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To: Houghton M.
So, if you need a single word phrase: abuse of power.

No, it is not just about abuse of power. It is about a system where there is no ability for the peons to reliably address grievance. This is true whether there is abuses of power or not. You can have (in theory) a dictatorial regime with no abuses of power. If you called a system of forces collectivization 'communism' you would be right. If someone stepped in and said 'no that is not communism, that is just abuse of power' you would argue with them. We were not talking about the abuse of power. We were talking about the lack of accountability, recourse, and the de-facto ruling class. Those features ARE reminiscent of the Feudal system.
81 posted on 07/20/2009 8:39:59 AM PDT by TalonDJ
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To: TalonDJ

“It is about a system where there is no ability for the peons to reliably address grievance.”

This shows that you do not know what you are talking about.

Medieval peasants did have a system for redress of grievances and it did function, so did nobles, so did bishops, so did kings. Peasant redress was subject to abuse just as our system of redress of grievances is subject to abuse. It is categorically different from totalitarianism (no possibility of redress—except on paper) as was typical of the USSR or Nazi Germany.

You don’t know anything about law, peasants, nobles, grievances, government in the Middle Ages except what you’ve picked up from Enlightenment and Marxist self-serving caricatures of the Middle Ages.

And when I say that the problem is abuse of power and loss of honor and virtue, I have Adams, Hamilton, Washington, de Tocqueville on my side. When you insist that a “noble system” is systemically evil (no redress of grievance) you are going against everything the American Founders believed. They understood that some systems are better than others but they understood that no system free of abuse. They rejected nobility of birth but they assumed nobility as crucial but also as subject to abuse. In common with those who believed in nobility of birth they believed that any elite, of birth or otherwise, could either act nobly or ignobly, faithfully or abusively.


87 posted on 07/20/2009 9:01:55 AM PDT by Houghton M.
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