[WikiEN-l] Queen Elizabeth II

Thu Mar 10 15:58:38 UTC 2005

Silverback wrote

>Now if only the debate could be conducted in American english, the debate 
>becomes more clear.  The issue all along has been not whether Austrailia 
>is a republic, but whether it is a democracy.   In American english, no it 
>is not a democracy, it has a constitutionally limited form a government, a 
>republic.  Therefore, since Austailia is not a democracy, when we 
>translate back to Austrailian english, Austrailia is not a republic.  The 
>queen has been irrelevant to the whole issue, just as she is to nearly 
>anything in Austrailia.

This strikes me as perfect evidence of how people who have done no research 
and yet who try to participate in discussions only waste other people's 
time.  The phrase, "In American english, no it is note a democracy" manages 
to be both ignorant and irrelevant.  Americans have many different ways of 
using "democracy," and most Americans would say Australia is a 
democracy.  But so what?  Why does it matter what Americans think?

Here is the problem, in a nutshell.  Sometime conflicts at Wikipedia are 
over semantics, and sometimes they are substantive.  Constructive editors 
are able to sort out which is what.  Unconstructive, obstructionist editors 
systematically confuse one source of conflict for the other.

For example, the conflict between Adam and Skyring owes to the fact that 
Skyring does not understand proper English grammar and usage ("proper" 
regardless of which English speaking country you live in) -- he doesn't 
understand the meaning of "shall be" and "is," nor the meaning of 
"paraphrase."  Skyring insists that this is a substantive problem, that 
Adam is making factually false claims -- and as long as Skyring insists 
that this is a conflict over meaning rather than proper grammar, he will 
continue to obstruct progress on the article.

Silverback is doing the reverse.  He is suggesting that the conflict over 
"republic" is semantic, because Australians and Americans use words 
differently.  He is as wrong as Skyring.  Political Scientists as well as 
your average Yankee will call both Australia and the US "democracies," and 
both groups understand that neither is a pure democracy.  For one thing, 
neither country makes decisions through the direct participation of all 
citizens -- they have what is called "representative democracy."  Moreover, 
modern "liberal" political theory -- meaning, theory of modern liberal 
states -- also argue that democracy is and should be limited by rule of 
law.  Since some notion of law (e.g. "inalienable rights" limits the powers 
of the majority, no country with rule of law can be a pure 
democracy.  Silverback suggests that this is what "republic" means.  I am 
not a political scientist, nor am I very knowledgeable about Australia 
(although as a kid I loved this TV show called "Skippy"), but I do not 
think this is what "republic" means.  And we aren't going to resolve this 
by each of us coming up with our own definition.  Let Adam, Silverback, and 
Skyring do research into Australian constitutional law and political 
theory, compare sources, and provide quotes OR paraphrases -- it really 
doesn't matter which, as long as they come from verifiable sources.

My point is, that this argument isn't going to be solved by speculations 
about what we think words mean -- it will be solved by people doing 
research on how political scientists and politicians have used words, and 
perhaps how usage has changed over time.

Steve

Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701