Thanas vs Typo on Various Republics

[Kanastrous]

We tend to treat them as expendable resource-cows without much regard for the effects upon their citizens, to the degree that we can.

Sometimes they're also useful dumping-grounds for products that can't be sold or even donated anywhere else.

[Liberty]

I'm sorry, but this this guy claim he's not an American and a History teacher?

Not buying it. All of his arguments so far look like standard, simplistic lines ripped out from a high school Social Studies book. He posts like a high school student.

It could be he writes simplistically like that because English is his second language.

[Lord of the Abyss]

How is it that folks who champion an American style system can say with a straight face that a Constitutional Monarchy is worse when countries like Britain, Canada and the Netherlands all enjoy far more freedom and rights then our American cousins? Do we effectively have a second and third class of citizens (gays, illegals)? Do we have free speech zones? Do we have a gulag?

I think it's the fact that they don't realize they're just normal Republics in all but name. For example from my understanding the Queen 'Liz on paper is still in charge, but in practice the monarchy (the institution itself I mean) could disappear over night and all that would happen is a loss of pomp and ceremony that are kept around in the name of good natured tradition and a little bit of fun dressing up.

Pretty much the same thing over here in the Netherlands. The Royal House could vanish into thin air, and effectively it would be a net gain for the treasury, without any significant loss of effectiveness of our government. Except that right now, inbetween cabinets, it would be a bit awkward, seeing as she has a role to play in forming a new one... Mostly rubberstamping, but she also appoints the Formator, the guy who investigates the viability of governing coalitions. Nothing essential that couldn't be worked around, but still awkward at the present time.

That, and we actually like having em around.

One interesting argument I've heard given in favor of the "ceremonial royalty with little real power" setup is that it diverts the unquestioning hero worship that many people feel towards their top leader onto people who have little ability to do damage with it. Whereas the American system means that such hero worship goes to the President, who has plenty of real power to do harm; look at all the people who defended Bush with "don't question the President!"

[TheProfessor]

I have a question regarding this: what's with the implication that Western countries thrive at the expense of third world countries?

Mercantalism and Neomercantalism, basically we import their raw materials, labour, and natural resources and export to them our produce and surplus monies, the entire development process skews their economy towards an export oriented model with their entire infrastructure devoted to moving crap from inland to the coast where it is processed and then loaded onto ships which is exported to us, the ramifications of this becomes clear when they gained independence where it was shown they lacked the ability to produce anything to export for hard currency which they needed to develop and modernize their country so they're forced into a cycle to continue to export their stuff to the nation that was previously exploiting them.

Sometimes I imagine this allows them to slowly wean themselves off of being on the cruddy end of the cycle and become a more diversified balanced economy and somestimes... they don't...

[Zixinus]

But basically, the West as a whole doesn't set any massive obstacles to independent Third World countries? The West buys the stuff they produce, which tend to be raw resources as they lack the infrastructure to do anything else. What happned during the time these were colonies is a bit of a different story.