Talk:Republican

From Talk:Republic

3/04/05 I wrote on Talk:Republic:

[...] I made the republican page a "disambig" instead of a "redirect" [...] Is this OK as well from US viewpoint as from British etc. viewpoint?

Not having received an answer to the question, but confronted with two consecutive vandalistic reverts of the Republican page I move this discussion over here.

The last time I worked on the republican page was after the Belgian-Flemish VRT television chain had broadcast an interview with the McCartney sisters, where these women used the term "republican" not in any way referring to a "form of government", which is the topic of the republic page. So an automatic redirect to the "republic" page is out of the question for the "republican" page, as the thing has to be disambiguated. As the term "republican" as they used it did not refer to any "republic" as such either, the republic (disambiguation) is not suitable either. They used it simply referring to the Irish Republican Army (the "Provisional" flavour of the IRA in particular) as a paramilitary group (including probably its unestablished/alleged links to Sinn Féin - but as these links are all but in the open they did not refer to the "political party" aspect at all, exclusively to the aspects outside the official state organisation).

I'll re-establish the republican article as I last left it, and add a clarifying reference to justify disambig instead of redirect, and I expect discussion here for avoidance of further vandalism.

--Francis Schonken 08:38, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The Irish definition of republican is covered in the republic article. In Ireland republicanism refers to opposition to the British monarchy and to British rule in general. It is little different than how the word republican is used in Canada, Australia or any other Commonwealth realm. There is even a link to Irish republicanism in the republic article. Moreover this page is unneeded as republicanism is a redirect to republic. - SimonP 13:52, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC)

Are you serious??? Setting up a redirect here makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. What next? Turn pope into a redirect for Pope John Paul II? Republican and Republic are not identical as every first year undergrad studying politics knows. FearÉIREANN 01:14, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm well past first year but I am not aware such a clear divide can be made. Could you show me this definition? The American Heritage Dictionary defines republican as "1 Of, relating to, or characteristic of a republic. 2 Favoring a republic as the best form of government." Both of which clearly indicate a redirect to republic is best. - SimonP 01:19, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

This has got to be the idiotic edit of the night. Republican can refer to a system of government, political movements, a concept, political parties, etc. So obviously you believe that the Republican Party in the US is fighting for a republic . . . which the US . . . um . . . happens to be. So what exactly links the modern US Republican Party to 'republic'? Or do you believe that the Republican versus Democratic clash in the US is actually a clash between anti-democratic Republicans and anti-republican Democrats? This is utterly crazy. Your edit here is blatant vandalism. FearÉIREANN 01:33, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

From the lead section of the republic page this should be a redirect to: "republicanism can also refer to the ideologies of any of the many political parties that are named the Republican Party. ... For most parties republican is just a name and these parties, and their corresponding platforms, have little besides their names in common." The republic page clearly explains this issue. Having this be a redirect serves exactly the same disambig function, but at the same time gives the reader far more information. - SimonP 01:42, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

I see. So where exactly do you propose to cover the fact that

• Irish 'republicans' (their name for themselves) planned to offer the throne of the Irish 'Republic' to Prince Joachim, son of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.
• The role of 'Irish Republicans' in recent years in committing criminal acts, including slicing a man's stomach open and slicing his throat open, and then leaving him to die on a Belfast street.
• The Bill introduced by Tony Benn to create a form of republic that still had the British Royal Family in office but without power in Britain. He proposed to use the word 'Commonwealth' not 'republic'.

How exactly do you propose to fit these three examples, a republican monarchy that would not actually be a republic, people called 'Republicans' who are common criminals, and a Bill to create a monarchical republic that would not use the word republic, within the page on Republic? They could be disambigulated on a republican page because they all three use that term. But not 'republic'.FearÉIREANN 02:00, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The republic page makes clear that, by some definitions, a republic can also be a monarchy. It also contains a link to Irish republicanism, which hopefully covers the crimes you referenced. However, the republic page could very well use a critiques section similar to the one at communism that outlines the crimes committed to advance the various republican causes. It would fit well in the "history of anti-monarchial republicanism" section. - SimonP 02:18, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

That is no solution and it would appear that you know even less about the topic than first appeared. The only solution, whether you like it or not, is going to have to be to reinstate the disambigulation page which you and you alone disapprove of.FearÉIREANN 02:25, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

FearÉIREANN : be civil. SimonP : have you any opinion on the Wikipedia:Abundance and redundancy proposal? Clearly Republican should not redirect to Republic, everyone but SimonP agrees on this point. A more severe problem is that Republicanism also redirects to Republic; this would define most senses of "Republican" easily. Joestynes 10:39, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In theory such a division is possible, but I don't see it as very practical. The main difficulty is that there are three main definitions of republic, and three parallel definitions of republicanism:

1. A republic can be any government system that is not a monarchy, as used in the name Citizens for a Canadian Republic. Machiavelli in The Prince states that "all states, all the dominions that have had or now have authority over men have been and now are either republics or princedoms."
2. A republic can also refer to any government system where authority is derived from the people, e.g. Kant in Perpetual Peace states that "the only constitution which derives from the idea of the original compact, and on which all juridical legislation of a people must be based, is the republican... in this respect government is either republican or despotic"
3. Especially in the United States a republic is a state that is not ruled directly by the majority but rather one where the people elect representatives and where majority power is circumscribed by a constitution.

