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I can't say -- this is not something that can be argued in abstract terms, at all. My ideal government is one in which I am a member of an elite class that has all of the wealth save that much required to prevent the people who are not members of the elite class from rising up against the government. But that is because I am an Upper-middle class White Jewish American - my ideal form of government is a direct manifestation of my personal situation. The entire point, the entire reason why economics and political science can not be sciences, is because there is no abstract, there is only reality. The best form of government for the United States of America, circa 2003, is a representative democracy. The best form of government for the People's Republic of China, circa 2003, is a supposed-socialist oligarchy. The frustrating part about "studying" political science and economics is that the more advanced your study, the more you realize that your studies are useless. What will happen tommorow is entirely unpredictable, and the ripple effects of events that happen are unforseeable. History can not, and does not, predict the future. Abstraction and theoretical discussions are illogical. Reality is composed of an infinitely large number of things all happening to cause it, and to use a cliche that is highly appropriate, only hindsight is 20/20.

Uh.... no.... you're just blatantly wrong. Bush said "free cookies" and there were free cookies. Thats the whole point.

You could argue that George W. won because he promised tax cuts, largest to the people who voted the most. It certainly promoted loose fiscal policy - the budget is a mess. You guys are being a little naive about the checks and balances system. If 51% of americans want free cookies, and are willing to vote for the candidate that promises them free cookies, Congress and the Presidency will fill up with politicians trying to capture the cookie-vote. No one is going to veto it. But you're right in a sense, that the Cons!@#$%^&*ution has stood the test of time. It seems odd, when you think about it, that we place more faith in a do-*BAD WORD*-ent written by people over 200 years ago than we do in the politicians that lead us. But I attribute this to the brilliance of the country's founders - we had some incredibly intelligent men set up our system of government, and regardless of how much your highschool history teacher might want you to abstract things, it certainly played a role. Anyway, I'm straying from my point. Much like a poverty trap, I think the U.S. has reached a prosperity trap. Realists suggest that the most stable form of international power is one megapower, who knocks the other powers down when they try to p!@#$%^&* them in power. But by Macauley's democracy-o-meter, we're somewhere in the complacency-selfishness-apathy-dependency stage. Certainly the U.S. has become complacent since the end of the Cold War -- nothing threatens us. Occasional problems arise, but they are temporary. The warmongering at!@#$%^&*ude following 9/11 has largely subsided. Selfishness we may or may not have reached ... because we're most likely both selfish and apathetic, and I'm sure these steps can all mix themselves up. Mmm... I'm starting to babble because I'm tired.

In 1900, the wage of an industrial laborer in england was 5 pounds annually, where as the wage of a skilled specialist (doctor, professor, etc) was 5,000 pounds anually, 10000% the wage of the industrial laborer. In the United states in 2003, the wage of an industrial laboror is somewhere approximately in the $30,000-$50,000 annual range. And an educated worker (a professor or doctor), does NOT make 10000% of this - or $3,000,000 - $5,000,000 annually. Suppose the average ANNUAL wage of a chinese sweat-shop worker is $600, as the average hourly rate in China is $0.23. That would mean the 10000% increase of a skilled worker's income would equate making $60,000 a year, quite common for University Professors. The situation in labor vs. capitol from 1900 in England, which today is no longer apparent, as England has grown out of that period of worker exploitation, is what is apparent in 2003 in China. In 100 years, China will grow out of it.

unfortunately, you can't read any of my footnotes... which are probably an additional page by themselves lol.

