The 10 Most Looked Up Words of 2012

Steve said:
You had to look up "democracy?"
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I would safely wager that if you ask ten of your friends today if the US is a democracy or not, that there would not be a universal consensus.

Some for example believe that a democracy requires perfect equality and direct voting by citizenry, whereas others will accept that representatives can place the votes and citizenries votes are not equal (such as in our system since the votes are weighted differently based on which state they are in).
 
Ducman69 said:
I would safely wager that if you ask ten of your friends today if the US is a democracy or not, that there would not be a universal consensus...
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When people think that "Benghazi" is a person working at their local Wal-Mart, we have issues. This list is of no surprise.
 
Ducman69 said:
I would safely wager that if you ask ten of your friends today if the US is a democracy or not, that there would not be a universal consensus.

Some for example believe that a democracy requires perfect equality and direct voting by citizenry, whereas others will accept that representatives can place the votes and citizenries votes are not equal (such as in our system since the votes are weighted differently based on which state they are in).
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A Democracy is ANY system where governance is determined by the people. It doesn't have to be direct. A representative democracy is just that, a democracy. As is our republic.

Anyone saying anything else is dead wrong.
 
The top two words, according to Merriam-Webster, were "socialism" and "capitalism".

Steve...you and the rest of the mods cannot, in good conscience, expect this thread not to become a political anger orgy.
 
Zarathustra[H];1039394379 said:
A Democracy is ANY system where governance is determined by the people. It doesn't have to be direct. A representative democracy is just that, a democracy. As is our republic.

Anyone saying anything else is dead wrong.
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I would argue strongly that a republic is NOT democratic. The vast majority of laws we have in place were put in place without consent of the citizenry and often despite their objections. In fact, I would argue its main purpose of a republic is to give the *illusion* of democracy.

You can tell when a government is really democratic when people, via popular vote, put laws into place the government doesn't want, like the recent elections where two states made marijuana legal, and also gay marriage. In the United States, the individual States themselves, as well as most local governments are VERY democratic. At the Federal, democracy is an illusion.
 
Monkey God said:
I would argue strongly that a republic is NOT democratic. The vast majority of laws we have in place were put in place without consent of the citizenry and often despite their objections. In fact, I would argue its main purpose of a republic is to give the *illusion* of democracy.

You can tell when a government is really democratic when people, via popular vote, put laws into place the government doesn't want, like the recent elections where two states made marijuana legal, and also gay marriage. In the United States, the individual States themselves, as well as most local governments are VERY democratic. At the Federal, democracy is an illusion.
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That's because the Federal level has been out of control for over a century. That's why you now have so many people discussing the concept of "states' rights"...the concept that the Civil War truly addressed. There was a time when we would say "The United States of America are...", pointing out the fact that we were a collection of sovereign states under a single banner. After the Civil War, it changed to "The United States of America is...", demonstrating that the concept of sovereignty at the state level had been abandoned.

As was inevitable, the central government kept getting more and more powerful that it is now so bloated, corrupt, and overextended that states like Texas want to change the status quo.

Might be the right decision, frankly.
 
"touche" ? Really? People needed to look that up? Bigot too? Is this new vocabulary our kids are just now learning?

I can see marriage for all the BS about "Der hur the definition of marriage is between a man and a woman".
 
Monkey God said:
I would argue strongly that a republic is NOT democratic. The vast majority of laws we have in place were put in place without consent of the citizenry and often despite their objections. In fact, I would argue its main purpose of a republic is to give the *illusion* of democracy.

You can tell when a government is really democratic when people, via popular vote, put laws into place the government doesn't want, like the recent elections where two states made marijuana legal, and also gay marriage. In the United States, the individual States themselves, as well as most local governments are VERY democratic. At the Federal, democracy is an illusion.
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I didn't say it was a well functioning democracy, but it is a democracy none the less.

Personally I would ascribe its failures more closely tied to lobbying and big special interest money than than its republican (lower case r) structure though.
 
