JamesHackerMP

good point Rue! I think when people bitch about an "elite" it's usually the proverbial "smoke filled room" type of elite. But even that, I would think, bears some further explaining.

Very interesting. The Catholic Church has had enormous influence over Italy, I know. It might still. However, there's nothing wrong with having a photo op with the pope and getting "advice" from him. John Paul II chewed out George W Bush over the Iraq War, yet that didn't cause us to reverse our policy. Even Catholic-dominated democracies, particularly in Europe, are secular enough these days that the Church can't just tell a president or prime minister what to do. They may show the Holy Father respect especially if they are Catholic and in a Catholic-majority country, but that doesn't mean they really give a damn what he thinks. They will politely listen to his advice and do what they please. Don't forget that it was only a couple centuries ago the French were arresting priests and bishops and sending them to guillotine. Since then, France and other Catholic countries of Europe have cut back the church's influence drastically and "secularized" their governments. Rome was probably chosen for the site of the treaties, not because it is a suburb of the Vatican, but because of its symbolic location as the capital of the Roman Empire--the last time those European peoples were united under one roof was under Roman rule (before the Catholic Church existed). So it's pretty symbolic to sign your united Europe treaty in the city that was the last capital under which Europe was united, eh? Don't forget, a lot of countries in the EU do not contain Catholic majorities, or even significant minorities, necessarily. UK, Netherlands, Germany (though there are plenty of Catholics, the majority are Protestant), Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Greece, many of the former Eastern bloc members. And Turkey. Let me try to see clearly what you're thinking. It seems that you believe a democracy shouldn't be influenced or ruled by elites, right?

Can you give me the url link to the photo on the Vatican website so I can study it in detail.

As for the Catholic Church, and the power of the Pope, it is related to the fact that he is the spiritual leader of 1.5 billion Catholics worldwide. The Vatican City-State is also a sovereign country, a political entity designed so as to enclose and protect the "Holy See" (a term which is kind of ephemeral in a way). So he's the head of state of a tiny city state, and the diplomatic power of the Holy See is used to protect and promote the interests of Catholics worldwide. Does that help? I can give you more information, but where specifically would you like me to begin? It's hard to describe someone's power, since power is an ephemeral thing. Whole books have been written about the Pope/Vatican/Catholic Church/Holy See (whatever one cares to call it). My apologies if I sounded sarcastic above. That was inappropriate of me.

What? I don't understand you now. What was your actual question, then? I was responding to your statements. I thought that it is a flawed argument to draw a conclusion before finding out the facts. Is that not logical? I was saying "excuse me" to hotenough, not to you Altai. Hot enough was accusing me of deception, so I responded with a degree of polite levity.

Perhaps you should have done that research BEFORE drawing your conclusions. That usually helps. But to fulfill your desire to know more about the political power of the Pope, I might be able to help there, since I'm Catholic and have done a little reading on the subject of how the Vatican works. It was the previous pope, Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) who was in the Hitler Youth in his youth. You couldn't get out of it, though. Try to get out of the Hitler youth and you end up in deep trouble in National Socialist Germany. At one point I think every young male was enrolled in it upon reaching a certain age. So I can't hold that against Pope Benedict. Oh, excuse me. I'll try to avoid that in the future. My bad.

[glad to see I'm not blocked anymore] So? That doesn't mean anything at all. The pope is also a very influential man worldwide, and a head of state to boot, so it stands to reason that democratic countries would make state visits to the Vatican.

Altai I don't have a clue what you mean.

Care to explain to me how exactly that works? The provinces influencing foreign affairs???

???

Whowhowhoawhoawhoa....wait a tic....INTERNATIONAL and intergovernmental relations are the PROVINCES? You're kidding me, right? Also, I never expected to hear Canadians talk like residents of the American South. Wow. I wonder if American liberals know that Canada is like that?

Altai--if I'm not still under your intellectual embargo--you ought to consider a few things. First, I doubt the FBI or CIA control American elections. You're looking at the rest of the world through Turkish eyes; in other words, you're projecting your own country's dictatorial faults on other countries, do you understand what I am saying? Second, Canada is basically a "crowned republic" of sorts. Yes, it has a queen. But she's a figurehead and has absolutely no say over Canadian elections. Even "her" representative in Canada, the GG, is more or less an appointee (or recommendee, on paper at least) of the prime minister. Add to that the fact that he or she is always a Canadian. Long gone are the days when the GG of Canada or any other "dominion" state, as they were once called, was overseen by a Briton. The Crown has authority, but no power, over Canadian politics. (However, the Canadian premiership comes pretty close to a dictatorship, but it's got some democratic checks on it. Whether those democratic checks are sufficient is up for debate I've noticed, among the Canadians on this site, lol) I would not call the "election" of Mohammed Fatah al-Sisi "democratic" by any means. He pulled the same sort of shenanigans to get elected that Hosni Mubarak did in his "open" re-election of 2005. It was a sham, and everybody knows it. (Maybe you don't?) Then, for about a year, he kept delaying parliamentary elections so that he could run the country by executive fiat. You are right about Japan (certainly Russia as well), but not about the others you mentioned. Japan has been ruled by the Liberal Democratic Party since 1954, with only two short interruptions of a couple years each during which one of the opposition parties actually won the elections to the National Diet for a change. That has caused some corruption of course, and there is much cronyism between Japanese business leaders and the LDP governments. Countries such as Germany, the USA or Canada are indeed stable countries. They certainly all have a crap-ton of faults within their political systems, but they are stable democracies. You cannot have a democracy that is unstable or it won't remain democratic very long. You are correct in that assessment. Democracy dies in anarchy. They are stable because they are democratic governments that evolved over time, with carefully-written constitutions that the governments created by those constitutions [usually] respect and follow. They're not changing military juntas as often as we change our underwear. But then again, if I'm still under your embargo, you won't get any of this.

