A republic does not implicate a democracy. A republic means a state ruled by the people, or just some of the people. Conservatives would like this regime to be a rule by them, and traditionally this has been wealthy families entrenching their grip. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indoctrination "Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything." - Joseph Stalin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacking_Democracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_on_Democracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outfoxed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_manipulation The only guarantee for a democracy is a direct democracy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-democracy Don't settle for the entrenched US politics by the conservative few, corrupting society and giving illusion of order or democracy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopsony http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duopoly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-party_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_fear http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt_society http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_control http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_control_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_conditioning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavior_modification http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_conditioning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects-Based_Operations Make a change by supporting a "representative direct democracy" alternative - no matter which one - until change is complete. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_direct_democracy
When I was in grade school, they taught us that we lived in a democratic republic. Then I learned about the Electoral College and realized what a crock of shit it was. The Electoral College is to democracy what Frankenstein's monster is to a human being. Also, our winner-take-all voting system is the worst form of democracy. But most Americans will never realize that.
Fundamental to any society is the notion of "trust" - actually fundamental to any sustainable system like peace, democracy, environment, economy, family, work, security and so on. What we are increasingly seeing is the erosion of trust in all aspects of society, observable as the level of transparency increases in the "information age". What this entails is a basic systemic flaw in how we do "trust-modelling", since trust is something that ultimately needs to be handled by someone "neutral". This is very central to the philosophic understanding of "ultimate fair and balanced trust". The only way to establish such trust is through the use of technology. This integrity is also a way of respecting your surroundings - human and otherwise. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_(humanities) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrity Therefore the only logical, reasonable and ultimately sustainable path to a stable and fair democracy is through a trusted social contract governed neutrally. This is through something like an E-democracy where the trust modelling, deliberative choice and election strategies are transparent, open for adaptation and privacy through profile anonymization. There are many technical implications for how achieve this, but all are solvable on both philosophical and systems design terms. That means that there is a rationale for an extremely effective democratic minimalist state, while securing redundancy with temporary reserve committee representatives for emergencies, systemic failures and other security-related issues. All such representative choices of control, as well as the privacy and delegation of control through e.g voting transfer (entrusting) to others is balanced if issues are kept separate, so that entrusting is isolated to each issue - just like privacy of identity is kept when isolating identity to per issue identifiers. The implications of this is that voting, governance and decisions can be effective through systemic design. The rewards for society and civilization are enormous, with reduction of so many encumbering areas of human life - while gearing towards more effective living, personal freedom, security and avoiding corruption through systemic strong design. My profession is systems analysis and computer science, so I have a good understanding of both well-formed systems as well as having a profound interest in philosophy, economy etc. I have been fairly successful in both business and otherwise, and I think my notion of how to establish trust has been key. We don't have to polarize into simplistic darwinist and omni-bivalent views that it's "us or them", but we need to understand sustainability and how trust works - at a structural level. That means that we are not blind to security issues, but that we work at the structural and systemic level - instead of trying to wage an "asymmetric conflict" against what are systemic flaws. Just like in warfare - asymmetric problems also are part of any system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetric_warfare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse_problem There are degrees of truth, and all things are relative - the only thing close to something "absolute" is the entity "nothingness", but always elusive and volatile - never in the present, but always part of the future and past. With trust we grab a hold on our place in the ever expanding and changing universe, riding evolution and using adaptation as the tool. Well, it might seem "crackpot" to suggest these ideas - but it's just an attempt at a "systemic view of current deficiencies".
It seems that Venezuela and the US are playing a little "tit for tat" expelling each respective diplomatic representatives... Nice build up for the planned November Venezuela-Russia joint naval exercise. Are everyone going just nuts?
Is Wikipedia recognized as a legitimate source for intellectual research? Are Universities now accepting dissertations citing Wikipedia as proper sourcing?
Wikipedia, references sources just like CiteSeer and BibTex - and most of the scientific articles use the same sources. The differences are that Wikipedia present separate topics in an "encyclopaedic" manner, while the scientific articles present a whole range of intertwined topics. This makes linking in Wikipedia more important, so that you need to go through more topics and wiki-articles to cover the same material as a single scientific article covers. When it comes to some of the articles touching on popular culture, politics, current events - then news media sources are much more in use, but what is most commonly referenced are irrefutable facts and not opinions. You do not need to be a rocket scientist yourself just to quote a scientist on rocket science topics... There is some self-governance on Wikipedia, and there are editors trying to preserve non-point-of-view, unbiased and neutral fact-oriented information being presented. To treat a subject fairly and in a balanced way, you need to present both gist of the topic, references and possible criticism or controversies. That goes for any thorough and neutral presentation of any topic. If you disagree with something, the answer is not to delete it and get it out of sight. That would be akin to "negationism", and very undemocratic. Today, Wikipedia is an extension of "collective intelligence" and "media democracy". It is far more trustworthy than say a journalist in a news organization presenting a selective factual base and with very strong bias, as is normally the case. Wikipedia thus also plays an important role in education, and I think anyone contributing to extending articles and neutrality by balancing between proponent information and criticism or competing views, are doing important scientific contribution. It is certainly a good starting point to quickly orient oneself, and then one can get more down to the nitty gritty using CiteSeer, BibTex etc. A research paper would be expected to cite recognized and leading research papers already subject to peer review, democratic consensus and semantic context; Wikipedia is like a quick introduction, and references central recognized and published work - thus making it a gateway to a topic and accessible for many. It further extends the evolution of education into e-learning. Mercor, if you want - you can start trying to refute (show falsifiability) of the topics on Wikipedia... see how far you could get. It's great for denialism and closing yourself off from the world scientific consensus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denialism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_science http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_fear As we have repeatedly witnessed, the religious and political conservatives love to spread fear, doubt, chaos and negativity to promote authoritarian views. Good luck living in an intellectual cocoon, trusting only what you yourself have deduced.