Posted on 05/06/2005 7:48:08 AM PDT by wagglebee
As for the assertion that Iraq and other Arab nations have never known any form of republican or democratic system, then how does Putin expect it to work in Russia? Or is he acknowledging that democracy is going to (or already has) fail in Russia. Or are you trying to say that Russian had some form of republican or democratic form of government prior to the 90's? Because all I am aware of is centuries of Czarist absolute rule followed by seven decades of communist dictatorships.
How? By the flat 13% income tax? By breaking at least a few of the monopolies? By the 24% corporate tax? By removing the sales tax? By slashing the payroll and VAT taxes? By initiating CHRISTIAN education courses in schools and the military? (that one is pure communism after all). By establishing trial by jury (another communist favorite) or by putting 20% of the land for sale and setting property rights laws (Marx 101 right there). Oh I know how he's doing it: by banning abortions after 12 weeks and working to ban them out right, along with banning euthanasia. Or maybe its the fact that the public there now has limited gun ownership rights, more so then in almost all of Europe. And the cutting down of government, that is by all accounts pure marxism, right? So how is he remaking communism?
Putin is no angel and has done some seriously stupid moves and mistakes, like selling weapons to Syria. But all this back to communism crap shows the total ignorance of our public who gets their information from our holy and pure MSM. By the way, do you also trust the MSM on Bush, Iraq and the economy?
I hear the dead in Chicago and Texas can vote - now that is democracy!
Sprite518 said Putin does not understand that we are a Republic and not a Democracy. The Founding Fathers understood the dangers of a Democracy (aka mob rule), and that is why we are a republic.
Then how come Americans can't understand Russia is also republic as well? Which is what Putin is pointing out.
khenrich said: I'm glad the Japanese and Germans don't agree with you. They would still be a menace to the world. I do believe that in both countries, democracy was imported.
You are incorrect - America restored democratic and republican institutions to Japan and Germany. Germany and Japan were both constitutional republican monarchies (Germany later just a republic) before they fell to dictatorship in the 30s.
Stop right there. Yes we enforced them and we should have. That is very true. That's not the issue. We are trying to change their culture, they aren't the ones changing it. If they wanted a republican system and believed in it, their soldiers and cops wouldn't run away or switch sides to the militants any time our boys weren't the main combatent. Except for a few die hard units, the cores of which are US expats.
As for Russia, the Russians were experimenting with on and off constitutional monarchy from 1861. True, like the British, they at that time didn't have a written constitution. They did have Zemstovies, which were rural, or regional assemblies and by 1905 they had a Duma. The problem with the Duma, the first 3 Dumas were dominated by the left-liberal Cadets, the Socialists and the Socialist Revolutionaries who didn't come there to work with the government but to try and start a general revolution. The fourth Duma was the opposite. Either way they were working on getting a forumal down. Then came WW1 and the strains that caused the revolutions. Still they had two elections, including one right in the middle of the first year of the Civil War.
Further more, it wasn't NATO soldiers marching in Moscow that removed the Communists, it was the common people who toppled them (backed by the military) and instigated a republican system.
There's the world of difference.
The problem is, there is a whole generation of Cold Warriors who were very important in their time but are now dead weight living in the past and trying to take us there and doing their damnedest to ignore reality. Until they go the way of the dodo bird, nothing major will change on any side.
Don't forget that Italy and I believe France too, do not elect their governors and the West's darling Yushchenko is busy arresting and firing ELECTED opposition mayors and governors and replacing them with his APPOINTED flunkies.
Germany had a tradition of republican institutions since the middle ages. Even the Kaiser's Germany was a constitutional republic. Germany was probably the most progressive nation/people on the planet. Why saying America imported democracy in Germany is dangerous is because it means we won't learn from history - that the most advanced and civilized nation on the planet can lose its soul and go down into barbarity like Germany did (before Hitler Jews and minorities lived freer in Germany than minorities did anywhere on the planet - inclding America).
The lesson of Nazisim is that it happened to a leading civilized nation and not to some backwater.
Why was he the only world leader to endorse Bush? Three times at that? Where were Blair, Barlesconi and Sharon?
Putin can say whatever he likes about our system. Just give us an idea of the future attacks Saddam was planning against us. I'm praying it has something to do with Salman Pak and the Fedayneen training on that Boeing 707.
Thank you my husband do will write
"You are on money. In here is problem of old thinking, we have bunch of these old guard guys, luck in their own mentality and self hatred. I forgot to mention also something else. I hope we wake up from slumber and realize Putin is double talker. Putin statements against US in this article clearly show his intentions and what he stands for. This is a strategic move by him, and I hope US wakes up to a fact they have to deal with old guys in Moscow in different ways. Till there is a change of old guard in Moscow, US would have to assume position of cold war mentality. Either way we look at it, we have emerging threat, and it seems we are forgetting this, and while we are fixing our eyes on social, historic, or other issues, this threat is progressing slowly- terrorism."
Thank you
Unfortunately the last state to appoint their electors disappeared in 1868 (South Carolina) if I'm not mistaken. As for the popular election of Senators that is one of the major things that has brought this nation of states to the point that it is currently. I agree with you. We should not be voting for Senators or the President. I imagine shortly after a return to this form of government, a distressing (to some) drop in government programs would occur as the Senators would no longer need to pander to the citizens of the their states for votes
That's why Blair has Clinton campeigning for him. Blair is the Third Way socialist plant in Bush's camp and often champions Chirac's and Schroder's ideas.
This remains to be seen. Check back with me in 20 years, but I dont disagree with what you say about Russian Democracy. I believe its roots were in the hearts of the Russian people. I do believe that a bit of nudging by the West helped precipitate things.
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