Someone asked this a while back: What is the difference between a democracy and a republic.
Here’s the most fundamental difference:
A Republic is government by law while a democracy is government by the majority rule.
A couple of websites explore the difference between the two terms in some detail:
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/AmericanIdeal/aspects/demrep.html
http://www.albatrus.org/english/goverment/govenrment/democracy%20versus%20repubblic.htm
Articles online on the subject:
For the last couple of days, the New York Times has been publishing stories on the proposed investigation of CIA treatment of prisoners. Evidence suggests that, not only did the CIA torture prisoners, but the previous administration knew of the practices and did nothing to prevent or even curb them.
Perhaps we should be looking back to the words of former President Carter in 2007 to assess just how important this reality is.
In an interview with CNN, Carter said “I don’t think it. I know it,” when asked if he thought the United States was torturing prisoners in violation of international law.
“Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights…We’ve said that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to those people in Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo, and we’ve said we can torture prisoners and deprive them of an accusation of a crime to which they are accused.”
President Bush creates his own definition of human rights, he said.
Now that Bush is out of office, the question becomes: what do we do about the situation? Do we hold people accountable? Do we hold Bush personally accountable?
How we react to the issue of torture of US prisoners, I suspect, will have a significant impact on our global standing, making or breaking our chances of getting back into the good graces of European allies, for one.
This rather unpleasant idea of the ‘other’, applied to suspected terrorists or Muslims, anyone wearing a turban, or anyone who’s from the Middle East and even a little skeptical of the holier than thou attitude of some Americans, we’re going to find that it leaves a pretty bad aftertaste.
I don’t want to make a habit of posting on events in my personal life but the last week has been rather distressing due to this particular event; blogging on the subject seems a viable form of therapy, so here goes.
The day I returned from DC, I received the final payment from one of my clients (a very good client, who I sincerely hope is going to derive tremendous value from the project we worked on). The check was also pretty big, too, and a welcome surprise after a dreary bus ride.
The next day, I headed down to the bank, taking along some paperwork I had avoided for a while, which would enable me to accept checks in my married name (right now, I use my maiden name only).
Anyway, I decided to deal with the paperwork first. With my two kids waiting patiently, I talked three different people through the paperwork I had so that they could go ahead and add a name to my account. The person I originally spoke to did not have the authorization to make the change to my account so another person came over. She misheard my instructions (translated by her colleague) and was about to have me open a business account.
Another ten minutes after this, my kids now decidedly fidgety, the change had finally been made. I was pretty annoyed, though, and asked the woman at the desk about the check I had to deposit. The line for the tellers was pretty long.
“Can I just deposit this at the ATM?” It had my name and address on it after all. I’d managed to get a tiny blob of ink on the thing (occupational hazard), but the check looked (and was) perfectly legit (it had a tone of ’security features’ on it too).
“Go ahead, yes,” she said. She was pregnant and understood why I was asking, seeing my son leaning against the window, now definitely frustrated with waiting around for almost thirty minutes.
A minute, ninety seconds, at the ATM, my check is safe and sound. I do a quick calculation in my head. It should be cleared by the following week, Tuesday or Wednesday.
Okay, so I call on Saturday and verify this. “When will the check clear?” The banker says, “Monday you’ll get $400, that’s the second business day. Tuesday you’ll get the rest.”
Great.
Monday comes, however, and there’s no sign of my $400.
I call the bank. “Tomorrow.” But Tuesday my rent check is going through and I was told on Saturday that $400 would definitely clear by Monday. “Well,” I said, “please make sure there is a hold on my rent check so that it’s not put through until the funds from my deposit have cleared.” Since the bank had given me the wrong information, I figured this wasn’t such a ridiculous thing to ask. Apparently a note was put on the account to request that the check be held until the funds were cleared and there was no problem reported with the check. Why would there be?
But Tuesday morning, I log into my Citibank account and there you have it — overdrawn several hundred dollars and not even a trace of the deposit I’d made.
As you can imagine, I race to the phone and demand to speak to a supervisor. Where is the record of my deposit? “There was no deposit, just a cash deposit yesterday.” ‘No, there was a check deposit on Thursday. I know because I spoke to two other agents about it over the last few days.” “Sorry, ma’am.”
