February 16. Governments, Political Structures

They often are the kind of people that either commit suicide: pop out, cop out, drop out, or wind up joining the group to get an identity. Then I went on to point out that certain groups appeal to True Believers and I talked about which groups? Hari Krishna, Moonies, you know, cults, and sometimes other kinds of groups and that sometimes they get concerned and feel that their group, is being attacked. So the group commits suicide en mass. We talked in that case about the People's Temple in 1978 perhaps the most notorious case in our history where 900+ individuals either committed suicide or was suicided by their leaders and then after they murdered a congressman and some other people who came down there on an investigatory trip because - the congressman's name was Ryan - his daughter had joined the particular cult.

Now like many groups of that nature, I pointed out they become quite -- well -- this is because they have free labor, but another advantage of these groups is that when you have free labor you can order them, as a leader, to work under the political process. Translation -- walking precincts going door to door. Stamping envelopes, getting on the phone. All of this is mandatory to any decent campaign and it is mostly boring work for their volunteers, to do this grunt labor, but when you can order people to do it you got a lot of power in that group. The People's Temple was an example. They were a left-wing group. In this, their political philosophy, if they're really anything, besides the leaders organization, were very active in San Francisco democratic politics and were getting tremendous support from individuals in San Francisco including Mayor Moscone before he was assassinated. When it was identified how much of a cult they were and what kind of brain washing and control went on, that's when they left to set up a colony in South America in Guinea and they're creating this People's Temple, not People's Temple, but Jonestown and some groups are still very large and very active politically with a lot of money to donate to campaigns and people such is the Unification Church which are the Moonies.

Of course there are other groups who have put pressure. One of the biggest now is scientology because they still do a lot of ads with the Dianetics and L. Ron Hubbard. Scientology is renowned for some of it's well-known figures. One of them, John Travolta, as you know, it is argued that he made a deal with President Clinton. So that when he did Clinton's role in Primary Colors he would calm it down from the book so that Clinton would put pressure on the German government because the German government had banned any members of scientology from working in the German government.

Did any of you hear any of this at all about the German government's actions? You did? I just want to validate that I'm not making this up. The fact is that that can't be proven, that Primary Colors, people say that he did play it down from the book, but I think he did an outstanding job. How many of you saw Primary Colors? I recommend renting it. It's much better than I thought originally. I had thought that Wag the Dog would be great. It was a fun film, but it wasn't extremely clever although we begin to think that that's really what went on in Iraq and everything, but Primary Colors was surprising to me. It is a biography of Clinton. Although they don't say it in the film. Obviously. John Travolta did an excellent job. It's amazing to me. Sometimes the guy comes through solid. What other individuals are members of scientology? Isn't Tom Cruise? I've heard he is, and, Kirstie Alley. Those are the three that are, but it is true that they have put pressure directly, not necessarily as a deal with Clinton, but they actually met with Clinton, because he knows a lot of his funding comes out of Hollywood, to put pressure on the German government. So that part at least is valid whether or not that could be Internet conspiracy paranoia.

All right what's the problem with cults, if you will, True Believers? They're very dangerous if they get to power. Because there is a sense of paranoia. Therefore, they are more eliminators than they are converters. I talked about people who have a true faith. If they have a true faith then they're solid in their faith and they don't feel threatened. But True Believers are constantly threatened by anybody who challenges their point of view and that explains in part why there was a difference between Hitler and Mussolini. Hitler was a True Believer. He came from a lost world. His own family and everything else. Basically he was a street person, if you will. Where Mussolini came to fascism intellectually, analytically, academically, which was different in the emotion of Hitler and I think it is seen in the point that, well the philosophies were similar as we indicated, Nazi Germany was willing to eliminate and Mussolini was opposed to that although he believed in creating an elite society returning to the Roman Empire concept.