Here is the, terribly formatted, essay. I'm revising it for 30 minutes tommorow... but it'll remain largely the same. Earl Warren’s Solutions to the Quandary of the United States as a Failed Republic From the establishment of their cons!@#$%^&*ution, up until 1966, the United States dealt with the seemingly unsolvable quandary of their supposedly cons!@#$%^&*utional representative democracy instead being a government of partial and unequal representation, or even oligarchy. It was Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, who was the chief architect in orchestrating the move towards a real Republic in the U.S. His brilliance lay in his ability to skirt the authority of the Cons!@#$%^&*ution as a means to his ends, despite questions over the legality of his actions. With his rulings in key court cases, culminating with the upholding of the cons!@#$%^&*utionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in South Carolina v. Katzenback (1966), he overstepped boundaries on the Supreme Court because he knew drastic, and perhaps uncons!@#$%^&*utional, measures were required to solve the quandary. Previous attempts to rectify the issues of an un-republican government by Congress and previous Courts had been sound in theory, but failed in practice, until Chief Justice Warren and the other justices of the Warren Era made their first important decisions on the issue, in 1954, with Brown v. Board of Education and, in 1962, with Baker v. Carr. The most important premise, and basic notion, of the Cons!@#$%^&*ution of the United States is that the government is ruled by the people. From the creation of that do-*BAD WORD*-ent, and for over 150 following years, the government of the United States did not represent the people – it represented an elite class, originally of aristocratic landowning white males, who comprised of an unbelievably small percentage of the population. The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments expressly made changes in the Cons!@#$%^&*ution to provide for equal voting rights to create a true Republic, yet even in 1960 the percentage of voting-age whites in Mississippi was 63.9%, while the percentage of voting-age blacks was 5.2%. In Alabama, 63.6% compared to 13.7%. In South Carolina, 57.1% compared to 13.7%. Indeed, the average percentages of all the Southern states showed a difference of 61.1% to 29.2%. The 13th amendment outlawed slavery, the 14th established “equal protection of the laws” and intended to create fair apportionment, and the 15th amendment indicated that “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous conditions of servitude.” Why then, despite these amendments to the foundation of the U.S. government, were they largely ineffectual? The quandary was mind-numbing to politicians in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The South created what are called, in popular terms, the Jim Crow laws, which completely worked around these three cons!@#$%^&*utional amendments, using the shield of Section 4, Article 3 of the cons!@#$%^&*ution, which guaranteed the States a republican form of government (Guarantee Clause) and the 10th amendment, which reserved the powers not given to the federal government, to the states. Grandfather clauses , literacy tests , poll taxes , white primaries , and even outright physical prevention of blacks from voting, were policies and laws used by the South to avoid following the cons!@#$%^&*utional representative democracy of the U.S. Later, movement in population upset the balance of representation in many States: In Tennessee in 1901, 43,000 voters lived in the urban district that included Memphis, which received 7.5 representatives. 11 representatives belonged to every other district combined, who combined to have the same population. In 1950, 312,000 voters lived in the district that included urban Memphis, which still received 7.5 representatives, since they had not reapportioned. The other districts combined to the same population, yet received 26 representatives, because more districts had been added. If you lived in rural Tennessee in 1950, your vote counted nearly 4 times as much as if you lived in urban Memphis. States defended their right to keep apportionment because the Cons!@#$%^&*ution reserved them that right under the 10th amendment, and they were right, as pre-Warren Supreme Court rulings grudgingly admitted. Congress and the Executive made attempts to fix the quandary of unequal representation, but they were largely unsuccessful. The Freedmen’s Bureau was set up in 1865 by executive order, and Reconstruction imposed military power over the southern states, but the extreme leniency of Reconstructionist policies from President Johnson following Lincoln largely undermined any ability to make Reconstruction work. Violence against blacks was rampant in the South during this time. In 1937-1938, Congress passed anti-lynching and poll tax bills, but the effects did little to increase black participation in voting due to the simple threat of violence for defying local white authorities, who literally blocked the entrance to voting booths from blacks. Education is one of the highest correlations to desire-to-vote among voting-age citizens, but segregation in education lead to worse education for blacks. During WWII, Mississippi blacks comprise 57% of the school-age population, but received only 13% of the education budget. New Deal plans attempted to bring aid to the poor south (largely black), but simply opened the South to the harsh reality of industrial capitalism; there are winners, and there are losers (and in this case, the South was losing). In 1957, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, prohibiting attempts to intimidate or prevent people from voting. Yet, as demonstrated in earlier data, the South’s black registration was absurdly low in comparison to the white registration, and not for a lack of interest. “There was … no such thing as an entirely healthy, homogeneous and united black community anywhere in the United States during the early twentieth century.” This lack of cohesion in a political system largely driven by the power of collective action and money of interest groups held Black-Americans from breaking out of the history of undemocratic America, preventing the true Republic that the United States claimed to have. That is, until Earl Warren began to solve the unsolvable quandary. The Warren Court made three key decisions, one each on the issues of segregation, apportionment, and voting rights. In Brown v. Board of Education, Chief Justice Warren delivered the opinion of the court, in which he comes to a groundbreaking announcement, “Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race … deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does.” This ruling officially ended the segregation of the school system. The effects of this ruling were unfelt in the short run, because education does not take an instantaneous effect, but as demonstrated by the debate over affirmative action at the turn of the 21st century, it opened floodgates for further advancement. Despite the significance of this case, and its brilliant disregard for public opinion and the dangers of implementation that politicians in Congress and the Presidency largely suc-*BAD WORD*-bed to, it is the least significant of Warren’s three achievements in solving the quandary of the United States as a failed republic. In Baker v. Carr (1962), the Warren Court addressed the issue of reapportionment, which years earlier the Supreme Court had been unable to tackle. In Colegrove v. Green (1946), the court had held that apportionment was left open by the Cons!@#$%^&*ution and therefore the federal government could not force reapportionment. As a result, there was a growing disparity between the voting power of urban and rural citizens. Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, urban voters were largely poor and black, while the rural vote representing wealthier white interests. The rural vote began to count more than the urban vote, which created a cycle of rural-elected white politicians maintaining the unequal apportionment. In Baker v. Carr, the Warren Court handily takes care of the Tennessee apportionment situation. Despite the states-rights argument that the Guarantee Clause prevents federal intervention in apportionment, the Warren Court stepped completely around the argument by indicating that citizens are also guaranteed equal representation in a republican government. The court nearly went so far as to say the States were not republican governments. Previous courts had avoided questions of such a “political nature” to avoid stepping on the toes of other parts of the government, but the Warren Court had no such reservations. As a result of the Warren Court’s decision, Tennessee reapportioned, and many states have since, some specifically engineering their new districts to empower minorities by creating geographically-strange districts to make the State’s minority the district’s majority, essentially granting them a minority congressional representative. As in Brown v. Board of Education, Baker v. Carr was a triumphant challenge to the failed republic, but the last of Warren’s great achievements was the greatest. In South Carolina v. Katzenbach (1966), Chief Justice Earl Warren again delivers the opinion of the court, upholding the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as cons!@#$%^&*utional, despite the blatant reality that it was not. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 created a “triggering mechanism” that was triggered by either the passage of any voting restrictions prior to 1964, or if less than 50% of the voting-age population was registered to vote. The act was immediately triggered by nearly every Southern State. When the Act was triggered, the federal government sent federal examiners to register people to vote, but more importantly, triggered “preclearance” which required the attorney general (in the federal Justice Department) or a district court (a federal court) to approve any passage of laws. In other words, the Federal Government had the veto ability to stop South Carolina doing something as simple as raising their state taxes or amending their state cons!@#$%^&*ution. Needless to say, South Carolina immediately filed suite and brought it to the Supreme Court, with supporting amicus curiae briefs from five other states which had triggered the VRA. The states argued that it infringed on State’s rights and treated them in an unequal manner, an infringement on the basic rights granted by the reservation of powers in the Cons!@#$%^&*ution, a direct violation of the clear command that “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government” (Guarantee Clause). Warren rules to give the authority to congress to enact whatever legislation they deem necessary to uphold amendments despite other cons!@#$%^&*utional questions, and rejected the State’s complaints, among other reasons, because “After enduring nearly a century of widespread resistance to the Fifteenth Amendment, Congress has marshaled an array of potent weapons against the evil, with authority in the Attorney General to employ them effectively.” This is hardly an argument based on The Cons!@#$%^&*ution. The effects of the upholding of the VRA of 1965 were immediately and dramatically felt. In Mississippi in 1964, 70.7% of voting-age whites were registered and only 6.7% of non-white. By 1970, six years later, 71% of voting-age non-whites in Mississippi were registered to vote. In Arkansas in 1970, 74.1% of voting-age whites were registered compared to the 82.3% of non-whites (in 1960, those numbers were 60.9% and 38.0% respectively). On average, in the ten year period from 1960-1970, voting-age non-white (minority) registration in Southern states increased from 29.2% to 62.0%. As 53% of blacks in the country lived in the South, this was the first time the United States truly had voters who represented the population of the country. Despite countless acts of Congress, Supreme Court rulings, social leaders, and the general population, no single act may have had so large an influence. Whether or not the United States has perfected the goal of truly becoming a republic is obviously questionable. However, Chief Justice Earl Warren of the United States Supreme Court’s rulings finally shattering the gl!@#$%^&* ceiling above under-represented voters. The near-immediate correction of representation in the South in the middle of the Warren Court Era is evidence of his success. In Federalist Number 10, James Madison worried over the tyranny of the majority, a majority which largely controlled politics in the United States until the 1970s. Warren’s disregard for precedent or political pressures he deemed counterproductive to the U.S. as a republic were part of his genius. He often did not worry about what the Cons!@#$%^&*ution meant, but rather about what it should mean, pushing the Supreme Court power to interpret the law, as a tool to accomplish his own purpose of civil and equal voting rights. It was Chief Justice Warren who ushered in the new precedents to destroy this political monopoly by the majority, and perhaps solve, or at least advance the solution of, a quandary the great thinkers of more than the past 150 years had been unable to overcome.

