Anyone for Democracy? (Zombie Coup derail)

[Svartalf]

Nope, the one FOOL is soupy

[Scot Dutchy]

Well he is almost there. Nobody is on the same level as soupy.

[Tero]

what about the German Democratic Republic?

[Scot Dutchy]

That could be anywhere in Northern Europe when you build before putting infrastructure in first.

[Joe]

Where are your arguments that the Netherlands is not a democracy?

He just doesn't get it, Joe

It's why arguing with Scot Dutchy is a fool's game.

His understanding interests me only mildly pErv. Every so often, a durable chew toy hits the spot.

I am only interested to see how far a bigoted yank is indoctrinated. You are just so typical Joe. You dont have a clue. You dont believe corruption has not always been present in your administration then more fool you.
The way your elections are organised? Your voting methods. Everything about your dump of a country. The poverty, bad health, education and social services. Your infrastructure is falling down yet no one is willing to pay for it.

Six Ways America Is Like a Third-World Country

Our society lags behind the rest of the developed world in education, health care, violence and more

Although the U.S. is one of the richest societies in history, it still lags behind other developed nations in many important indicators of human development – key factors like how we educate our children, how we treat our prisoners, how we take care of the sick and more. In some instances, the U.S.’s performance is downright abysmal, far below foreign countries that are snidely looked-down-upon as “third world.” Here are six of the most egregious examples that show how far we still have to go:

You could trawl through the OECD data but it does not make good reading as a true blooded American.

Even the OHCHR does not think much of your country:

Statement on Visit to the USA, by Professor Philip Alston, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights*

Corruption?

Top 10 Ways the United States Is the Most Corrupt Country in the World

The United States fell 6 places to a ranking of only 22 in Transparency International’s‘s list of countries by corruption. Under Trump, America is not in the top 20 for fair dealing.

But as I have argued before, the United States is the most corrupt country in the world, and should be ranked 194, not 22. What follows is a much revised version of my popular list.

Joe enjoy a good read. Of course it is not true.

Here for the good order is the Corruption Perceptions Index for 2020. The USA has dropped another three places.

Strangely the majority of the top 10 are European with the Netherlands at number eight.

Bigoted yank, eh? Sounds like you're trying to distract from the weakness of your argument with boorish insults. Ah well, little is as little does.

Let's stick to the quantifiable facts. While I appreciate the opinion pieces and the speech, they don't tell me anything I don't already know. After all, I live here and see this shit every day. The big problem with these though, is that they don't provide a data-driven comparison that justifies the hyperbole of their headlines. And, as Professor Alston rightly points out

Of course, that is not the whole story. I also saw much that is positive. I met with State and especially municipal officials who are determined to improve social protection for the poorest 20% of their communities, I saw an energized civil society in many places, I visited a Catholic Church in San Francisco (St Boniface – the Gubbio Project) that opens its pews to the homeless every day between services, I saw extraordinary resilience and community solidarity in Puerto Rico, I toured an amazing community health initiative in Charleston (West Virginia) that serves 21,000 patients with free medical, dental, pharmaceutical and other services, overseen by local volunteer physicians, dentists and others (WV Health Right), and indigenous communities presenting at a US-Human Rights Network conference in Atlanta lauded Alaska’s advanced health care system for indigenous peoples, designed with direct participation of the target group.

But as Hermit pointed out, you can only see the negative. That's not my problem.

So, the first real quantifiable data you use in your argument is the OECD data. Of course, you used it only to insult me based on my nationality, so I will take an aside to refute your outdated and provincial stereotype. Americans don't "trawl through" data, we query it. If you could have found anything to support your argument in the OECD database, you would have referenced it. Since you didn't, I will assume it either wasn't there or that designing an appropriate query was beyond your ability.

While you digest that, here's a little something from the OECD website that I thought you could "trawl through."

With its strong enforcement record, the United States confirms its leading role in the fight against transnational corruption

17/11/2020 – The United States continues to demonstrate an increasing level of anti-bribery enforcement, having convicted or sanctioned 174 companies and 115 individuals for foreign bribery and related offences under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) between September 2010 and July 2019. The United States is thus commended for a significant upward trend in enforcement and confirming the prominent role it plays globally in combating foreign bribery.

