Bo - you claim of sarcasm usually comes only after your been highlighted as being an ignoramous.

@Bo - and the funny thing is, while you claim sarcasm, your ability to detect asarcasm in others is woefully inadequate, and you will attack and insult people at will when clearly they mean something else and/or are exercisign parody, etc.

So, I'm simply applying the same perverse standard to you that you apply to others.

@peterlund - Bo is a kid. He's early 20's, thinks he knows everything about the world, can't ever concede that he might actually be wrong about anything. Ironically, he frequently expresses far-left socialist ideology, and yet in his personal life enjoy a life of excess wealth, is a pure capitalist whenis comes to personally enriching himself, etc. i.e. the typical extremely hypocritical punk kid liberal -- hell-bent on telling everyone around him how wrong they are living they life, while doing everything personally he claims to object to in others.

He's kind of like vomit personified.

@Bo - but I will confess -- I, like everyone, don't know shit about the Congo! ;P

Krellin. I guess/hope he will get over it at least partly in some 5+ years. Maybe both you and I had the same symptoms in our early 20thies. :)

it comes from collegiate brainwashing and course grade serfdom. probably should close all higher institutions except pure engineering schools.

red is red lion and i'm tellin' the truth

Thanks for the vote of confidence, krellin. Indicating that North Korea is a republic tend to be interpreted as sarcasm. Implying that the USSR or Pakistan is somehow democratic also tends to be interpreted as sarcasm. I apologize for failing to explicitly say that I was being sarcastic, but, as stupid as I may be at other times, I was, in fact, being sarcastic.

For clarity, that last sentence contains sarcasm, because I am being sarcastic about feeling the need to apologize for not explicitly saying that I was being sarcastic.

Since this thread has somehow gone from pointless discussion to krellin's personal diatribes, I'll stay out of it.

#Bo_Sux

Everything he says is a lie..... He said, "I am lying".

And now krellin's sidekick is here. Watch out. This hasn't happened to me since those big mean fifth graders beat me up behind the dumpster in elementary school.

For clarity, that last sentence contains sarcasm, because in all actuality, I kicked those fifth graders' asses.

i only got into one fight in school and after he hit me in the eye i just grabbed him and held him in a bear hug until a teacher stopped it and took us to the vice principal. since i only held him, i was let off.

B. U. L. L. S. H. I. T

I'm batman.

Bo seems like the type who bullied in elementary school, and the type who got bullied in high school.

did you mean bulls+++ your batman? or your batman, bulls+++?

You can be Batman. That makes krellin your sidekick. Doesn't matter to me.

DO, I had so many chocolate bars stolen from me you wouldn't even believe it.

See Bo knows

Bo enters an intellectual thread and what happens? All intelligent value in gone in an instant.

But Pete knows best

I love this site.

@"bo
Ora, it's a name. You don't select the name. They do. It is meaningless when another nation can write their own definition for a word. Everyone calls themselves a republic."

Yep, i think that was my point. The US also has its own meaningless definition of what constitutes a republic.

Four pages and everyone has missed the point.

The question of whether the United States is a 'republic' or a 'democracy', as it is popularly discussed today, appears to have originated in the mind of Karl Rove during the Bush administration. Similar to his attempt during the Bush years to switch the blue and red party colors of the Republican and Democratic Parties, the strategy was (as Merirosvo suggested) based on subliminal messaging.

The question of 'republic' vs. 'democracy' itself is rather silly. Democracy simply means 'government by the people' (Greek δῆμος/demos, 'people', and the suffix -κρατια/cracy, 'power'/'rule', i. e. government), as you will find in the first definition of the dictionary. Anything from communist one-party vanguard rule in the name of the proletariat to liberal representative democracy by secret and universal suffrage sees itself as a 'government of the people'.

'Republic' was once used in a similar way to 'commonwealth' and could literally refer to any state, any government or even a community striving for the common good. The word retains a similarly positive meaning in common parlance today, except that monarchies are now excluded from the definition. This isn't to say that monarchies can't reflect the popular will. Often monarchs, including hereditary monarchs, don't base their authority on divine right but rather on an elective basis (in elective monarchies), vague popular notions (think 'King of the Belgians') or ratification by the legislature (ancient Germanic traditions still present in Spain).

Sorry, JECE, after reading all honestythat I'm still no closer to knowing what you think the point is.

Octavious: My first paragraph is really my point: that the entire question is a sham deliberately crafted by a Republican strategist.

I was taught at my American charter school that the US was a democratic republic, where people who are democratically elected by the people decide our laws, as opposed to other forms, where representatives from the elite decide the laws.

It might be better called a representative democracy.

Even democracy in classical Greece wasn't democracy as envisioned by 'democracy = direct democracy' purists. That paradigm ain't worth a hill of beans.

Soon our King will do his most important duty he has to do every year and that is to personally hand out the Nobel prize to Bob Dylan and a few more people. For this so called "work" he gets some 12 million Euro every year from us tax Swedish tax payers. And you wonder why I want to abolish the monarchy?

Actually, I kinda...do? 12 million seems pretty cheap to have an enduring leadership figure who isn't hated for his position on policy x or treaty y, a national celebrity who basically cultivates wholesome upper-class behavior (and also tourism). Dunno how much y'all like Gustaf anymore, but all he has to do is die (or abdicate, I suppose, but where's the fun in that?) and you get Victoria for a good long while. IDK. I don't have any personal feelings about monarchies since I grew up an ocean away from all of them, but it doesn't seem like yours is doing too shabbily.