--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "J. van Baardwijk" > > Now, let's see. Someone who has been living in The Netherlands for almost > 36 years says that the country is not a republic. There are no government > documents that say that the country is still a republic (it ceased to be a > republic a long time ago).
Perhaps in Dutch, Jeroen van Baardwijk is given more authority than a dictionary.... I can assure you, however, that in English this is definitely not the case. Definition #2 Jeroen. > The Constitution does not even *mention* the > word "republiek" (which it would if it were). I see no reason why it would. > The CIA World Factbook > doesn't list The Netherlands as being a republic. ROFLOL! Yes it does! It calls the Netherlands a, quote, "constitutional monarchy." Consitutional monarchy is a subset of "republics." Anyhow, now that Jeroen's insistence to never be proven wrong has now engulfed the rest of the List - let me fully explain. In my post that got this whole thing started, I was drawing a distinction between (direct) democracy ~=~ government where policy is set by opinion polls/direct votes vs. republics where policy is set by representatives. I then made the case that, ceteris paribis, I consider the government of a republic to be preferrable to that of a (direct) democracy. As is typical in these discussions among English speakers, I omitted the word (direct) in front of democracy. This is because (/direct) democracy and republic are interchangeable in colloquial discussions, but if one is discussing politics and one is *contrasting* republics with democracies, it becomes self-evident by virtue of a contrast being present, that one must be talking about *direct* democracies. Moreover, among political scientists, this is the proper usage for the words democracy and republic in English. Thus, despite our colloquial speech, the US, the UK, and the Netherlands are republics, not democracies. JDG - English Lessons, Maru. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