Reproduction from Epstein and Walker, pp.178 Table 3-5, with my further analysis below Percentage of Voting-Age Population Registered to Vote 1960 1964 1970 1998 States Whites | Non-Whites Whites | Non-Whites Whites | Non-Whites Whites | Non-Whites Alabama 63.6 13.7 70.7 23.0 85.0 66.0 74.1 74.3 Arkansas 60.9 38.0 71.7 54.4 74.1 82.3 65.9 51.8 Florida 69.3 39.4 84.0 54.4 65.5 55.3 61.1 50.4 Georgia 56.8 29.3 74.5 44.0 71.7 57.2 62.0 64.1 Louisiana 76.9 31.3 .4 32.0 77.0 57.4 75.2 69.5 Mississippi 63.9 5.2 70.7 6.7 82.1 71.0 75.2 71.3 North Carolina 92.1 39.1 92.5 46.8 68.1 51.3 65.6 57.4 South Carolina 57.1 13.7 78.5 38.8 62.3 56.1 67.9 68.0 Tennessee 73.0 59.1 72.9 69.4 78.5 71.6 63.9 64.8 Texas 42.5 35.5 53.2 57.7 62.0 72.6 59.7 62.1 Virginia 46.1 23.1 55.9 45.7 64.5 57.0 63.5 53.6 Averages 61.1 29.2 73.2 43.3 69.2 62.0 63.5 61.5 Additional analysis (by me) Increases from 1964 -> 1970 of percentage of Non-White Registered Voters Southern States Increases Alabama + 43.0% <- Arkansas + 27.9% Florida + 0.9% Georgia + 13.2% Louisiana + 25.4% Mississippi + 64.3% <- North Carolina + 4.5% South Carolina + 17.3% Tennessee + 2.2% Texas + 14.9% Virginia + 11.3% Average + 18.7%