One of the things he did to expand the Roman Empire, first to invade the nation of Abyssinia. What country is that in? Ethiopia. And the emperor of Ethiopia at the time, anybody know the name? HALLAI SALASSIE. (not sure on the spelling) Is it an important name? Only because many people like to listen to reggae music. Still people listen to reggae. Some younger people -- and reggae bands are made up of rastah -- and they happen to believe in their church that they, that HALLAI SALASSIE was the messiah and was sent down to the second coming of Christ. Of course their host, their wafer in the Rastafarian group is pot. So that's the way they celebrate their - I'll never forget when I was in Jamaica. This guy comes over to me and he says, "Hey Mr. Mafia, want to buy some pot?" I guess I looked real Italian that day or something. No, I did not. I'm not stupid enough to wind up in a Jamaican prison, besides, I don't smoke it anyway. That's irrelevant. But -- one of the things you don't want to do overseas is wind up in a overseas prison.

Well, during the structure of the course last week and the week before, we've been bandying around a number of forms of government. We mentioned anarchy, which means? There is no government. I identified that communism, socialism and capitalism shouldn't be governed in my mind. What did I say they were? They're economic systems. They function under different systems. However, I tried to identify to you that there is a socialism in this country and that communism is a different form of socialism in the Soviet Union. What kind of a system do we generally say that communism fits into? What is the political system, not of the ideal communism anarchy, but the communism in the Soviet Union what do we usually refer to the system that existed in the Soviet Union as? Socialism? No. We just said socialism, communism, or economic system, but what was the -- dictatorship of what? Of the communist party, yeah. We could call it a dictatorship and we have a bigger word. Well, again oligarchy. what does that mean? Ruled by the few. Now these words do appear on the word list, in case you think we're just rapping again.

, another word besides oligarchy which means rule by the few -- it's a big word. Totalitarian. We use this to refer to governments like the Soviet Union. We lumped them into a system. Okay the word totalitarian has within it the meaning which is total control. In a totalitarian system -- one individual or a group have total control over the institutions of government. What do I mean by institution of government? Or society? What's an institution? Be it a mental institution? Well this school is an institution. Education or the institution of education. Religion, churches are listed as institutions. The military is an institution. And when you have control over those kinds of groups the military the schools the religion the churches, you've got fairly strong control over everything that's going on in the country over the congress, that's an institution. Over the legislature.

However, I add to the definition that should be there, because I think it makes more clearer the reason for the total control, is usually because there's an ideology. It means a philosophy acting on it. Philosophy in action. However, the ideology for the Soviet Union was communism. The ideology for Hitler - Germany was Nazism. Mussolini was fascism. When there's no ideology, and it's almost total control, we have another word we use. When there is a dictator that just rules and controls the country and that is authoritarian. You have basic total control because of your power. But in a totalitarian system if the dictator leaves, the whole thing changes. Arbitrarily following the concept of the dictator. In a totalitarian system, if the dictator or the person running the country dies, the totalitarian system continues under generally the same philosophy with no new leaders such as occurred for 70 years plus in the Soviet Union.

Any questions on the difference? It's tough to define today, but can you give an example of a totalitarian stem? Well Cuba and China are still totalitarian. They have an ideology although Cuba may lean towards authoritarian; why? Because we always identify it with Castro and if Castro were to leave, would the system continue? Many feel it would, but would it have 20 years ago? Maybe. Because communism is sort of sitting on a death bed now. However, where will you name as an authoritarian system today? What country? Where you have a dictator but there doesn't seem to be much of a philosophy? I don't understand the dictators total control. China, maybe? No. China's totalitarian because in China you do have Marxism and communism and the dictators do not stand out although we know their names within limitations. I think Iraq. Sure. However, by the way Iraq was found on a philosophy, and I have two Iraqi students in my afternoon classes. They were amazed that I knew anything about Iraq and the Barth party and the revolution that took place before Saddam Hussein took over. That was Anrt of the a national socialism similar to Hitler philosophy in the sense of what we called and we saw in Argentina under Peron. We have socialist philosophies. A Secular Arab world that a lot of the people are not familiar with. What I'm saying is if it is possible, even if we got rid of Saddam Hussein in the Desert Storm, the Hundred Hour war, whatever the hell it was, the fact was I'm not sure the country would have changed if the Barth party was able to maintain. Another person there because they may be functioning around an ideology of this revolution that exists in both Syria and Iraq and in Jordan. which is a secular dictatorship is being challenged today by the fundamental Muslim groups like -- what is the fundamental Muslim group?

