English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

tchrist

23:00

You didn't have to be a landholder.

Cerberus

> 1789: The Constitution of the United States recognizes that the states have the power to set voting requirements. A few states allowed free Black men to vote, and New Jersey also included unmarried and widowed women who owned property.[1] Generally, states limited this right to property-owning or tax-paying white males (about 6% of the population).[2]

Wikipaedia.

It was expanded as the 19th century progressed.

That percentage was probably a bit higher than here at the time.

But it wasn't just aristocracy who could vote.

tchrist

It was intended to be a federation of sovereign states.

Cerberus

Just like the Dutch republic in 1568ish.

Until Napoleon.

tchrist

Allowing local laws to apply within each sovereign state seemed a surer path towards a lasting union than allowing some blind, imperial center many weeks away to pretend to exert power to overrule local sentiment and opinion.

Instantaneous communications have changed some but not all of that.

Cerberus

Right.

And so, as the state was centralised perhaps some power should have been moved to the national parliament rather than the elected monarch.

We got stuck with an unelected monarch for the first time, in the 19th century.

But his powers were reduced and reduced while the state centralised.

tchrist

23:07

I really wish you would not call all legislatures "parliaments".

It just makes the conversation harder.

Cerberus

That is what they are.

Anyway.

An unelected monarch is more dangerous than a (semi- or fully democratically) elected one.

So I can understand why there was less of an incentive to do so in America.

tchrist

An oligarchic council of business leaders calling the shots isn't what I would call a republican or democratic lawmaking body.

Merchant princes.

Cerberus

It is hard to find percentages for the situation here.

tchrist

Because a parliament is a specific subtype of legislature that operates within a parliamentary system of government rather than many other sorts, to conflate these two erases important distinctions which I do not think helps us here.

Cerberus

@tchrist In Belgium in 1830, about 2% of the population could vote.

@tchrist I don't see it that way: parliament is the generic name.

Mind you, we rarely use the word parliament in Dutch politics either.

tchrist

23:13

And I'm pretty sure it's the other way around. Hence my objection.

Cerberus

The First Chamber and the Second chamber is what we use.

Collectively, the Estates General.

tchrist

Too much Robespierre? :)

@Cerberus I can get even the monkeys to agree with me if I ask them nicely enough. :)

Cerberus

> In 1848 had 7,3 procent van de volwassen mannelijke bevolking het kiesrecht. Na de grondwet steeg dit percentage weliswaar, maar zeker niet spectaculair. In 1850-1851 was 10,8 procent van de mannelijke inwoners van 23 jaar en ouder kiesgerechtigd, een percentage dat heel langzaam groeide naar 12,1 procent in 1880. Dat betekende dat slechts 3 à 4 procent van de totale bevolking, een fractie dus, in deze jaren het kiesrecht bezat.

And it was no doubt lower still before 1848.

tchrist

Perhaps because it sees I have an American internet address it deliberately gives Americanist answers. Perhaps if you were to ask it it would give Oranger answers than mine.

Cerberus

I can't find what percentage of people elected the Second Chamber before 1848.

It was a complex system.

Probably a low number of people.

@tchrist Of course I will not value this one obol.

jlliagre

23:21

Corsican Constitution

The first Corsican Constitution was drawn up in 1755 for the short-lived Corsican Republic independent from Genoa beginning in 1755, and remained in force until the annexation of Corsica by France in 1769. It was written in Tuscan Italian, the language of elite Corsican culture at the time. It was drafted by Pasquale Paoli, and inspired by Jean-Jacques Rousseau who, commissioned by the Corsicans, in 1763 wrote Projet de constitution pour la Corse. The second Corsican Constitution was drawn up in 1794 for the short-lived (1794–96) Anglo-Corsican Kingdom and introduced suffrage for all property owners...

tchrist

A parliamentary system makes the executive government subservient to that parliament.

It does not have separation of powers.

So calling ours, which respectively lacks and has those things, a parliament is too misleading.

It's not possible to dismiss the executive through a vote of no confidence here.

alphabet

@Cerberus I fail to see the advantage of refusing to follow normal English usage.

tchrist

We have three coequal branches of government, not a unitary majoritarian system.