If by superstar, you mean mega giant superstar, and by gay, you mean straight, and by bar, you mean orgy-room, then yes. I'm studying right now for another class, but tommorow I'll respond seriously to this thread.

montezuma ... let me finish .... i have some really cool data for you

Okay I totally redid the first half of the essay .... First half = proving it was a seemingly unsolvable quandary. Second half will be about why Warren solved it. Here is first half. Unfortunately, literally like 1/4 of the essay is written in the footnotes, and i cant cut and paste them here oh well From the establishment of their cons!@#$%^&*ution, up until 1966, the United States dealt with the seemingly unsolvable quandary of their supposedly cons!@#$%^&*utional representative democracy instead being a government of partial and unequal representation, or even an oligarchy. It was Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, who was the chief architect in orchestrating the move towards a real Republic in the U.S. His brilliance lay in his ability to skirt the authority of the Cons!@#$%^&*ution as a means to his ends, despite questions over the legality of his actions. With his rulings in key court cases, culminating with the upholding of the cons!@#$%^&*utionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in South Carolina v. Katzenback (1966), he overstepped boundaries on the Supreme Court because he knew drastic, and perhaps uncons!@#$%^&*utional, measures were required to solve the quandary. Previous attempts to rectify the issues of an un-republican government by Congress and previous Courts had been sound in theory, but failed in practice, until Chief Justice Warren and the other justices of the Warren Era made their first important decisions on the issue, in 1954, with Brown v. Board of Education and, in 1962, with Baker v. Carr. The most important premise, and basic notion, of the Cons!@#$%^&*ution of the United States is that the government is ruled by the people. From the creation of that do-*BAD WORD*-ent, and for over 150 following years, the government of the United States did not represent the people – it represented an elite class, originally of aristocratic landowning white males, who comprised of an unbelievably small percentage of the population. The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments expressly made changes in the Cons!@#$%^&*ution to provide for equal voting rights to create a true Republic, yet even in 1960 the percentage of voting-age whites in Mississippi was 63.9%, while the percentage of voting-age blacks was 5.2%. In Alabama, 63.6% compared to 13.7%. In South Carolina, 57.1% compared to 13.7%. Indeed, the average percentages of all the Southern states showed a difference of 61.1% to 29.2%. The 13th amendment outlawed slavery, the 14th established “equal protection of the laws” and intended to create fair apportionment, and the 15th amendment indicated that “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous conditions of servitude.” Why then, despite these amendments to the foundation of the U.S. government, were they largely ineffectual? The quandary was mind-numbing to politicians in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The South created what are called, in popular terms, the Jim Crow laws, which completely worked around these three cons!@#$%^&*utional amendments, using the shield of Section 4, Article 3 of the cons!@#$%^&*ution, which guaranteed the States a republican form of government (Guarantee Clause) and the 10th amendment, which reserved the powers not given to the federal government, to the states. Grandfather clauses , literacy tests , poll taxes , white primaries , and even outright physical prevention of blacks from voting, were policies and laws used by the South to avoid following the cons!@#$%^&*utional representative democracy of the U.S. Later, movement in population upset the balance of representation in many States: In Tennessee in 1901, 43,000 voters lived in the urban district that included Memphis, which received 7.5 representatives. 11 representatives belonged to every other district combined, who combined to have the same population. In 1950, 312,000 voters lived in the district that included urban Memphis, which still received 7.5 representatives, since they had not reapportioned. The other districts combined to the same population, yet received 26 representatives, because more districts had been added. If you lived in rural Tennessee in 1950, your vote counted nearly 4 times as much as if you lived in urban Memphis. States defended their right to keep apportionment because the Cons!@#$%^&*ution reserved them that right under the 10th amendment, and they were right, as pre-Warren Supreme Court rulings grudgingly admitted. Congress and the Executive made attempts to fix the quandary of unequal representation, but they were largely unsuccessful. The Freedmen’s Bureau was set up in 1865 by executive order, and Reconstruction imposed military power over the southern states, but the extreme leniency of reconstructionist policies from President Johnson following Lincoln largely undermined any ability to make Reconstruction work. Violence against blacks was rampant in the South during this time. In 1937-1938, Congress passed anti-lynching and poll tax bills, but the effects did little to increase black participation in voting due to the simple threat of violence for defying local white authorities, who literally blocked the entrance to voting booths from blacks. Education is one of the highest correlations to desire-to-vote among voting-age citizens, but segregation in education lead to worse education for blacks. During WWII, Mississippi blacks comprise 57% of the school-age population, but received only 13% of the education budget. New Deal plans attempted to bring aid to the poor south (largely black), but simply opened the South to the harsh reality of industrial capitalism; there are winners, and there are losers (and in this case, the South was losing). “There was … no such thing as an entirely healthy, homogeneous and united black community anywhere in the United States during the early twentieth century.” This lack of cohesion in a political system largely driven by the power of collective action and money of interest groups held Black-Americans from breaking out of the history of undemocratic America, preventing the true Republic that the United States claimed to have. That is, until Earl Warren began to solve the unsolvable quandary.

