The Gaming Den

As far as I know, there is no evidence to support the proposition that a democratic free market society with a separate judiciary, executive and legislature is more efficient with 3 layers of government than 2 or 1. Or that a democratic free market society with 3 layers of government is less likely to devolve into another sort of society than one with 2 or 1 layers of government.

Or do you have some?

cthulhu wrote:As far as I know, there is no evidence to support the proposition that a democratic free market society with a separate judiciary, executive and legislature is more efficient with 3 layers of government than 2 or 1.

Or do you have some?

Inefficiency was a major concern in the creation of the US government: The lack of efficiency is intentional, and considered a necessary evil for "checks & balances".

Crissa wrote:Ya know, you can be a Christian and not think Jesus was God. In fact, it sounds really stupid when you say he is.

This is probably best for another thread but basically the Apostolic letters and then the Gospels unravel when you think he is not. Now the exact nature of the divinity might be open to question but once you start the divinity parts of the New Testament you might as well throw out the entire New Teastament.

cthulhu wrote:As far as I know, there is no evidence to support the proposition that a democratic free market society with a separate judiciary, executive and legislature is more efficient with 3 layers of government than 2 or 1. Or that a democratic free market society with 3 layers of government is less likely to devolve into another sort of society than one with 2 or 1 layers of government.

I don't know, you would need to find a three part non vertically divided government. The UK has a lot of centralism (where the lower levels of government are really puppets of the central government) but it doesn't have a true three separate form of government (executive is derived from the lesiglature and exists at the pleasure of the legislature).

All I have is second hand remarks about the Mayor of London

The Netherlands? Denmark? The UK is only 2 part and does have a tri cameral government.

There are lots of examples - your lack of them merely emphasizes the lack of an underpinning evidence base behind these assertions. As the person asserting the hypothesis, it is your responsibility to produce evidence for them.

New Zealand?

Seriously it's not even hard.

Please do start a thread on why must Jesus == God. He fucked his mom to get on the mortal plane was nearly nothing like his old self and then he died? WTF?

-Crissa

tzor wrote:

Crissa wrote:Ya know, you can be a Christian and not think Jesus was God. In fact, it sounds really stupid when you say he is.

This is probably best for another thread but basically the Apostolic letters and then the Gospels unravel when you think he is not. Now the exact nature of the divinity might be open to question but once you start the divinity parts of the New Testament you might as well throw out the entire New Teastament.

So what? Christians are doing that all the time. The parts they consider good are interpreted literally and the parts that make them cringe are reinterpreted as they see fit. The obvious example is "thou shalt not kill" that seems to apply only to Christians as defined by the prospective killer. Stoning adulterers and the "marry whom you fuck" rule are not generally observed. Seriously, I went to the local Catholic church (sightseeing) and saw a brochure on premarital sex there on sale that basically said "it's fine, but fuck responsibly". Christian sects and individual "scholars" totally get to pick the "correct" books and the meanings of individual words. Some get away with writing their own holy books.

edit: link

Is Jesus God?

Who cares? None of it is real anyway. But the Christian factions who think that Jesus is not God have plenty of scriptural support, just as the factions who think he is God do.

None of which really matters, because Tzor's original point was that a majority of Conservatives support local control. Which they do not. Whether there s a moral argument to be made there or not, Conservatives came out in large numbers to support expansion of executive powers and increases in federal armed forces.

St. Reagan was not about reducing the central government's power. He was about taking power away from the legislature and putting it in the hands of the executive.

-Username17

They're paradoxical in that regard, because they commonly support state's rights during Democratic administrations. Democrats don't really weigh in on state's rights at all.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:

The Lunatic Fringe wrote:

tzor wrote:
A little; your original quote was



This looked like it was equating monarchy, and slavery (both things with massive downsides) with the Iroquois as though you were saying, "they are so dumb they liked the Iroquois."

Ah. I apologize both to you, Catharz, Shadzar, and any Iroquois who might be reading this.

Sorry.

I thought your meaning was completely clear.

Well, now i am completely confused.

cthulhu wrote:New Zealand?

OK, that's a good nation, but is it a good nation for the question of vertical separation? The population of New Zealand is over 4 million; the population of New York City is over 8 million.

The UK population is 61M, the US is 308M.

When discussing different government, the size of the government is also an important factor.

You're the one that has to demonstrate the hypothesis with evidence.

Currently you have an argument that you just made up that doesn't seem to have any supporting evidence.

As there are a large number of 2 tier states (very few ones, it seems that one government cannot do trash collection and international diplomacy at the same time), with power centralised into the top tier it would seem that if your statement was true (that power centralised into the top tier leaders to tyranny), a significant percentage of these states compared to three layer states would have become tyrannical.

My favorite parts is:

"Wait, you can name a whole crap ton of countries that completely refute my premises? Oh, only the US counts as a country."

Nevermind that 61 million people is 15 times what the US population was when they came up with the idea.

