people governed, along with some form of written constitution, limitations against absolute power by a single individual or a combination of individuals, and other characteristic mechanisms of freedom, such as economic freedom, or a "commonwealth".

This however, is a very broad term and not one that is by definition correct. It is a colloquial term applied to Republican democracy.

If by the that term you mean the Presidential system, then you are supporting the idea of a democracy, for that is precisely what it is.

A presidential system, or a congressional system, is a system of government of a republican democracy where the executive branch is elected separately from the legislative. Such systems generally have some combination of historical and/or cultural ties to the former Roman Republic and later Roman Empire and, more commonly, to the United States of America. The Constitution of the United States is credited by some people with being the oldest document constituting a government still in existence, and the Presidential system of government is widely accepted as having originated from it.[/quote]

This is supported by your posts. Thanks so much for citing those for me. Would you care to show where there is error on my part?

[morostheos]

OK boys, you're BOTH right!

From the CIA World Factbook (if they can't get it right, I don't know who can):
[quote]Government type:

Constitution-based federal republic; strong democratic tradition[/quote]
[url="http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html#Govt"]http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbo...os/us.html#Govt[/url]

[Cam42]

Amazing.....

Ya know, I wasn't looking for another fight with Zach. However, it always seems to be the case.....

Sad really, sad.

In case you didn't see it, I stated that we are both....thanks Morostheos.....you are a calming influence and a voice of reason.....

[qfnol31]

[quote name='Cam42' date='Feb 12 2006, 08:48 PM']In case you didn't see it, I stated that we are both....thanks Morostheos.....you are a calming influence and a voice of reason.....
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Did I deny that we were both myself?

I don't remember doing that...

[Cam42]

[quote name='qfnol31' date='Feb 12 2006, 11:32 PM']Did I deny that we were both myself?

I don't remember doing that...
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[quote name='qfnol31 Yesterday' date=' 03:21 PM'][b]Republic's more accurate than representative democracy here...Democracy is a voting of the people while a republic is where we elect our officials to vote for us.[/b]

[u]Ironmonk is correct in defending that we are a republic over a democracy. They're very different.[/u][/quote]

(post #21)

That is tacit (if not explicit) acceptance that we are a republic rather than a democracy. And it is an incorrect statement.

[qfnol31]

No, I think I said it's more accurate. That's not a denial, I believe. I started this saying that he is correct in working for saying republic because it is more accurate. I know that a representative democracy is technically correct, but I hold that republic is more accurate...A democracy (representative democracy excluded for the time being) is very different than a republic. I think that there is enough difference to defend it as a republic.

What did I argue against that caused such a fuss? Oh well, not really important I guess.

[Cam42]

[quote name='qfnol31' date='Feb 12 2006, 11:45 PM']No, I think I said it's more accurate.  (edit smiley)  That's not a denial, I believe.  I started this saying that he is correct in working for saying republic because it is more accurate.  I know that a representative democracy is technically correct, but I hold that republic is more accurate...A democracy (representative democracy excluded for the time being) is very different than a republic.  I think that there is enough difference to defend it as a republic.

What did I argue against that caused such a fuss?  (edit smiley)  Oh well, not really important I guess.
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Nope....can't exclude one for the sake of continuing an argument.

Thanks for admitting that my position is correct.

If you know a representative democracy is correct, why did you argue so much against it? Were you looking to pick a fight? I think that you were.

There is not enough of a difference and I have shown how there is not. You have YET to show anything. You have simply made some arbitrary statements, without any support and condemned my position with that "obvious proof."

Since you admit that my position is now correct, I am not sure why you were arguing for it in the first place, Zach.......

BTW, you didn't start this saying that he was correct in a "working" anything, defintion or otherwise. You started this by saying:

[quote name='qfnol31']Republic's more accurate than representative democracy here...Democracy is a voting of the people while a republic is where we elect our officials to vote for us.

Ironmonk is correct in defending that we are a republic over a democracy. They're very different.[/quote]

Where did you say anything about a "working" anything? You didn't. You said, explicitly that Ironmonk is correct in defending that we are a republic over a democracy. And that is incorrect. Patently incorrect.

I am not letting you wiggle off this.....however, since you have admitted that my position is correct, I will accept that as admission that your analysis was incorrect.

[morostheos]

[qfnol31]

So we agree that the best termonology is to say it's a republic?

Ahh, in your edit, I see otherwise.

However, I don't think I want to discuss this further, if that's all right with you.

Edited February 14, 2006 by qfnol31

[Cam42]

[quote name='qfnol31' date='Feb 13 2006, 10:47 PM']So we agree that the best termonology is to say it's a republic?  (edit smiley)

Ahh, in your edit, I see otherwise.

However, I don't think I want to discuss this further, if that's all right with you.  (edit smiley)
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No, republic is not the best terminology. Representative Democracy is the best terminology......Republic is simply the more colloquial terminology.

[qfnol31]

Cam, please don't take my standing up for my position as an attack on you.

You have mistaken that, and that's a flaw in your own argument.

[qfnol31]

[quote name='Cam42' date='Feb 13 2006, 09:54 PM']No, republic is not the best terminology.  Representative Democracy is the best terminology......Republic is simply the more colloquial terminology.
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Mind if my roommate responds to you on this, using my screen name?

[Cam42]

[quote name='qfnol31' date='Feb 13 2006, 10:54 PM']Cam, please don't take my standing up for my position as an attack on you.

You have mistaken that, and that's a flaw in your own argument.
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There is no flaw in my argument. You were countering my position against Ironmonk. I responded. That is how a debate works.

I don't think of it as a personal attack unless you personally attack me, however, I am not going to let you off the hook, simply because you say that you are off the hook.