Fortunately, frantic as I was, I managed to find the receipt for the deposit with the envelope number, time, date. I also had the invoice section that came with the check. Ah ha, I thought. Not this time.
Well, miraculously, several “can I put you on hold”’s later, the agent came back and told me that the system was just updating, they had the check, in fact, and it would all be cleared by 9am Central Standard Time.
Phew!
I went back to bed.
I wake up a couple of hours later and resist the urge to log in to my account. I dutifully wait until 10am, make it 10.10am EST. I log in, but there it is again — overdrawn.
I’m on the phone again. This time I don’t have to ask to speak to a supervisor. “We’re sorry. The check was altered.”
“Altered?” “Altered, yes ma’am.”
“You’re kidding?”
“No. We’ve had to send it back to you. We sent it back on the 10th, yesterday, and you’ll have to get it reissued.”
“It had a tiny ink stain on it!” I fume. “I showed it to one of the agents at the bank before I cashed it.”
“Sorry, but we think it’s a bad check.”
I lose it at this point and describe the check — not only does it have my name and address (so there’s no way to alter the name), it has, as I said, at least three security features to show it is a real check.
My heart sinks. I contact my client and tell them that I need to get a replacement check and that I’ll return the other one to them, voided out.
Nothing you can do, right? I spend the day trying not to think about the mess. Fortunately, though, my rent check is definitely covered. I confirm with the supervisor that there’s a note on the account that the rent check will clear and I’ll cover the overdraft in cash.
The next day is Wednesday and my husband is home. He’s pretty sick of the whole thing and feels bad that I’m a wreck over it. I’m about to go grocery shopping to again try and take my mind of this but before I leave the house, I log on to Citibank’s website one more time. Not sure why, precisely. Probably to confirm how much cash I need to put in the account. But when I log in, I see something every unusual. The check that was supposedly in the mail on August 10th (two days ago now), that I was to expect in five to ten business days, was actually back in my account. The rent check was returned, and i had been charged $34.
This all happened a week ago. As you can imagine, I was back on the phone, irrate, particularly because the Citibank representative told me that my check deposit was made on the 11th (“that’s why the rent check was returned, ma’am”). No, actually, I have the receipt for the deposit on the 6th and I confirmed three times that the rent check was on hold until the funds were available and then twice that it would be allowed to clear, under the circumstances, and I would cover the overdraft in cash.
Today I got a lovely little letter in the mail thanking me for my deposit on the 11th and confirming when the funds would be made available. Gee, thanks, Citibank. Tomorrow I plan to visit your branch with the copy of my deposit receipt, my lease (which explains about the late fee my landlord charges, “gee, that’s high”, said one of the telephone bankers, “I’ve heard about those landlords in New York…but try asking him if he’ll waive the fee”), and my cell phone, which has a log of all the calls to Citibank(!).
“But we credited you $70 already,” said the telephone bank supervisor. “I understand why you’re upset, I do. And I apologize.”
Well, Citibank, you’ve only given me back $70 of the $189 this mess has cost ($125 late fee + $34 Citibank fee + $30 landlord’s bank fee).
I accept your apology and I understand that mistakes happen (many, many mistakes and oversights). I feel for you, I really do. But I’m still going to sue you if you don’t give me the $119 you still owe me.
In many respects, the development of Egyptian civilization paralleled that of Mesopotamia. There were, however, important differences between the two civilizations; by virtue of its location, Egypt was not an easy target for invasion. At least, the surrounding desert areas kept the risk of barbarian invasion at a minimum. Certainly Mesopotamia was at higher risk in comparison.
Although there is archaeological evidence of independent Egyptian village communities, before about 3000BC, Egypt was united under a single ruler. Unlike their Mesopotamian counterparts, Egyptian rulers, or Pharaohs, considered themselves divine. With their divinity, came great power, such as ownership of the land of Egypt (inhabitants were renting) whereas by Mesopotamian law, private property rights were recognized.