Zarathustra[H];1039394460 said:
I didn't say it was a well functioning democracy, but it is a democracy none the less.

Personally I would ascribe its failures more closely tied to lobbying and big special interest money than than its republican (lower case r) structure though.
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It's a lot easier to sway a few elected officials with cash than it is the entire populace.

Your definition and your problem are inextricably knotted together :p
 
Stiletto said:
That's because the Federal level has been out of control for over a century. That's why you now have so many people discussing the concept of "states' rights"...the concept that the Civil War truly addressed. There was a time when we would say "The United States of America are...", pointing out the fact that we were a collection of sovereign states under a single banner. After the Civil War, it changed to "The United States of America is...", demonstrating that the concept of sovereignty at the state level had been abandoned.

As was inevitable, the central government kept getting more and more powerful that it is now so bloated, corrupt, and overextended that states like Texas want to change the status quo.

Might be the right decision, frankly.
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I would say that the debate over the balance of state power/federal power have always been an issue in this country. For example, during Andrew Jackson's presidency, he saw himself as a sort of "voice of the people" that wanted to run the corruption out of Washington. One of the major changes he wanted to make was to limit federal power and encourage state's power. However, even with those intentions, he was forced to exercise federal power over state, such as during the South Carolina nullification crisis. I don't see these debates as being anything new.. they've always raged on. (If you need a reference, try Foner's "Give me Liberty!" 3rd ed.)

Secondly, I think it is healthy to continually question the status quo, and why things are the way they are. I kind of agree that people need to re-read their history books, and find out why it was an important theme to develop a Constitutional model that LIMITS government power, rather than grants it.
 
Zarathustra[H];1039394460 said:
I didn't say it was a well functioning democracy, but it is a democracy none the less.

Personally I would ascribe its failures more closely tied to lobbying and big special interest money than than its republican (lower case r) structure though.
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Parlamentarism (what most countries have) is about as far from democracy as can be. The power is in the hands of few instead of the people. The people are usually not asked even when making constitutional changes. And to become one of the few you have to play a dirty game.

In parlamentarism the thoughts and/or promises of the elected get overrun by the political agenda of the party they belong to. So in effect voting for people is just an illusion, the reality is that the party moves on it's own agendas and nothing else.
 
Stiletto said:
That's because the Federal level has been out of control for over a century. That's why you now have so many people discussing the concept of "states' rights"...the concept that the Civil War truly addressed. There was a time when we would say "The United States of America are...", pointing out the fact that we were a collection of sovereign states under a single banner. After the Civil War, it changed to "The United States of America is...", demonstrating that the concept of sovereignty at the state level had been abandoned.

As was inevitable, the central government kept getting more and more powerful that it is now so bloated, corrupt, and overextended that states like Texas want to change the status quo.

Might be the right decision, frankly.
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States rights should definitely have a well defined limit.

Coming from Canada, we have this province called Quebec that believes that just because they can speak french that we have to bow to their shit. When their provincial government got the federal government to enforce bilingual signs throughout the whole country (suspiciously not forcing Quebec itself to put English on any of their signs) and changing school ciriculum to have french taught in schools for at least 6 years, they make the last insult of trying to break off and become their own country. Which is funny, because they couldn't even get the residents to even vote for such a move.

TLDR; states rights are fine, but power can be just corrupting at a state or local level as it is at the top.
 
To get back on topic, though, I'm kind of glad that people are researching some of these concepts, such as democracy. Meanings have a way of changing over time due to popular thought, culture, media, etc. In one sense, I find it encouraging that people might be taking an interest in politics. I believe they need to in order to not have our rights trampled upon.
 
ballistic90 said:
States rights should definitely have a well defined limit.

Coming from Canada, we have this province called Quebec that believes that just because they can speak french that we have to bow to their shit. When their provincial government got the federal government to enforce bilingual signs throughout the whole country (suspiciously not forcing Quebec itself to put English on any of their signs) and changing school ciriculum to have french taught in schools for at least 6 years, they make the last insult of trying to break off and become their own country. Which is funny, because they couldn't even get the residents to even vote for such a move.