I'm writing an essay on the following premise. The entire point of the US government is a representative republican government, but for some reason up until 1965 (voting rights act) this WASNT TRUE. Even in 1960 far less than half the people in the country could vote, so how is it possibly a government of the people? Anyway - i have to prove 2 things: 1) this was a seemingly unsolvable quandary (problem) and many people TRIED to solve it. For this, i need examples of congress, individuals, or whoever trying to force the south (and others) to have equal voting rights ... and FAILING. I need plenty of evidence (give me laws, acts, whatever) of why people kept trying to solve this and COULDNT. 2) the person who finally SOLVED this quandary for Earl Warren, through his personal brilliance (him as a person). Don't worry about this as much ... I can handle it... I know earl warren like the back of my hand. I'm more worried about proving that this was an unsolvable quandry BY ANYONE ELSE. Anyway here is my start .... its crappy and unrevised .... dont get on me about that.... remember i have to prove that this was a nearly unsolvable quandry, and that the chief architect in solving it was Earl Warren. (i made up the essay topic, so forget the fact that I could be *wrong* ) From the establishment of their cons!@#$%^&*ution, up until 1966, the United States dealt with the seemingly unsolvable quandary of their supposedly republican cons!@#$%^&*utional government instead being a government of partial and unequal representation. It was Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, who was the chief architect in orchestrating the move towards a real Republic in the U.S. His brilliance lay in his ability to skirt the authority of the Cons!@#$%^&*ution as a means to his ends. With his rulings in key court cases, culminating with the upholding of the cons!@#$%^&*utionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in South Carolina v. Katzenback (1966), he overstepped usual boundaries on the Supreme Court because he knew drastic, and perhaps uncons!@#$%^&*utional, measures were required to solve the quandary. Previous attempts to rectify the issues of apportionment, white primaries, grandfather clauses, poll taxes, and literacy tests had been sound in theory, but failed in practice, until Chief Justice Warren and the other justices of the Warren Era made their first important decision on the issue, in 1962, with Baker v. Carr. The most important premise, and basic notion, of the Cons!@#$%^&*ution of the United States is that the government is ruled by the people. From the creation of that do-*BAD WORD*-ent, and for over 150 following years, the government of the United States did not represent the people. The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments expressly made changes in the Cons!@#$%^&*ution to provide for equal voting rights, yet even in 1960 the percentage of voting-age whites in Mississippi was 63.9%, while the percentage of voting-age blacks was 5.2%. In Alabama, 63.6% compared to 13.7%. In South Carolina, 57.1% compared to 13.7%. Infact, the average percentages of all the Southern states showed a difference of 61.1% to 29.2% . Between the ratification of these amendments in 1865, 1868, and 1870 respectively, countless attempts were made by the North in Congress, and other Supreme Courts before the Warren Court, to prevent the South from excluding minority voters, but the South used the shield of the Guarantee Clause (Section 4, Article 3) of the Cons!@#$%^&*ution to skirt the mandates of the Federal Government. The quandary seemed unsolvable. When Congress made it illegal to bar blacks from voting, the South created what are called, in popular terms, the Jim Crow laws, which completed worked around three cons!@#$%^&*utional amendments. Early in the history of the Jim Crow laws were the grandfather clauses, literacy tests, and poll taxes. Grandfather clauses prevented you from voting if your grandfather couldn’t vote. Since many former-slaves and young Black-Americans had grandparents who were slaves, and therefore unable by law to vote, they were barred from voting. This didn’t specifically target blacks, though, so the Federal Government seemingly remained powerless. Likewise, literacy tests were required in some States to vote. Many blacks were illiterate, or had trouble answering questions that were geared to the dialects and popular phrases of whites, and were therefore barred from voting. Poll taxes also kept the poor from voting. Later, white primaries were used to keep minorities out of politics. Since the two major political parties were private clubs, they could allow only whites to run in their groups. Since only members of the two parties had any chance at all of winning elections, that meant there were no minorities in politics. This quandary seemed unsolvable. Congress made attempts to fix the problem, but they were largely unsuccessful, as the data from 1960 suggests.