Out of curiosity, why do you who don't like him, dislike him? And why do those of you who like him, like him?

Well we know who this is really about don't we? LOL If someone's been actually inflammatory, it's quite right to ignore. Otherwise, don't bother. It's childish to put people on ignore because you disagree with them at all.

So exactly how much power do the provinces have vis a vis Ottawa? What can the federal government specifically NOT do and the provinces can? I know that primary (pre-university/grade school/whatever) education is in the hands of the province not the feds. But what else? I think this was mentioned somewhere else but I can't remember where. We seem to have this same debate in the States. Typically the Republicans do lip service to smaller federal government and states' rights and the Democrats don't. Either which way the federal government gets more powerful as time goes by.

ditto the US.

If you don't mind me weighing in again on one of your more internal issues... Americans have been here before. Our first constitution practically gave full autonomy to the thirteen member states. It was not at all a unified republic but a loose confederation of thirteen warring tribes. Would you go so far as to allow the ten provinces to have the power to regulate their own defense and foreign affairs? To make treaties with each other and with foreign states?

Looks like their Brexit is official. Ironic no? The UK is declaring its independence from someone else; not the other way around LOL

For now yes. But that is only because their constitution forbids the use of military force as an instrument of foreign policy. And THAT they are able to get away with because the US is their defense "umbrella". I'm sorry am I still under embargo?

Henry VIII and others had an official position within the royal household called the "Groom of the Stool". It was apparently a sought-after position. (Unless of course, the particular king had Irritable Bowel Syndrome...)

LOL Lots of countries still take it seriously. Even countries whose heads of state are less "constitutional monarchies" with "authority on a leash" (so to speak) and more so "crowned republics". (Canada is more so the latter because the GG is more or less a prime ministerial-appointee rather than an independent "choice" of the Queen.) So what, though? No Canadian taxes have to support the Canadian monarchy since UK taxes do. And the royal family gives out a ton of cash to this and that. Maybe the Central African "emperor" was kind of paying himself quite a bit more than the Queen gets. Maybe he was giving out free Bentleys to his friends at the ceremony or something.

Whoa...... !!!

Nah. Father did, tho. And because I couldn't resist: "I have a good fwiend in Wome named Biggus Dickus." <snicker>

Valley Games of Canada makes Republic of Rome. Originally it was Avalon Hill, but the VG ed. is way cool-lookin'. The coins all look like real Roman coins and are printed on both sides, even. It makes me want to wear a toga. I have Nuclear War (the recent 50th ann. ed.) and Nuclear Escalation, its first expansion set. It used to come with a glow-in-the-dark six-sided die. Hehe... I've used Vassal to play Twilight Struggle with someone live, using Skype to communicate. It was pretty cool. When I've played Diplomacy before we had a human gm we sent our moves in to.

Well, I wanted to discuss Diplomacy, but if you don't feel like that, it's fine. My favorite game, however is "Twilight Struggle" from GMT games. I own the 2009 deluxe ed. It's way cool. I was never into the typical "wargames" sort of games. Diplomacy is a bit different. Oh, I'm playing Republic of Rome online. I have the Canadian Valley Games version. As far as Diplomacy (if you feel like talking about it, again, I certainly do ) you know who I hate playing aside from Austria-Hungary? Italy. You're bottled up there and you only typically make 1 gain in the first year, typically Tunis, unless the person playing Austria or Turkey really isn't paying attention. England you have a while to think things through thanks to its insular position. (A-H requires an immediate decision of whom to screw over.) Germany, France, Russia....take your pick, they're all right there! That said, I have never won a game before, or even shared in a draw/stalemate, but I still love it. I think the hardest to play is probably Austria for that reason. You cannot dither. It's stab-or-die in 1901. I can see, however, why you hate playing Turkey: you're bottled up. I'm not sure which is harder to play: online (email) or in person. For a game I said I like, I've only played a couple dozen or so games online since I discovered Diplomacy in 1998-ish; and three or four in person.