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Lord Hydronium posted:I'm amazed there's that many Puerto Ricans who want to keep the status quo. It seems like the worst of all worlds; they still have to pay US taxes and follow US law, with no say in actually making that law or deciding how the money will be spent. I would think either independence or statehood would be preferable. (Unless I'm really misunderstanding PR's situation.) There are other factors at play besides political representation within the United States. Namely, the obvious taxation issue. Beyond that - and more importantly in my view - there is a cultural distinctiveness that reifies the current political status and makes statehood less appealing than it would otherwise seem to those who fear losing that distinctiveness. At least this is what guides my mother's opinion on the issue.
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Oct 22, 2014 14:31
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Kopijeger posted:Out of curiosity, what are the worst examples of Chinese occidentalism you have witnessed? Do street making GBS threads and defacing ancient hieroglyphs count?
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Oct 22, 2014 15:01
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Riso stop shitposting for a second, I'd like to hear these stories. E: To clarify it's a joke. He posted about poo poo, literally poo poo-posting. SaltyJesus fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 15:15
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I remember talking to some Indian guys a few years back who asked me which European countries spoke English and seemed surprised when I said it was just Ireland and the United Kingdom (I guess Malta has it as an official language too?). Regarding Chinese occidentalism, I heard they were recreating entire medieval European villages. I don't understand how anyone could be offended, I think it's funny and even slightly flattering to observe their somewhat warped take on historical Western aesthetics.
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Oct 22, 2014 16:51
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Kopijeger posted:I guess that if they tend to view the outside world as one "foreign country" speaking one and the same "foreign language" then that would explain such occurrences. Not exactly. The word 外, literally meaning "foreign" or "outside," has the more common meaning of "white." So 外國 or Foreign country" refers more to "white people countries." However, other Asian countries are not part of Foreign Country. The closer you are to China, the more precise your identity. North and South Koreans, Japanese, Vietnamese and Thais are properly identified. Other Southeast Asians will be marked as Thais or Indonesians. Anyone from the subcontinent is Indian. Black people come from 非洲 or "Africa" and are not part of Foreign Country. They're their own thing. Middle Easterners are sometimes from Foreign Country and sometimes from Arabia, depending on how worldly the identifier is.
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Oct 22, 2014 16:51
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To be fair that sounds exactly like how every other part of the world treats people from far away.
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Oct 22, 2014 17:44
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Antwan3K posted:I'd say the United Provinces (Dutch republic), which served as an important inspiration for (some of) the founding fathers. Torrannor posted:The earliest state I know using "united" were the United Provinces, i.e. the Dutch Republic. Thank you! I'm interested in where the concept of political union--with the resultant amalgams explicitly named United--was popularized. There seem to be a lot of Union treaties signed in Dutch history, so maybe it's a Dutch thing?
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Oct 22, 2014 18:18
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Koramei posted:To be fair that sounds exactly like how every other part of the world treats people from far away.
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Oct 22, 2014 18:35
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Apart from the uniform language bit at least.
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Oct 22, 2014 18:36
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Guavanaut posted:Ask some people what language they speak in Africa, I'm sure you'll find more than a few who assume it's uniform. Our wikipedia articles don't include "AFRICAN LANGUAGE WORD: X" except when its relevant and also they specify which language it actually is, so there is quite a bit of difference between the way we think of Africa and the way China thinks of Europe. EDIT: Tons of wikipedia articles used to include the japanese name for things when it wasn't relevant, because many wikipedia editors are also japanophile nerds, but I don't think this is as prevalent as it once was. Modern Day Hercules fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 18:39
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Modern Day Hercules posted:EDIT: Tons of wikipedia articles used to include the japanese name for things when it wasn't relevant, because many wikipedia editors are also japanophile nerds, but I don't think this is as prevalent as it once was. That's all according to keikaku*. *translators note: keikaku means plan.