TLDR; states rights are fine, but power can be just corrupting at a state or local level as it is at the top.
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If you're going to discuss states' rights, talk about states, not provinces. They are two different things, and Canada has the latter, not the former.
 
ballistic90 said:
States rights should definitely have a well defined limit.

Coming from Canada, we have this province called Quebec that believes that just because they can speak french that we have to bow to their shit. When their provincial government got the federal government to enforce bilingual signs throughout the whole country (suspiciously not forcing Quebec itself to put English on any of their signs) and changing school ciriculum to have french taught in schools for at least 6 years, they make the last insult of trying to break off and become their own country. Which is funny, because they couldn't even get the residents to even vote for such a move.

TLDR; states rights are fine, but power can be just corrupting at a state or local level as it is at the top.
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You should just let Quebec go and be done with it. Then when they come crawling back, make them pay for it. Besides, I'd hardly call the shit Quebec does really infringing on anyones rights or anything. They are hardly recurring human rights violations.
 
Lol, this thread is just going to turn into a bunch of statists arguing over nonsense. Slave on slave in this horizontal hierarchy.
 
Looking up the proper defs of common words is fine. People get 'bigot' or 'touche' wrong all the time.
 
B00nie said:
Parlamentarism (what most countries have) is about as far from democracy as can be. The power is in the hands of few instead of the people. The people are usually not asked even when making constitutional changes. And to become one of the few you have to play a dirty game.

In parlamentarism the thoughts and/or promises of the elected get overrun by the political agenda of the party they belong to. So in effect voting for people is just an illusion, the reality is that the party moves on it's own agendas and nothing else.
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The people don't control the minutia of every day governance, but if the MP's completely ignore the will of the people they long term find their parties out of favor.

Ultimately a vote of preference comes from the people, and as such they are democracies, as the ruling parties are granted that role by the people.

A direct democracy is really neither practical nor desirable.
 
MissJ84 said:
Lol, this thread is just going to turn into a bunch of statists arguing over nonsense. Slave on slave in this horizontal hierarchy.
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Shouldn't you be living with other unwashed hippies on a commune without running water, electricity or decent sanitation? No? Then grow up and stop denigrating the entire society that makes everything you do possible.
 
weebling1 said:
*sigh*

I guess we needed a disclaimer "this thread is fur 'Merica only!"

"Depending on the countries compared, there may be no differences between state organization and province structure at all."

http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-the-difference-between-a-state-and-a-province.htm
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Yeah, okay. Make the American stereotypes instead of recognizing that the states(and/or people) in the US have the power of the tenth amendment to the Constitution, which gives them all powers not enumerated in the Constitution. Canada has no such legislation.

What is interesting, though, is that Canada has been far more sensible with its federal spending we have. Obviously, they don't have nearly the military resources we have, but they also have far less state grants. More spending is done at the local level, which is the way the USA should be heading. Unfortunately, there's a deep chasm in the way which we're likely going to collapse into before we wake up to the reality of our unsustainable entitlement infrastructure.
 
Be happy the most looked up word isn't Kardashian or Beiber or Brittany Spears nude anymore.
 
Azhar said:
Be happy the most looked up word isn't Kardashian or Beiber or Brittany Spears nude anymore.
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Don't be sure they're not. This isn't a Google search list, it's the list for dictionary lookups, and I'm fairly sure they wouldn't count non-words like last names.
 
I looked up schadenfreude and meme because I was unsure how to pronouce either also was not sure of the exact meaning of schadenfreude or meme. I understand what a meme is but wanted to make sure.
 
bigdaveberg said:
I looked up schadenfreude and meme because I was unsure how to pronouce either also was not sure of the exact meaning of schadenfreude or meme. I understand what a meme is but wanted to make sure.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3_DjiLLDfo

His other pronunciations are spot on too! :D

But seriously get the google dictionary add-on for Chrome if you use Chrome. You just double click a word and it will pop up a definition and usually a pronunciation audio clip.
 
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