Republicanism can refer to the advocacy and ideology of each of these three meanings of republic and republican can refer to the supporters of each of these three causes. We could thus have an article at republic that has three sections. One would discuss states that are not monarchies, one would discuss states ruled by the people, and the other would discuss republics as representative democracies.

The article on republicanism would also need three sesectionsOne would cover agitation against monarchies, the second the advocacy and ideology of those who see rule by the people as the best form of government, and the third would cover the form of republicanism unique to the United States.

The main difficulty with this system is that the three definitions are in fact closely ininterrelatednd evolved from each other. Explaining this process takes up a good deal of the republic article which means a great deal of content would be duplicated. My opinion is that the republic article is not overly long for such an important topic, liberalism for instance, is much longer, and that having everything on one page makes it easier for the reader to find what they are looking for. - SimonP 15:48, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

Added a link to "Irish Republicanism"

This explains the complexities. I'm not sure Fianna Fail should be there - it claims the heritage of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, but so do most Irish political parties.

--GwydionM 19:14, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Distinguish republicanism and democracy

The two were not clearly linked until the early 19th century. Republics mostly limited their citizenship or voting rights. Or they were very unequal, as with the Roman Republic, in which the rich had far more votes than the poor.

I added a link to the Icelandic system. Someone should do more on it.and the love for it<3

--GwydionM 11:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

First line text

I removed from the first line the words: "a form of government based on the rule of laws, not a monarchy or dictatorship." This addition infers that a monarchy cannot be based on the rule of law, and is always on equal footing with a dictatorship. Further, in locations around the world throughout history, monarchies have been overthrown by movements which established republics, but were, in reality, dictatorships. --G2bambino (talk) 16:06, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I was the one who wrote that blurb. Your comments are absolutely true... but we need a one-sentence introduction to what a republic is. The only definition that would be unquestionably true for everything called a republic would be "a form of government." That isn't very helpful, though. I would propose that Republic has clear connotations of not being a monarchy or dictatorship, with consistent laws held up in their place. Those are the most strident features associated with the usage of the term. There are many exceptions, just as there have been "democracies" that weren't ruled by the people and functional monarchies which hard-core monarchists would deny due to not having a "true" king of royal blood on them. Still, discussing that in more detail is the article's task, not the disambiguation page's.

Do you have a better idea as to what the introductory blurb should say? If you have something else, then fine, but otherwise, I think that some kind of explanatory statement is better than nothing. SnowFire (talk) 20:48, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Use of the word conservative

SnowFire, If you do a search for republican, it includes the word "conservative". If you do a search for democrat, it just says "the democratic party of the US'. To label one and not the other indicates bias, not a neutral POV. As to the comment of "they are universally known" as conservative I would ask: have you polled the whole world? Democrats may be universally known as liberals but that doesn't mean it should be added. You are adding adjectives that make sense to YOU, but are not neutral. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/republican shows no mention of the word conservative.

"In many ways, we do not act according to the truth. We act according to the truth as we believe it to be. And there is a particular danger when "experts" are certain that they know the truth. The human mind innately responds to "psychological certainty" by creating very real blindspots to evidence and arguments that contradict the certainty. Anyone aspiring to be objective in viewing evidence and sorting through arguments needs to develop a degree of self-doubt in order to minimize the automatic and natural actions of the human mind."

see the rest of the story at http://www.sourcetext.com/sourcebook/essays/scotoma.html

Ben4jammin (talk) 02:59, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

This is a serious question: are you an American? If you are, you'd know that there is no modern dispute that the Republicans are a conservative party. There are currently plenty of stories on Google News, for example, about questions of whether McCain is conservative enough to be the Republican nominee, his low support among other conservatives, etc. If you go to the Republican Party (United States) page, look at the items in the ideology box- "Conservatism, Fiscal conservatism, Neoconservatism, Social conservatism, Liberal Conservatism." Now, if you go into the past, the question becomes slightly more murky when applying modern meanings of "conservative" and the like on the 1900s, but that's irrelevant- calling the Republicans conservative is both accurate and informative to, say, non-American readers who may need to know what the Republicans are at a glance.