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Oct 22, 2014 19:01
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Brawnfire posted:Thank you! I'm interested in where the concept of political union--with the resultant amalgams explicitly named United--was popularized. There seem to be a lot of Union treaties signed in Dutch history, so maybe it's a Dutch thing? In the lowlands (I'm including Flanders, Brabant, Hainaut and so on in this) you had a lot of particularism and quasi independent cities. They kind of banded together because, being squished between the French, The Holy Roman Empire and having the Spanish come over as well means you have enough common enemies to form a national identity. The forming of a distinct Netherlands and what would later become Belgium is these cities signing a treaty where they tell the Spanish king to kindly gently caress off and never return. The Spanish did return but they couldn't reclaim the territory North of approximately what is now the Belgian-Dutch border. Even if the United Provinces aren't the very first example of national identity in history, they're certainly the most influential one and they took quite some lessons from English philosophers on the role of a King and the legitimacy of the State. The USA's Declaration of Independence is even modeled after the Plakkaat van Verlatinghe. Fake edit: The Belgians tried to pull that exact same stuff on the Austrians in 1790 and even called their new state The United States of Belgium! It existed a little less than one year but it's interesting to see them mimick the United Dutch Provinces and, to a greater extent, the USA. Deltasquid fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 19:21
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Lord Hydronium posted:I'm amazed there's that many Puerto Ricans who want to keep the status quo. It seems like the worst of all worlds; they still have to pay US taxes and follow US law, with no say in actually making that law or deciding how the money will be spent. I would think either independence or statehood would be preferable. (Unless I'm really misunderstanding PR's situation.) Puerto Ricans don't pay a lot of federal taxes, are entitled to full Social Security/Medicare benefits on retirement, can freely move between PR and the mainland at any time, and are somewhat less subject to several federal laws than the states or DC. And unlike DC which has no representation but must pay full federal taxes and is subject to having any laws the city council passes able to be overidden by the US congress at any time, Puerto Rican laws can't be as easily overriden by far.
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Oct 22, 2014 20:09
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Alright, so why doesn't DC have representation?
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Oct 22, 2014 20:16
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Phlegmish posted:Alright, so why doesn't DC have representation? Because it's not a state but a Federal District under the control of Congress. It's really only since 1973 that it's been self-governing.
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Oct 22, 2014 20:22
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Phlegmish posted:Alright, so why doesn't DC have representation? For some reason a bunch of old white people aren't on board with a city having a large amount of black people getting political representation. E: we should just make it a federal city like Moscow or st Petersburg.
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Oct 22, 2014 20:24
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Phlegmish posted:Alright, so why doesn't DC have representation? It wasn't really intended to have people living there originally who weren't directly part of the federal government. They didn't have any form of home rule for 99 years between 1874 and 1973, and here's a good summary of the history of local government in DC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_the_District_of_Columbia Raskolnikov38 posted:For some reason a bunch of old white people aren't on board with a city having a large amount of black people getting political representation. That's just stupid, they also refused to grant it voting rights when it was white by a vast majority through the 19th century
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Oct 22, 2014 20:29
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It's still dumb and shameful that DC residents don't have representation. What about no taxation without representation?
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Oct 22, 2014 20:45
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Torrannor posted:It's still dumb and shameful that DC residents don't have representation. What about no taxation without representation? Nobody ever really gave a poo poo about that beyond the first two words.
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Oct 22, 2014 20:54
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Torrannor posted:It's still dumb and shameful that DC residents don't have representation. What about no taxation without representation? Behold the District's actual liscense plate. 
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Oct 22, 2014 20:56
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Oct 22, 2014 21:18
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Pook Good Mook posted:Best I can tell, there's a bill moving through Congress based on the vote in 2012 to urge Obama to introduce legislation making Puerto Rico a state. Because of course Congress wouldn't move on something they have the authority to move on without wrangling the President in to score political points. Even so, the Democrats would probably only get a three, maybe four electoral vote swing, because PR's admission would take Representatives – and thus EVs – from Texas, Florida, Washington, Minnesota, and California. Three of those are safe Democratic, Florida's a tossup, and Texas is on its way to be a tossup in the next twenty years.
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Oct 22, 2014 21:20
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What's up with Belgium?
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Oct 22, 2014 21:26
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All those murder dungeons.
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Oct 22, 2014 21:27
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At last, the true reasons for Scottish and Catalan independence referendums reveal themselves. The other parts of their respective countries are holding their KDA average back.
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Oct 22, 2014 21:29
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Honj Steak posted:What's up with Belgium? Specifically Wallonia and Antwerp. I'd say Antwerp spikes a bit because it's such a huge city with lots of drugs trafficking going through it. As for Wallonia, I guess either low population density or something. Liège is the darkest blue but that's Liège.
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Oct 22, 2014 21:30
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Wallonia can't catch a break.
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Oct 22, 2014 21:40
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Finland, proud Western European country represent.
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Oct 22, 2014 21:44
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King Hong Kong posted:There are other factors at play besides political representation within the United States. Namely, the obvious taxation issue. Beyond that - and more importantly in my view - there is a cultural distinctiveness that reifies the current political status and makes statehood less appealing than it would otherwise seem to those who fear losing that distinctiveness. At least this is what guides my mother's opinion on the issue. I mean to me all puerto rico would have to do is get congress to pass something along the effect of "puerto rico is nation within the nation and also gets to pick a custom title for itself" while they make spanish the official language of the island and whatever they need. But then again I'm just a gringo from nj so what do I know? 
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Oct 22, 2014 22:14
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Ukraine, a proud subnational entity 
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Oct 22, 2014 22:16
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JosefStalinator posted:Ukraine, a proud subnational entity Ireland, too. 