That, gentleman, was one of my roomates. Bask in his glory. Starlight Twinkle Dancer = <3

No one is economically raped. Globalization makes it so that instead of everyone being poor, there are some people who get rich. Yes, the rest stay poor, but if the others weren't rich, the poor would still be poor. People work in sweat shops because if they didn't, they'd have NO jobs and would die of starvation. Thats not raping - thats helping. Nike does a them a serice. If Nike were to literally up and leave china this instant, it would cause thousands to die within weeks, no doubt. Redistribution of wealth is a moral hazard as well. If we're both going to get $10, but only one of us has to do any work, I'm sure as -*BAD WORD*- not going to be the one who does the work. This is the way the world works, and "blood sucking" capitalism is making the world better. In history, people have always been poor, but never have as many been rich, or even just "okay". The West isn't doing ANYTHING wrong to anybody else - they're just bitter that they don't have it as good. Sure, Nike COULD pay more money to their employees... but I could also transfer you $200 through paypal right now. How about - No.

Read the first and last paragraphs for a summary

As Bacchus said, its an explorative essay ... there is no "point".

Globalization, in recent years, has significantly hampered the sovereign ability of nation-states to implement policy to best serve their own economic interests. The interests of the world economic community, or of more economically powerful nation-states, have largely replaced any international interests in the rights of nation-states to control their economic outcomes. This theory is supported through several events in recent history that demonstrate such injury to sovereign powers; the spread of reliance on the U.S. dollar, the rise of the European Union and resulting economic ins!@#$%^&*utions, International Monetary Fund (IMF) plans and pressures towards a policy of independent central banking, and the infection of Brazil’s economy as a result of crisis in Russia (a microcosm of moral hazard). The evidence presented suggests an injury to sovereignty in economically subordinate nation-states and world economy leading nation-states alike. Sovereignty, defined in real terms, could be seen as a nation-state’s fundamental ability to tailor fiscal and monetary policy to be responsive to the needs of the nation-state’s domestic economy. In “The Geography of Money”, Benjamin Cohen suggests the catch phrase of “One Nation/One Money”. Although the conclusions he draws differ from mine, the evidence he presents is exemplary for my case. Why is currency control (or the right to print and regulate your own currency) a fundamental component to economic sovereignty? Control over printing money equates control over the quan!@#$%^&*y of money in circulation, and therefore control of interest rates, arguably one of the best tools to bolster the business cycles of a capitalist economy. Without the ability to choose between unemployment and inflation centered policies, a nation-state loses a key sovereign ability to satisfy her people. Seniorage also presents an irrefutable tool of exercising sovereignty. Where it is impossible to collect taxes, due perhaps to civil conflict or disorganization, a seniorage tax can raise funds for a nation-state. Indeed, this ability is hampered by a currency peg or floating system, but completely removed by using another nation-state’s currency. The prominence of the U.S. dollar has granted the United States a power over their domestic and foreign policies that a nation-state without its own currency does not have, as is the situation in several South American states. This was irrefutably proven when the United States began helping funding of their war in Vietnam by what I’d like to call the “World Tax.” What could be a more powerful tool than funding a war with the money of people from other countries; money that is not borrowed, but simply taken? If said war were against a country entirely reliant on the U.S. dollar, they could simply be cut off from the currency, and the war would be all but won. Why do countries dollarize then? In recent history it has been after a financial crisis, as well as in emerging democracies, who oft struggle with the implementation of their own currency. But, this is not to say there isn’t a potential advantage to sovereignty. When China pegged to the dollar in the mid-1990s, they made it incredibly hard for the U.S. to export to their markets, yet incredibly easy for China to export to the U.S. Indeed, there is short-term growth to be gained through moves such as those made by China (which should soon be stifled with the re-peg), but does this short-term growth outweigh the utter loss of sovereignty over currency, not to mention the injury to nationalism over the reliance on another country, or “monetary insulation”? Cohen does not disagree with me – he concludes that public policy can not cope, and “monetary invasion” or the creation of currency-blocs, is imminent. In realistic terms, as long as the scope of currency is larger than the scope of political control over domestic affairs, through globalization, there will be a skew of sovereignty towards those controlling the regulation of currency. Questionable, however, is the absolute gain of sovereignty of the currency regulating nation-states. That is to say, has the United States infringed on their own ability to respond to domestic needs by taking on a responsibility to the international marketplace? If unemployment is low in the U.S., but is through the roof in a developing nation that has dollarized, what stance on monetary policy should the Federal Reserve take, and will that stance be detrimental to domestic stability and/or growth? When Japan bought U.S. dollars to stimulate their own economy by keeping exports up, intervening to keep the dollar strong, the U.S.’s intention as the sovereign regulator of dollars, to allow the dollar to naturally devalue, was undermined. The potential for infringements on sovereignty due to globalization of currency across One Nation/One Money lines can be felt in both the country-of-origin of the prominent currency and all nation-states who rely on that currency, and tragedy can ensue. A prime example of this would be the failure of Bretton Woods, as Barry Eichengreen discusses in “Globalizing Capital”. In the 1960s, the weakening of the U.S. dollar, with external oil shocks and the explosion in the price of gold, led to extensive ripple effects around the global economy. Foreign central banks absorbed dollars to avoid further devalue of the U.S. dollar, causing spiked inflation – yet Germany, of all countries the most worried of hyper-inflation, hesitated to revalue. Their history in the preceding part of the century was a strong component of their policy to avoid inflation at nearly all costs. Their economy, as a result of reliance on the Bretton Woods system, had the potential to turn in the completely opposite direction of their stated sovereign intention to avoid inflation. The European Union could pose similar problems in present day. The European Union is a startling example of a move towards globalization, or at least towards a European bloc. With the Euro as a currency shared among these nations, even with the central regulation belonging to a board of the nation-states involved, the sovereign abilities of each state to manage their domestic stability and growth simultaneously appears challenging to say the least. With Germany’s strong support for fighting inflation, will the other European Monetary System members suc-*BAD WORD*-b to that desire, or will there be a lack of policy cohesion as there was under the European Snake? The EM addresses oil-shocks from OPEC, which certainly contributed to the failure of Snake, where the members were affected to different degrees, and the appropriate response was not a unified policy, in a strange manner. Fiscal federalism, as Eichengreen calls it, is a policy that incredibly infringes on sovereign power. Cir-*BAD WORD*-stances in domestic affairs certainly arise often which could not be predicted in fiscal policy – will members of the EM be able to address these concerns without fear of repercussions for deficit spending? There is, of course, the Very-Short-Term-Financing Facility, but this still allows an international ins!