The 44-country OECD Working Group on Bribery has just completed its Phase 4 evaluation of the United States’ implementation of the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions and related instruments.

Given developments since the United States’ last evaluation in 2010, the Working Group made a range of recommendations to the United States, including to:

Consider ways to enhance protections for whistleblowers who report potential FCPA anti-bribery violations by non-issuers and provide further guidance on available whistleblower protections;
Continue to further evaluate and refine policies and guidance concerning the FCPA;
Make publicly available the extension and completion of NPAs and DPAs with legal persons in foreign bribery matters as well as the grounds for extending DPAs in FCPA matters;
Continue to evaluate the effectiveness of the Corporate Enforcement Policy in particular in terms of encouraging self-disclosure and of its deterrent effect on foreign bribery; and
Continue to address recidivism through appropriate sanctions and raise awareness of its impact on the choice of resolution in FCPA matters.
The report praises the United States for its sustained commitment to enforcing its foreign bribery offence as well as its key role in promoting the implementation of the Convention. This achievement results from a combination of enhanced expertise and resources to investigate and prosecute foreign bribery, the enforcement of a broad range of offences in foreign bribery cases, the effective use of non-trial resolution mechanisms, and the development of published policies to incentivise companies’ co-operation with law enforcement agencies.

The report also notes a large number of positive developments and good practices, such as the DOJ’s reliance on several theories of liability to hold both companies and individuals responsible for foreign bribery, and the United States’ successful co-ordination that has allowed multi-agency resolutions against alleged offenders in FCPA matters. In parallel, the United States has increasingly sought to co-ordinate and co-operate in investigating and resolving multijurisdictional foreign bribery matters with other jurisdictions. Finally, the United States has helped foreign partners build their capacity to fight foreign bribery through joint conferences and peer-to-peer training thus enabling the law enforcement authorities of these countries to better investigate and sanction prominent foreign bribery cases.

The United States’ Phase 4 report was adopted by the OECD Working Group on Bribery on 16 October 2020. The report lists the recommendations the Working Group made to the United States on pages 111-113, and includes an overview of recent enforcement activity and specific legal, policy, and institutional features of the United States' framework for fighting foreign bribery. In accordance with the standard procedure, the United States will submit a written report to the Working Group within two years (October 2022) on its implementation of all recommendations and its enforcement efforts. This report will also be made publicly available.

The report is part of the OECD Working Group on Bribery’s fourth phase of monitoring, launched in 2016. Phase 4 looks at the evaluated country’s particular challenges and positive achievements. It also explores issues such as detection, enforcement, corporate liability, and international co-operation, as well as covering unresolved issues from prior reports.

For further information, journalists are invited to contact the OECD's Media Relations Division on (33) 1 45 24 97 00 or news.contact@oecd.org. For more information on the United States’ work to fight corruption, please visit http://www.oecd.org/daf/anti-bribery/un ... ention.htm.

Now to where you refute your own argument, the Corruption Perceptions Index. The Trump years certainly hurt my country, but 25th on the list doesn't support your hyperbolic claims. The top 25 of 180 countries is the 86th percentile. I wish it were much higher, but it's not the ranking of a banana republic, a third world country, or the most corrupt country in the world.

Since you have trouble with my English, I'll give you a picture to show you how ridiculous your wild assertions are. This is the legend for the report from the Wikipedia page, which is easier to read.



As you can see, the US score is in the green, on the less corrupt side of the scale.

I doubt you will agree with me, but that's your failing, not mine.

[Joe]

Trigger Warning!!!1! :

Once again you have said FA. Your country is a corrupt plutocracy accept and move on. It is no where under any circumstances a democracy.
I never removed anything. Did you just dig up a load of crap and and think it is an argument? You are talking guff.
Where are your arguments that the Netherlands is not a democracy? I have proven enough that your country is a plutocracy or even a kleptocracy but never with the best will in the world is it a democracy. Just give your arguments pure and simple and stop waffling which is something you are pretty good at. Telling facts is not.
Leave the insults btw. Thank fuck almighty I dont live there.