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Oct 22, 2014 22:17
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Wales, not even a subnational entity :nosmileyeither:
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Oct 22, 2014 22:19
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So why is Montenegro so much more murdery than the rest of former Yugoslavia?
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Oct 22, 2014 22:23
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Fabulous Knight posted:Finland, proud Western European country represent. Maps like this tend to over-represent areas with low population - that north Finnish area has total population of a Helsinki suburb.
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Oct 22, 2014 22:28
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Lycus posted:So why is Montenegro so much more murdery than the rest of former Yugoslavia? A lot of drugs pass through Montenegro. E: Also, this is entirely anecdotal but my Albanian friend tried to convince me the idea of a "blood-feud"/revenge type thing between kinship clans still has cultural presence in some parts of Albania. Some Montenegrins still maintain a strong sense of kinship and tie this clan poo poo to their identity. All this is to be taken with a huge lump of salt and mostly as a historical footnote. I don't believe it's a serious contributing factor to that statistic. SaltyJesus fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 22:29
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Fabulous Knight posted:Finland, proud Western European country represent. im gonna loving knife you for that
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Oct 22, 2014 22:31
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 Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. The 'seven provinces' were Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland, Overijssel, Friesland and Stad en Ommelanden. Other than that, there was an "eighth province", Drenthe. Because that region was the poorest by far, they did not have any representatives in the Staten-Generaal (the federal "parliament" thingie), but they didn't have to pay federal taxes either. There were also "generality lands", directly administered by the federal government. Once Staats-Brabant joined the republic, it became a Generality Land. The Republic is often seen as something on which the American Founding Fathers based their idea for the United States. While it's certain that the Declaration of Independence is based on a similar document that was written for the Dutch Republic earlier, the Republic is not very comparable to any modern countries. It was the first country to be called a 'republic' but that isn't saying much. Some similarities to modern political systems: - Each province had a lot of political independence. The federal government only made laws for things that were relevant on a federal level, such as dealing with foreign politics. I've heard a comparison to the modern European Union and its many independent countries. - The federal "parliament" consisted of representatives from each of the seven provinces, who decided on stuff by debate and voting. The main difference: - It was up to each province to decide who became a representative and how they were elected. While politics were in a bit of a turmoil after the end of the Spanish rule, when push came to shove each of the provinces were ruled by members of the Dutch nobility. As far as I understand, these noblemen chose the representatives. There was no such thing as democracy for the general public. The Dutch Republic was a Republic without democracy. At least, that's how I understand this history. If anyone can enlighten me further on this, I'd love to hear it. E:typo Carbon dioxide fucked around with this message at 08:31 on Oct 23, 2014 |
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Oct 23, 2014 00:01
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Like most medieval republics or merchant cities, they were more oligarchies ruled by the nobility and/or merchants than by the actual people.
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Oct 23, 2014 00:45
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Serious discussion of 'democracy' as a workable system of government rather than a conceptual boogeyman postdates the founding of the United Provinces by at least a good century or two, so it shouldn't be surprising that they were 'undemocratic', and certainly not that they are so to modern eyes. In continental Europe the conceptual revision of the feudal estate system to allow for a really coherent idea of 'the people' on which democracy can rely only comes about in force with the radicalisation of the French Revolution, Sieyès' work on the third estate and all that good stuff. All the political thinkers writing in the Dutch states from the 17th century on recognise oligarchy as the prevailing form of government there in one form or another -- and many argued in defence of closed aristocracy explicitly, like Pieter Hooft, though others did argue for change in the direction of a 'popular state' closer to our understanding of democracy. What's probably more interesting is that for a long time the United Provinces didn't really consider themselves a 'republic' either, at least not in any systematic way. The dominant motive of the Dutch revolt was not the establishment of a new kind of political regime but liberty from Habsburg rule, and it's only from the mid-17th century onwards that any coherent sense of republican identity emerges -- even then it's restricted to certain provinces. The revolt basically maintained pre-existing political structures, and so earlier political discourse represented by people like Johannes Althusius was centred pretty much entirely around pure justification of revolt, not attempts to conceptualise a new society or whatever. As far as the idea of 'union' goes, that concern was far from restricted to the United Provinces -- basically every major European power was composite to some extent -- and there was little sense of coherent identity in the United Provinces until the late 17th century, since the provinces initially viewed themselves as independent and sovereign entities. There's also the Swiss Confederacy which is around substantially earlier than the United Provinces, though again it's not something that was systematically conceptualised. Systematic theories of union originate in England in the 17th century with people like Francis Bacon and Henry Savile -- obviously culminating in 1707, when the personal union gets reworked into something more substantive -- unlike the much earlier examples this is done in a conscious and ideologically motivated way.
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Oct 23, 2014 00:45
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SaltyJesus posted:A lot of drugs pass through Montenegro. Huh, yeah, some web searching tells me that Montenegrin mafia is a big thing in that region.
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Oct 23, 2014 00:58
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