Make that "we had". Now, I don't know.

alphabet

Well, kind of; the judiciary wasn't originally intended to be able to check the powers of the legislative and executive branches until it gave itself that power.

tchrist

The tyrant has now gathered unto himself all the reins of each of our three. He may keep them all coordinated for a time, subservient to his retributive purpose. Or his chariot of destruction may be pulled apart soon enough as each horse prefers its own stable at night. We shall see.

Cerberus

23:28

@tchrist I think you know that a cellular system is not the same as a cell, just as there can be systems not called cellular but which still have cells.

Parliament

In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. The term is similar to the idea of a senate, synod or congress and is commonly used in countries that are current or former monarchies. Some contexts restrict the use of the word parliament to parliamentary systems, although it is also used to describe the legislature in some presidential systems (e.g., the Parliament of Ghana), even where it is not in the official...

tchrist

@Cerberus 5G!

Cerberus

It is easier to use the generic term when comparing the same thing between different countries, places, and times.

tchrist

Which is why I use the generic term: legislature.

Cerberus

You could use that, but writing laws is only one function of parliaments, thankfully.

They mainly talk.

tchrist

Legislative body that do not legislate are unworthy of the term.

The Alþingi.

The all thingy to all peepies.

Cerberus

23:33

Kings or the populus might make laws and be legislative, and yet they are not parliaments.

But I do not object to your using the term legislature, as it is clear enough and not wrong.

tchrist

Their job is not to talk but to act.

Or is that executive's job? I forget.

Cerberus

Then why convene in a chamber?

@tchrist A law is traditionally made by an act.

A speech act, if you will.

And speech is parler.

tchrist

Tribunals have always been common enough.

Cerberus

Stages.

tchrist

@Cerberus We would rather not bow to the French. It brings back bad feelings, like not knowing how to spell their words.

Cerberus

23:37

France does not have a parliamentary system, though.

Just a parliament.

Would you have been independent if not thanks to France?

@jlliagre Very nice.

> The second Corsican Constitution was drawn up in 1794 for the short-lived (1794–96) Anglo-Corsican Kingdom and introduced suffrage for all property owners. It was considered a highly democratic constitution for its time.

tchrist

@Cerberus That depends on whether Harold Godwinson won the Battle of Hastings in that timeline.

Cerberus

Just that?

> 1755: Paoli created the Corsican Constitution, which was the first constitution written in the Italian language. The text included various Enlightenment principles, including female suffrage,[1] later revoked by the Kingdom of France when the island was taken over in 1769.

tchrist

England and France may not have had cause to use us to drive a wedge between them.

It was France who most concerned the Mad King, and for good reason.

Cerberus

@alphabet But of course America invented everything. Not Rousseau. Not the salons of Paris and other countries. Not the Corsican Republic of 1755.

@tchrist A mad king, which one?

tchrist

@Cerberus George William Frederick, King of Hanover inter alios.

Cerberus

23:46

Inter many alios aliasque.

Aliaque?

tchrist

dunno

I try not to worry about the girls in my sweeps. They know I mean them, too.

The Madness of George III

The Madness of George III is a 1991 play by Alan Bennett. It is a fictionalised biographical study of the latter half of the reign of George III of the United Kingdom, his battle with mental illness, and the inability of his court to handle his condition. It was adapted for film in 1994 as The Madness of King George. == Performance history == The play had its premiere on 28 November 1991 at the Lyttelton Theatre of the National Theatre in London. It was directed by Nicholas Hytner and designed by Mark Thompson. The play starred Nigel Hawthorne as George III, Janet Dale as Queen Charlotte...

Cerberus

They do.

tchrist

I still think Georgie was more concerned with transcanalicular affairs at his doorstep than he was with transatlantic ones ultramar.

jlliagre

history.princeton.edu/about/publications/…

tchrist

The games the Great Powers played at the time leading into the Seven Years' War were incredibly impactful. But hardly the end of those concerns, this side of Waterloo.

@jlliagre Thank you.

alphabet

23:54

@Cerberus Not everything, just everything important :)

Cerberus

@alphabet Or maybe not.

This bias is clearly visible in the English Wikipaedia.

tchrist

Bias is forbidden in the Kiwipedia.

Cerberus

I don't think they have one of their own?

tchrist

All the pedias are supposed to be neutral in tone, more befitting an encyclopedia than an encyclical. Their tireless editors studiously smoothen any sharp angles off with a vicious file of adamant.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…