Egyptian government existed as a centralized bureaucracy based on written records dating to circa 3000BC. There was little distinction between political and religious authority, however, and Egyptian society very much dependent on religious prerogatives of the Pharaoh and his appointed priests. Taxes were collected and paid directly to the Pharaoh. Monumental building projects (notably, the construction of the pyramids) was undertaken by hundreds of thousands of laborers.
Trade and the economy in general was monopolized by the Pharaoh’s representatives. Unlike Mesopotamia, Egypt had no independent class of merchants.
Religion was hugely important to Ancient Egyptian life as well. Intellectual tradition was government by its practices, ideas, and attitudes, and the common people were largely governed by religious perovative as we have said.
The Egyptians worshipped many gods, some of which took animal form, others wich were associated with natural objects such as the sun and the Nile.
Hieroglyphics, Egyptian writing, combined pictures and alphabetic symbols. Ancient Egyptians were also able to develop a system of arithmetic (like the Mesopotamians). They also grasped many principles of geometry, with priests successfully measuring and recording the movements of the sun, moon, stars, and planets.
From about 2776BC, Ancient Egyptians lived by a calendar of 365 days. Anatomical knowledge was relatively advanced as well (more so than in Mesopotamia and perhaps due to the practice of mummification). Medicial knowledge, however, was largely focused on the use of charms and magic.
A very significant and obvious difference between Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia has to do with art and architecture, however. Egypt had a good supply of goods, including building stone, which made the development of monumental structures possible, in addition to wall painting and bas-relief.
The period of the so-called Old Kingdom (3000 to 2300BC) saw the gradual erosion of the power of the Pharaoh. Although rulers remained phenomenally powerful, the concentration of power was slightly lessened by the institution of hereditary offices. There was a notable power struggle between about 2300BC and 2050BC as rival claimants fighting for the throne created a series of rival states. However, by 2050BC, the rulers of Thebes (in upper, or southern Egypt), had claimed supreme power once more and established the Middle Kingdom.
Further reading:
Gardiner, A.H. Egypt and the Pharaohs. Oxford, 1961.
Hawkes, J. The First Great Civilizations. New York, 1973.
Wilson, J.A. The Culture of Ancient Egypt. Chicago, 1959.
I saw a bit of the news here tonight and was certainly interested to see the segment on Henry Louis Gates following the release of the recordings of the 911 call and the arresting officer’s radio communications. Perhaps not surprisingly, there’s little trace in the police officer’s radio dispatch of Gates yelling. The report also pointed out – and I believe this is correct – that yelling on your front porch does not qualify, in Mass. law, as disorderly conduct. Perhaps now people will accept that Obama’s comment about the ’stupid’ arrest was dead on the mark, as was his comment that he could have calibrated his response differently.
Calibrate:
make fine adjustments or divide into marked intervals for optimal measuring; “calibrate an instrument”; “graduate a cylinder”
mark (the scale of a measuring instrument) so that it can be read in the desired units; “he calibrated the thermometer for the Celsius scale”
measure the caliber of; “calibrate a gun”
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
I was reading Wednesday’s New York Times this morning (yes, I’m a day behind) and it struck me just how much trouble this country is in. Okay, you would have to be living in a dream not to know that the United States is fighting a war on many fronts but here is what I picked up on reading the news stories curteosy of the illustrious New York Times:
1. Very shaky economy – people around the country are struggling to keep roofs over their heads yet Goldman Saks (forgive sp) is celebrating it’s mega profits with plans to pad the pockets of its execs. Unemployment is around 20% in some parts of the country yet these guys not only got mega payouts from the government (along with my favorite bank, Citibank a.k.a Citigroup), they get away with risky economic readings and financial planning.
2. Health care is a terrible problem all over and the country is going to try to solve this problem by hanging immigrants out to dry — and that’s legal immigrants, by the way. As an immigrant myself (with a US husband and 2 US born kids, this news made me sick to my stomach. The US failure to provide quality, free healthcare is criminal; it shows America’s government in the worst possible light. watch Sicko and visit Europe if you don’t believe me.
3. It seems that many political leaders of developing nations are being help accountable for war crimes and for torturing political prisoners. How on earth is George W. Bush escaping the same treatment given the existence of Guantanamo Bay? Again, doudle standards are the enemy of a free and equal society.