@#$%^&*ution to determine when a nation-state can spend its own money. History shows us the difficulty in enforcing fiscal federalism – several EM members have already violated specific regulations, and the United States, were it a member of the EM, would not even come close to meeting their requirements. Yet, the actions of the EU appear to be at least some sort of attempt at mimicking U.S. success as an economic superpower. One might liken political federalism in the United States at the turn of the 19th century, to the fiscal federalism of the European Union at the turn of the 21st century. Yet, one argument for how this apparently overwhelming restriction on sovereignty is justified, is one political in nature; that Europe sees themselves falling so far off the throne of world domination the U.S. has usurped they are willing to give sovereignty up to a higher, European, purpose. Such is the result of the globalization of political power, in which a country an ocean away can dominate political affairs. This political globalization goes hand in hand with economic globalization, so one might argue that EU members are only giving up a sovereignty that is becoming more and more useless compared to the authority of the United States. The hazard to sovereignty the Europeans face is similar, in ways, to those worries developing nations face by accepting International Monetary Fund packages as a last resort, with control over monetary policy being moved from politicians to an independent central bank, or in essence from the independent central bank to IMF (non-governmental) officials. Even without IMF intervention, it should be noted that independent central banking is at least partially a result of globalization, and removes a level of sovereignty. If a central bank removes a politician’s (of a nation-state which is a republic) ability to manipulate monetary policy, they remove a tool subject to abuse, but also the politicians ability to voice the preferences of the people. If the central bank recognizes long term inflationary problems leading to a major recession, they may cause a short term rise in unemployment, removing the ability of the people to dictate policy. Even more prominent as a sovereignty restriction would be a monetary policy that, as in the United states, takes into account the world economy in addition to the domestic economy; an absolute result of the globalization of the dollar. When the IMF structures a package that controls fiscal and monetary policy in a nation-state, even if tailored specifically to bring said nation-state out of crisis, it is an infringement of the sovereignty of that nation-state. This argument could easily tangent into a new definition of sovereignty, and whether it is within the sovereign right of a nation-state run by a dictator to create policy detrimental both to domestic and world markets. As we have defined sovereignty already to mean that it is, indeed, the sovereign authority of a nation-state to be wrong, it is an interesting dilemma. International markets (that is to say, globalization) can force a move to independent central banking as a means of signaling a strong market for foreign investment. The prominence of independent central banking in the 1990’s certainly has led to a subtle “market forcing” of many nation-states to implement hands-off policies. A whisper of capital controls can scare off international investment so quickly that it becomes in the best interest of a nation-state to tie their own hands. To scare off investment, there can also be uncertainty about the reliability of an independent central bank to be truly independent, meaning to be protected from the ceasing of monetary policy away from the bank. As Sylvia Maxfield discusses in “The International Political Economy of Central Banking in Developing Countries”, Brazil’s debate over a central bank took nineteen years, because of the political uncertainty of the country. Globalization has led to the suggestion that for nation-states to be successful, they must be players in the international market, or face poverty. And to be players in the international market, meaning to invest capital, nation-states frequently need to tie their hands from affecting monetary policy for political agendas. Such a train of thought leads to the inference that globalization can remove the political power of a nation-states major players, or their sovereign ability to dictate policy and create growth in their own country without subscribing to international ideals (for instance, the current ideal of democracy and capitalism). IMF packages do not always specifically tailor themselves to recovery from crisis – sometimes the packages are meant to provide only enough relief to quarantine the crisis. To do otherwise can result in moral hazard, crash, and further crisis. These considerations the IMF must make in designing a package for a nation-state in crisis can lead to a package that detrimentally affects the recipient – certainly an infringement on their sovereignty to manage their growth, stability, inflation, and unemployment. An idea, to prevent moral hazard and the propagation of crisis, suggested by Charles Kindleberger in “Manias, Panics, and Crashes”, is letting the crisis burn-out. That is to say, take absolutely no steps in rectifying the temporary dilemma, in favor of long term benefits. The dangers of a poverty trap are possible, but there is also a potential infringement on sovereignty, to those completely separated from the crisis. Investors, paying off poor investments in Russia, start selling out in Brazil, since Brazil seems the least stable place to invest. The prophecy is self-fulfilling, and Brazil – entirely across the world – is infected with the Russian financial crisis. This involvement in world affairs, simply being an actor, leaves a nation-state’s economy open to complete destruction with no particular domestic economic problems. If sovereignty is defined as a nation-state’s ability to manage (read: create policy for) its’ growth, stability, inflation, and unemployment, this is the ultimate infringement on sovereignty. It would be naïve to say that there is no effect on sovereignty by globalization – but whether that effect is positive or negative depends fundamentally on whether sovereignty is a nation-state’s measure of control in the world economy, or the domestic economy. One might argue, in refuting my claims stated here, that for all the losses of control over domestic monetary and fiscal policy, there is a proportional gain in control over world policies. When an IMF package removes a nation-state’s control over some policies, it is a demonstration that the nation-state has enough sway in international, global markets to have warranted receiving attention in the first place. Cohen, in particular, agreed with my !@#$%^&*essment of globalization’s affect on sovereignty, but he suggests that it is a moot argument, because the Westphalian model of nation-states is a recent anomaly, and will soon be outdated. Given the information I’ve explored here, I’m tempted to agree with Cohen. That a European bloc, Asian bloc, and American bloc have already emerged is evident. Whether nation-states will continue managing their monetary and fiscal policies to control their domestic economies, or larger bloc-states will emerge as the EU appears to be, is an interesting question that the immediate future may begin to answer.