The PLO is also a secular organization. Translation -- means it has a world philosophy, does not emphasize or approach religion. They believe in creating a world government. Without religion, in other words, separation of church and state and that is being challenged by fundamentalist groups today. So Iraq is being challenged by those groups. It is confronted two strong groups; one nationalistic, one not. One is the Shiite in southern Iraq. Iran -- and Iran is Shiite. Who's the group in the southern part that the Americans are protecting? The Kurds are on the border of Turkey and the forth. That is more of a religious group. The Turks are "friends". But the Turks have been notorious for eliminating racial groups in their -- ever since Turks killed millions of Armenians. They were very strong Armenian terrorist groups the Kurds also had been fighting against the Turks. However, we are not protecting the Kurds in the Turkish lands. We're protecting them in Iraq. Even though there may not be a Soviet Union, the same story prevails. Our friends are our friends and what they do is irrelevant, but when our enemies do it or people we perceive as our enemies then it's time to step in and blow up those countries or those areas.

So the new world order is reflective of who we ally ourselves with. Do you think it can be argued that we're turning into a fascist government ourselves? Though not in the sense of international fascism? I don't think we have the kind of racial identity that fascism holds. We have a nationalistic identity, yes. Which is a little different than what would be called a fascist or authoritarian system. Certainly, it's I don't know. I'm not sure I can even give a word for it. But I don't think fascism would be -- not only is fascism used wrong, but the United States is not attempting to push the countries into a right-wing racial dictatorship with their national identity. What we try to do is maintain and expand the American Empire which is a little different and in the meantime while we're expanding, it welds like to make it all like us. That's probably better said under a term that was used by the Russian communists many years back. We are expanding American imperialism. And I can -- yes imperialistic, I would buy. Under the new world order.

Fascist? No. Fascism has a very strong regional connotation to it. Oligarchy, anarchy, what other -garchy? What other forms of government can you think of? Monarchy. Means? Run by a certain family? Not usually monarchy, maybe a family but it's an inherited rule, usually. It's not always of a king or queen. it's usually within the family. Yeah. I guess we could say with the family. Because it's not always inherited. Sometimes in the sense that it's not always the son. Sometimes it's an elected monarchy. Saudi Arabia has an election. So maybe family is a better term. We've already talked about two types of monarchies. One is constitutional and the other is absolute monarchy. Most countries today are limited or constitutional monarchies. That's difficult to do to an absolute Where the king has close to total say over what goes on in the country. Interestingly one of those that is being very absolute or almost absolute, is Jordan. I say it is because we have had a transformation of power because King Hussein of Jordan died last week and made a choice. He himself appointed his successor. Shows you the kind of power that he has over the choice that was made. So there is a lot of the power in the King of Jordan, but the old -- of the King Louis the 14th where he said, "I am the state." and he meant that everything he did was he it and the people did not question it. That's very difficult to locate today. Monaco is close to being absolute monarchy.

Okay what other countries? What other forms of government? What other government? Any other words that we can think of referring to a government? Any of the -archy? Bureaucracy. You're forgetting the biggest one. Democracy. Democracy. we'll talk more about that obviously this week, but democracy is government by the people. People is demo- and government -cracy. Of course we say of the people, for the people. But it simply means government for the people and note, what is England? Well we say it's a monarchy, but is it a monarchy. Yeah it is. England is a constitutional monarchy. It's also a democracy. How do we differ between ourselves and England's democracy? What's the word we used to separate ours from England. The word is republic. In reality we have a republic. What does Canada have? You've heard of the country Canada? No Canada isn't a republic. They still recognize the queen though. Up until last year the queen had veto power over the constitutional amendments. It's a commonwealth under the queen. And so it is a monarchist. With you, it's also a democracy. So Canada has a democratic government. The queen -- I don't know if she still appears on the stamps or on the coins of Canada but - she does?