As for the Democrat page, that issue is neither here nor there. That said, calling the Democrats "liberals" is mildly more problematic because "liberal" means something very different in Europe than in America. They are unquestionably left-of-center, though. I don't see what this has to do with POV; nobody is trying to hide that. If you want to go edit Democrat to say that the Democrats are a "leftist" party, go ahead! SnowFire (talk) 03:25, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

To answer your question, yes I am American. Born and raised in the US. What I would add to this discussion is this: On the Republican page you reference it mentions not just conservatives but also libertarians...are you going to add that to the description? On the Democratic Party (United States) page a graph shows that 33.2% of the makeup of the Democratic party are conservatives. See how quickly this gets messy? On the party pages, making such distictions makes sense. On this page, it does not.

Secondly, if one does a search for democrat you get a neutral description, yet if you search for republican you get a description with labels. This can give the appearance of bias. I believe it was done correctly on the democrat side, in that you start with just a general description and then on the party page you get more specific. In short, the generalized should be just that, with specifics covered on the actual party page.

So for those people who may not be in the US, we should start general and then get specific. Since both parties contain elements of the other (there are liberal and/or lefist republicans just as there are conservative democrats ie "southern democrats") the discussion of that should be saved for the party pages, and not on this page. Simply put, state the fact that there is a republican party of the US and save further discussion/details for the republican party page. Ben4jammin (talk) 14:05, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Look, there's a difference between a "neutral" description and "no" description. You are advocating no descriptive terms for a party's ideology, which I feel is taking away the one bit of information that matters most about a party. I'm not overly familiar with Fianna Fail in Ireland, but this page quickly tells me that they're a centrist party. This is useful information for a non-Irish person to know. They weren't always that way (according to their page), and there are probably still outliers, but it's correct 95% of the time.

The term "conservative" is a good quick appellation for the Republican party. Yes, it's not a perfect description for certain old-school Rockefeller Republicans, but they are practically extinct - Lincoln Chafee wasn't re-elected, for example. Just compare Google results for "conservative Republican" and "liberal Republican" - conservative has 10 times the hits. SnowFire (talk) 22:21, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Some notes about Google, if I use "liberal republican" the first hit is Liberal Republican Party (United States) which talks about (among other things) how the Liberal Republican Party fused with the Democratic party. But I digress. A disparity in "Google hits" is irrelevant. As an example, if I Google Ronald Reagan I get 9.61 million hits. If I use Jimmy Carter I get 4.75 million. Does this mean that Reagan is better/more relevant than Carter? The number of results mean no such thing.

As the Liberal Republican Party page demonstrates, a political party usually has it ideology change over time. As you noted about Fianna Fail, they weren't always a centrist party. So even if a certain description is accurate today, it may not stay accurate. The evolution of that ideology is best covered in a dedicated page, rather than on a disambiguation page.

I guess what I am most curious about is this: If you truly want to give maxinum information in a few words on an disambiguation page, then why not use conservative/libertarian instead? Why not edit the democrat disambiguation page to include the word liberal? Ben4jammin (talk) 01:13, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

First sentence

How do we get away with Advocates of a republic, a form of government based on the rule of laws, not a monarchy or dictatorship. Monarchies are compatible with the rule of law. Even the wiki article on monarchy in the "absolute monarch" bit talks about the ability to promulgate laws William M. Connolley (talk) 23:20, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

You're interpreting the statements as a little too connected: Republics are (theoretically!) based on the rule of law. Republics are not monarchies or dictatorships. Now, republics are defined wildly differently, but those two are the biggest constants. Obviously, dictatorships with something approaching a rule of law exist too, but that isn't precluded if you take each of these statements separately. SnowFire (talk) 04:18, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Then I think they need a re-write. As it stands, we're implying that monarchies are in general not based on the rule of law. Thats wrong William M. Connolley (talk) 07:24, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

i see one more problem. republic is not the form of government. it is kind of community, ie political community. in classical republicanism there are three basic forms of government: of one person - monarchy, of few persons - aristocracy, and of all - democracy. and of course there is mixed government. but all this forms are possible as government of republic. --discourseur 22:21, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

"Arguably conservative"

The GOP is only arguably conservative. First, we have to define "conservative" and we also need to look at the moderate/centrists in the GOP as well (there are several out there...) 192.12.88.7 (talk) 18:39, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Christianity

This article should include that Christians are more Republican because the duality of the law matches their ideas of heaven and hell. EugeneKantarovich (talk) 03:03, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

This is not an article, this is a Disambiguation page. That said you shouldn't add that to the Republican Party (United States) article either as that is not a very common or easily sourced explanation of that phenomenon. SnowFire (talk) 04:26, 27 May 2010 (UTC)