[WikiEN-l] Classification of China?

[Ray Saintonge]

Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:

> At 07:56 PM 4/25/03 -0600, Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>> I don't think so, not a lot of elections held in the Catholic Church,
>
> How did you think they select popes, then? 

The only electors are the red-robed "princes of the church".

>> while there is a lot of discussion, a priest or bishop who deviates on
>> certain points is soon in serious trouble.
>
>
> For values of "trouble" that, to a nonbeliever, translate as "may lose 
> his
> job if he continues to disagree publicly with his employer." I realize 
> that
> this is a serious matter to a believer--but nobody is required to 
> belong to
> this organization, and the pope has no prisons. Yes, there's an official
> newspaper, but the church does not have the authority to stop the
> publication of dissenting publications: L'Osservatore Romano has the
> same status as Ari Fleischer's public statements, not as Pravda in
> the bad old days [1]. 

The church essentially lost effective temporal power in 1870.  There was 
a dispute in the Vancouver area a few years ago when a Catholic school 
fired a teacher because in her personal life she was living with somone 
out of wedlock.  At least that much power continues to be wielded.  And 
what could be more authoritarian than the church's attitude on abortion 
rights where any criticism is seriously discouraged?.

In these declining years of the church the threat of excommunication 
does not have the power that it once had.  Religions tend to maintain a 
hold on people that is impervious to reason.  If a person has been a 
true believer for many years, expulsion from the religious community can 
be very traumatic.

>>  Whatever the defects of the
>> United States the situation differs markedly.
>
>
> If George Bush decides I am a threat to US security, I can be imprisoned
> indefinitely without trial. If Karol Wojtyla decides I am a threat to 
> the Catholic
> Church, he can say so publicly, and I can go about my normal occasions.
> Yes, the situation differs markedly, but maybe not in the way you're 
> trying to
> suggest. 

"Democracy" is often nothing more than a thin veneer that power elites 
suffer as a means of controlling the masses.

>> Bottom line, words have
>> established meanings to most of us. Everything isn't the same, some
>> institutions are relatively democratic, some are relatively 
>> authorititarian
>> and may fairly be so described.
>
>
> And now you're saying "relatively"; are you proposing an article that
> describes China as "relatively authoritarian", and if so, do you plan
> to give a scale from 0 to 100, with notes of where other nations fall on
> that scale? 

To say that China is "relatively" authoritarian is an improvement for 
Fred over simply saying "China is authoritarian"  It opens up the 
possibility of comparison with some other state.  That's a small 
positive step toward understanding just what "authoritarian" means.

 I do have more of a problem with his "words have established meanings 
to most of us."   The "established meanings" that most of us have are 
not the smae, and that gives us problems.  The thought that the meaning 
of a word would somehow be established democraticly makes me shudder. 
 Once such a democratic result has been achieved do we then apply de 
Tocqueville's Tyranny of the Majority to enforce it.  Fred's view of 
language does not appear to be very sophisticated.

Eclecticology