Now Scot, saying something without supporting data doesn't prove anything. You've used the word corruption in 264 posts, but provided only 2 opinion videos about our for profit prison system. You've provided no data to show that the US is as corrupt as you say, only stated your opinion ad nauseum. Not good enough.

Care to provide some quantifiable data from a reputable source?

BTW, when I post this

Of course, if a Republic is not a representative democracy, then neither is a monarchy.

and you quote it

Of course, if a Republic is not a representative democracy, then neither is a monarchy.

Trigger Warning!!!1! :

Your ignorance is badly showing Joe. In Europe monarchies dont exist. Not a single country is a monarchy except Monaco. All European royal families have no power but of course you did not know that. They are handy to roll out when you have visitors. There are republics that are representative democracies but the USA fails at all counts as I have explained in previous postings.

Keep going Joe you may find something one day in that corrupt plutocracy. I will just carry on living in my directly elected democracy and enjoy my true freedoms. You still have not answered why this country is not a democracy. Go on try.

You can see the link is gone. Care to explain how that happened.

Now, where is that missing link?

[pErvinalia]

He's got some sort of malfunction at his end when it comes to links. This isn't the first time he fucked up like this.

[Joe]

Well, I doubt his royal highness will deign to explain his mysteries to a mere non-Dutch untermenschen, so we'll probably never know.

[Hermit]

This series of corrupt political manoeuvrings is starting to make me think that Scot's hyperbole about America's corruption and lack of true democracy is starting to look closer and closer to the mark...

The US system is a seriously flawed democracy, and it may morph into a sham-democracy in the next few years, but it is not there yet.

Queensland was closer to a fascist form of government when the governing Premier's party attracted 19% of the vote, the police was a tool of the executive, and assemblies of more than 2 (yes, two) people were made illegal.

[Joe]

The US was never intended to be a democracy. But then they had to change the definition of democracy and get everybody's knickers in a twist.

[Svartalf]

Trigger Warning!!!1! :

Once again you have said FA. Your country is a corrupt plutocracy accept and move on. It is no where under any circumstances a democracy.
I never removed anything. Did you just dig up a load of crap and and think it is an argument? You are talking guff.
Where are your arguments that the Netherlands is not a democracy? I have proven enough that your country is a plutocracy or even a kleptocracy but never with the best will in the world is it a democracy. Just give your arguments pure and simple and stop waffling which is something you are pretty good at. Telling facts is not.
Leave the insults btw. Thank fuck almighty I dont live there.

Now Scot, saying something without supporting data doesn't prove anything. You've used the word corruption in 264 posts, but provided only 2 opinion videos about our for profit prison system. You've provided no data to show that the US is as corrupt as you say, only stated your opinion ad nauseum. Not good enough.

Care to provide some quantifiable data from a reputable source?

BTW, when I post this

Of course, if a Republic is not a representative democracy, then neither is a monarchy.

and you quote it

Of course, if a Republic is not a representative democracy, then neither is a monarchy.

Trigger Warning!!!1! :

Your ignorance is badly showing Joe. In Europe monarchies dont exist. Not a single country is a monarchy except Monaco. All European royal families have no power but of course you did not know that. They are handy to roll out when you have visitors. There are republics that are representative democracies but the USA fails at all counts as I have explained in previous postings.

Keep going Joe you may find something one day in that corrupt plutocracy. I will just carry on living in my directly elected democracy and enjoy my true freedoms. You still have not answered why this country is not a democracy. Go on try.

You can see the link is gone. Care to explain how that happened.

Now, where is that missing link?

my bet is that it's to be found inside the phone in Waldo's pocket.

[JimC]

The US was never intended to be a democracy. But then they had to change the definition of democracy and get everybody's knickers in a twist.

Democracy is just a word. Surely the US was supposed to be a nation where the people (yeah, I know, originally white males only...) were able to be in charge, in one form or another, of their own destiny, and the destiny of their nation...

[Sean Hayden]

It's a difficult sell in a large nation of very different states.

[JimC]

It's a difficult sell in a large nation of very different states.

Perhaps a renaming is required.

The DSA

The Disunited States of America...

Has the virtue of being honest...

[Joe]

It sounds like you may have read Federalist 10.