Only countries with more people in them count as examples of democracies... because... It's harder for one man to rule 6 men than it is for one man to rule 100 million?

No, no reason at all, except that Tzor is running like hell from facts and logic in favor of emotional appeals.

Thus proving the point he was attempting to refute. Hilarious.

I don't understand what the point of tzor's comments are.

The more people, the more layers of government? Does he even know how many layers are on top of New York City?

Borough/Precinct;
City
County
Regional connections
State
Federal

That's hardly fewer tiers.

Here in the bay area we have merely City-County-Region-State-Federal, but LA and SF have precincts and there are some special governance areas.

Areas in the South often have two or more Regional government layers you may be unaware of, like the TVA and such, because they control what can and cannot be built due to flood control over a region or storm mitigation over a region, or water distribution.

Although in California, water distribution is part of the state, county, as we share little water with other states.

-Crissa

Crissa wrote:I don't understand what the point of tzor's comments are.

The smaller the community of people, the simplier and flatter the structure can be and still work. At the village level, direct democracy can work, because the entire village population can fit into the village hall. At a higher level you need a republic, although at low levels you can still have members elected "at large." Eventually you reach a level where a single system can micromanage and macromanage and you need to add vertical layers so that the lower levels can micromanage and the upper layers can macromanage.

First of all, the boroughs of NYC are the counties of NYC; each borough in NYC is its own county (and at one point its own city).

• The Borough of The Bronx is Bronx County.
• The Borough of Brooklyn is Kings County.
• The Borough of Manhattan is New York County.
• The Borough of Queens is Queens County.
• The Borough of Staten Island is Richmond County.

So the complete heirarchy is
Borough/County
City
State
Federal

The Borough/County level is important only in the courts.

When New York City was consolidated into its present form in 1898, all previous local governments were abolished and replaced with the current unified, centralized city government. However, each county retains its own district attorney to prosecute crimes, and most of the court system is organized around the counties.

So effectively the city is a single level of government for all practical purposes and does not have a lower level beneath it.

Apparently tzor doesn't consider courts, police, zoning boards and other public services to be levels of government.

How convenient.

-Crissa

"vertical seperation" "pyramid"

How do you distnguish this from what would in effect be feudalism?

"no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others"

How is this restraint effected at the base of your "pyramid"?

Crissa wrote:Apparently tzor doesn't consider courts, police, zoning boards and other public services to be levels of government.

Do they make laws or do they follow the laws of the layer above them? A town council makes laws, a county legislature makes laws. Since the Brooklyn DA doesn't make laws (he merely enforces them) and since the laws he enforces are exactly the same as the laws the Queens DA enforces, I can hardly see this as a "vertical" division of government, merely a departmentalization of the NYC layer of government.

(It gets confusing because for a long while things like school board were under the direct control of the state; but this was changed in recent years.)

Rahal wrote:How do you distnguish this from what would in effect be feudalism?

This is feudalism.

Rahal wrote:How is this restraint effected at the base of your "pyramid"?

Because when the base starts doing functions that are given to the higher levels the higher levels then kick in and prevent the action from taking place. State laws, for example, can be declared "unconstitutional" by the Federal Supreme Court.

So the "higher levels" can give mandates defining the responsibilities of the "lower levels"?

For the protection of individual rights, access to services etc.

What you are saying is that they leave the implementation of these mandates to the level best placed to implement them?

So (for example) a state couldn't decide to replace jury trial with arbitration or abandon public provision of education, or privatise all it's roads etc? But the exact implementation of how it protects and provides these things is decided at it's own "level"?

The thing you're against is the federal "level" administering those things directly?


- I wasn't really sure what you were saying. Because the picture where you have the federal level delimited to national defense, the state to regulation of trade and resource sharing between counties, and individual rights to towns and cities... that is effectively fuedalism.

tzor wrote:
(It gets confusing because for a long while things like school board were under the direct control of the state; but this was changed in recent years.)

So do you have any evidence to support your position?

cthulhu wrote:

tzor wrote:
(It gets confusing because for a long while things like school board were under the direct control of the state; but this was changed in recent years.)

So do you have any evidence to support your position?

You can check the Wikipedia article on the New York City Department of Education but even that has a lot of "Citation Needed" sections.

(You know, when you live on Long Island and most of your network TV comes from NYC, you hear a lot of shit about the perpetual state between Albany and NYC.)

I'm not sure how that article supports your position that a multiple layered government is less prone to tyranny?

Can you please quote the specific facts/references in that article that support your position?

Crissa wrote:Furthermore, it's not logical because the definition of limited changes depending upon who you talk to.

...(rest of post goes here)...

You could've chosen a 'logical' argument for something else, but nooo. You chose the one thing that you can't get any teabaggers to agree on.

I just wanted to stick my nose into this thread to clap my hands and congratulate you on being unspeakably awesome.