I'd argue with you on that Akai Hamilton led the federalists and wrote much of the Federalist Papers, Jefferson led the states-rights supporters and became president, and Madison was one brilliant sunuva-*BAD WORD*- who's theories on politics and economics are still well read and applicable today.

those are some of the dumbest comments i've ever heard. who said this country was founded on christianity? There is a difference between what the country was "founded" on, and what the religion of the first europeans off the boat was. Unlike nearly every government preceding it, the government of the united states was created with the fundamental purpose of having logic, rather than faith, dictate what people did. The government of the US does not require that you be a good or moral person, but that you simply refrain from breaking some simple laws. Our forefathers did NOT think differently. The first amendment, which was ratified by the first congress which consisted of, among others, Madison, Jefferson, and Hamilton, expressly states the position on religion of the United States. Trust me when I say none of the three afformentioned players were highly religious, and they were by and large the 3 most important players in the creation of the US as we know it. End Rant.

no matter how many laws are made, it never replaces cons!@#$%^&*utional interpretation, unless you amend the cons!@#$%^&*ution itself my problem isn't with the god part of the pledge. my problem is that im PLEDGING TO A FLAG. uh... no? "I pledge allegiance?" I'm required to pledge my allegiance to america? What if I don't want to? Unless I'm planning the violent overthrow of the government, which I'm not, I don't have to pledge my -*BAD WORD*- allegiance. I pledge allegiance to myself. Tell your teacher that the next time she forces you to say the pledge.

"Stealing" a zone's idea is perfectly valid if you're going to do it better than the people you stole it from, and you're not interested in the same player community.

If your computer can't handle subspace plus another program, you need to think about getting a new one.

Or, the simplest way, would be to type ?go football in Sports Z..... Hockey Zone.

Don't know if someone has mentioned this, but if you alt+tab just as you're entering a zone (while its loading), continuum freezes up. This bug is easily reproducable on my computer. The way to avoid the bug is obviously "Don't alt+tab while you're entering, you idiot," but I just thought I should mention it.

Abuse by sysops mostly ... but thats okay ... you wouldn't allow anyone else those abuses. You pretty much have to trust your sysops not to cheat anyway