Are western democracies one party states?

Nice one Don, an insightful reply

I'll give the thread some time see if there's any other voices want to come in here and pick up for a detailed response later

Anglophile. I studied the law. I practiced law 17 years. I am now retired. The laws in every American state are based on the English Common Law except Louisiana which uses the Napoleonic Code, highly modified. Jury trials are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, so the inquisitorial system had to go.

As to my opinion on the former colonial powers, Belgium was worst, England was best. Spain and Portugal were close to Belgium, followed by Holland. Of Germany, I am not informed. Italy was more benign than most unless the Scandinavians would take that honor. But of all colonial powers, England or say Great Britain - excluding Ireland - was the best one to have, if you have to have any.

Although no one in my household has had any contact with distant relatives in the UK for at least 4 generations, I nevertheless feel a kinship to Englishmen, which may go to some extent to explain the Blair affiliation with the U.S. despite the large degree of difference in the Bush and Clinton world agendas. Early in the Bush presidency, I thought the EU or UN had assigned Blair to be Bush’s ‘DD’ - designated driver.

I was 11 when FDR died suddenly, on April 12, 1945. The public had no inkling FDR was near death. We were totally surprised. Even lifelong Republicans wept. This man, more than any other, had carried us through the Great Depression. Those days were days of risk. Look what the Germans got: Adolph Hitler. Then FDR led us to victory in the Greatest Conflagration the world had ever seen. And he and Churchill had give us the Atlantic Charter as a base from which to work for world peace post War 2.

I have vague recollections of VE-Day, May 8, and of the Potsdam Conference which was held near Berlin on July 17 to August 2, 1945. I have some memory of the surprise replacement of Winston Churchill by Clement Atlee, a man we did not know. Americans had not the slightest understanding why the man who more than any other had saved Britain, was put out of office by the very people he had served so well. See en.wikipedia.org...

Britannia ruled the waves from the Battle of Trafalgar until Britain gave up India, in 1947. America and the USSR competed for dominance from 1945 until 1991. Stalin’s penchant for secrecy may have, more than any single thing, worked against him and guaranteed the ultimate demise of the USSR. America constantly overestimated the Soviet’s strength in every aspect of war and industry. In part that was perfectly agreeable - if not actually known - by the Military Industrial Complex Pres. Eisenhower warned us about. The Soviet Union went bankrupt trying to keep up with the U. S.

I recall when a defecting East European pilot delivered a new Mig-29 to us. Before the CIA clamped down, it was discovered the MiG’s electronics were still vacuum tube. The U.S. was into the SECOND generation of solid state miniaturization. I was in the USAF in 1964, working on fully transistorized solid state inertial navigation sets in F4Cs. It did seem all along the Soviets were ahead of us in jet engines. At least in the thrust measurement. No thanks to Rolls-Royce.

The Soviet’s N1 Moon Rocket had more lift than our Saturn V. The public was not told the N1 involved many rocket motors compared to the 5 motors in the first stage of the Saturn V. Well, the N1 seemed to fail ever time the Russian’s really needed it. See below for details of the N1.

We have 12 super carriers and 2 abuilding. We have 34 nuclear subs in service and 1 abuilding. We need most 200,000 more soldiers on the ground in Iraq but we have our money tied up in wish-list items like the USMC’s futuristic Boeing V-22 Osprey. 30 men have died in 3 fatal crashes in this program. The Osprey somewhat resembles a 1960s Lockheed XFV-1 and Ryan X-13 both of which were pure VTOL “tail-setters.” The first recommendation to cancel the V-22 was made in 1986. Yet we plough on. Sort of a Boeing welfare program. The Osprey features 38 foot diameter propellers. The plane sits 5 feet off the ground. It is impossible to land the plane if the propellers do not rotate. There are more than 200 critical parts in the rotating mechanism. No rotation, no landing. Crash only. The plane is not easy to get out of, all the more if the 38 foot props are spinning. It’s an on-going disaster.

FEAR NOT. The U.S. Congress just raised our national debt limit to $9 T. Yup, nine trillion dollars. $30,000.00 per person. At 41/2%, that means the first $400 B. in tax money collected each year will go to our bankers. Out of an annual $2.8 T. 15% is already spent. The total worth of the U.S. is given as $45 T. (Est. in 2000) Our GDP is $12 T. We are spending 18% of GDP on health care and it is one botched system. 45 million people are outside the system. Out of 300 million + 11 million from South of the Border. Most of who actually do our grunt work. And not ONE of them has ever been arrested as a TERRORIST. Well, my point is, the LAST super power is blowing it! Big!

FOOT NOTE: The N1 was a complex system made up of a number of different stages and components. The first stage, known as Block A, stood 100 ft tall and was designed to provide over 11 million pounds of thrust during the first two minutes of flight. Generating this thrust was a combination of 30 separate liquid rocket engines burning a mixture of liquid oxygen and kerosene.

The second stage, Block B, was nearly 68 ft in length and contained another 8 rocket engines generating over 3 million pounds of thrust for another two minutes.

A third stage, Block V, used four more engines to provide the final push into orbit. The remainder of the vehicle was collectively known as the L3 and contained all the components needed to travel from Earth orbit to a landing on the Moon.

At its base were two more sets of rocket stages called Block G and Block D. Riding atop these stages were Block E, containing the LK lunar lander, and Block I, containing the LOK lunar orbiter.
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[edit on 3/19/2006 by donwhite]