I hope something changes and soon.
More than sixty years ago, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced a state of unlimited national emergency. This announcement came in response to the threats of world domination made by Nazi Germany made on this day in 1941.
In his 1941 speech delivered on May 27th, FDR repeated his famous remark from 1933 that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
FDR argued that aiding Europe was in America’s interest at this time. In March 1941, the Lend-Lease Bill was passed to give military aid to any country vital to the defense of the United States.
Roosevelt offered an almost apocalyptic vision of a Nazi-controlled Western world. He warned that American workers would be enslaved by Germany. He took pains to define what he meant by America being “attacked.” and insisted that an attack on the United States “can begin with the domination of any base which menaces our security.” An attack would not just be when “bombs actually [dropped] in the streets of New York or San Francisco or New Orleans or Chicago.”
A little more than seven months later, the United States entered World War II following the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
The more I read about the treatment of major corporations now in dire financial straits, the more frustrated I feel as a consumer. First of all, neither my husband or I have any capacity to borrow money. While it’s a good thing in the long-term, preventing us both from wracking up any debts, it has been a disaster in the short-term and has pushed us to the end in many ways. What frustrates me about GM and Chrysler is that they can go to court, they can be clearly in the wrong, and they can somehow manage to secure billions of dollars to support their failing interests while families around this country can’t get even a tiny fraction of this type of support to help them deal with, oh, I don’t know, a medical problem, perhaps?
Second of all, it seems that companies like GM and Chrysler are failing, not just because of the economy, but because their long-term financial practices are unsound. In any case, without a thorough examination of their corporate practices, the way they’re operating their businesses, how is it possible for the government, or anyone else, for that matter, to know whether the money given to them is ever going to be recovered? What if we’re trying to toss water out of a sinking boat using a tiny tea spoon for heaven’s sake?
I know that these companies provide work for millions of people, but a few more months, perhaps another year, of employment for a select few (assuming a large number of people have been dropped by these companies) is hardly going to justify the loss of several billion dollars when these companies end up back in bankruptcy court.
And then what happens to all of their employees? You can bet this money – billions of dollars to keep the company afloat – isn’t going to be put into the retirement accounts of their long-term employees. I shudder to think of all the families who’s lives are going to be shattered when these companies come crashing down.
I’ve recently worked on a couple of projects focusing on the credit crisis and there have been so many references to the corporate bail out strategy (the $700 billion dollar bail out package to be precise) that I really can’t go without saying something about it.
Seems to be that the government desperately needs to learn some fiscale responsibility. Banks desperately (very desperately) need to improve their attitude towards consumers. Anyone who’s dealt with banks in the US knows all too well the strategies they employ. To pad their profits they charge high service fees and overdraft fees supported by dodgy accounting practices. They top this off with very poor customer service so when you spot a problem, you have only a slip chance of resolving it.
If the government wants people to do better financially, they first need to step in and force the banks to do better about supporting financial solvency. Only when people are banking with confidence will we see a reduction in debt and an improvement in the general financial and economic outlook.
One of the recurring topics of conversation for me and my significant other has to do with the number of uniformed police officers visible on the streets of New York. In particular, my husband spends a lot of time downtown, around Greenwich Street, which is west of New York City Hall, close to Canal Street and the Holland Tunnel linking to New Jersey. Around one of the residential buildings down there, a gang of cops are seen on a regular basis, vehicles and all. The son of a CBS reporter, Brian (my husband), thinks nothing of approaching these cops and asking them what exactly they’re up to. After all, he points out, it’s our tax dollars at work. He’s surprised (astounded, says it better) that his friend advises against such interaction. “Don’t ask them anything,” he said. In other words, stay away from them, don’t engage them, we don’t want to know what they’re doing.
This attitude (better not to ask), he says, is definite evidence that we’re living in a totalitarian state. This, plus the systematic boarding of trains and buses by immigration officials and US Marshals (Brian was recently in Houston and traveled there by bus, back by train) running outside of New England.
Personally, I’d like to believe the best of this country and the world we live in. Call me naive, perhaps I am. Perhaps I’m hoping for a better future for my kids that the one we must extrapolate from the current world.
What do you think?