Mexico is what? They're a democracy, too aren't they? That could be in question, but they would say so. It certainly is a republic. There's no monarchy. It is a party dictatorship or at least has been of a one party system, a party of the revolution institution as we referred to it. However there have been challenges made in the many years of Mexico. There have been free elections. It used to be that in Mexico the results were announced beforehand, before the booths were even closed so you had an oligarchy during much of the federal system of Mexico.

They just had an election and 99.9% of the people voted for the person. Now come on. There's no way in any election. Where in the world you will get 99.9%. So you weren't about what they were doing and of course -it's a referendum in the sense of you vote yes or no. That other percent has been eliminated. Shot down; away with. Where the heck was that? Is it possible to say that the government of Mexico is not -- I did a paper on it a couple months back and we had a huge argument in class about how to -- in the same topic, but every time we considered what the form of government it could be the comments about all of the bribery that takes place and how certain groups have more power than others, always added in the conversation and change our minds. Well, people make the same comment about the United States. Obviously Clinton is down there now trying to get Mexico to put pressure on the government officials that are involved coming out of the drug trade. But for the fact that he made billions of dollars in Swiss banks. He's now out of the country, but was put away because of connections to his brother. As I indicated, it is a party oligarchy and if you get to the control of that party then you have what we would call the possibility of corruption. Certain president's have moved in there and tried to reform it.

Others have been too content by the culture of Mexico. In a sense, the word oligarchy is probably the best for Mexico. It has elements of democracy, but it doesn't have a strong democratic tradition. Theocracy; what does it mean? It's religion, the religious and political leaders are one and the same. It's ruled by religion, if you will. It's government by religion. NOW we distinguish between a theocracy is where the religious here are pretty much the same. Where is the political and religious leader the same? The pope. Is the Vatican a separate country? Yeah, it is? It's considered a separate country. So the pope is the political and religious leader, although throughout the rest of the world he is simply a religious leader. He is not the leader of Catholics elsewhere.

Where else is there -- would Saudi Arabia be considered? Saudi is more theocratic in that there isn't the head of the religious. They got their prayer leaders which is true of the faith. The whatever the word is for the -- however, there's no doubt that it is theocratic in that the Koran is the main book of law if not the only book. So the country is run totally under religious friends. So it's again -it's laying terms with words. How about Iran? It is probably still a theocracy in that the Ayatollah has the final word in what goes on. You can say what you want. The prime minister can say what they want. It looks like it's representative government at times, but, not just the Muslims involved, but the prayer leaders. There you have a structure, head of the country, that is the Ayatollah. So Iran is a definite theocracy. There are a lot of theocratic systems. Some are stronger than others.

There have been in the paper -- heard on the news -demonstrations this past week in Israel. 200,000 Jews turned out to demonstrate against the Israeli Supreme Court. Their laws have been dominated by the ultra orthodox, the fundamentalist Jews. To the extent that they determined who is Jewish, most of the laws, everything was closed on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. No businesses are allowed to be open. But the vast majority of Israelis are secular even those that are not Jewish and there are other Jewish groups which are the conservative and reform. Well the Israeli said that Orthodox Jews can now be drafted into the military so they've lost their exemption. By the way, many of the Jews don't recognize the state of the Israeli. They don't believe they should have a secular government at all which is interesting and they also indicate that the communal farms and factories, the communes in Israel now can actually sell their products on the Sabbath. Those are among the decisions and so created a threat outpouring among the orthodox Jews in two separate demonstrations because in unorthodox Judaism women are not allow to pray and demonstrate with the men. Across the street from them in Israel showing how democratic it really can be were the secular Jews and tens of thousands of strong young men and women wearing earrings and spiked hair and jeans. So the combination just shows the democracy that does exist there yet, even though it is democratic, it is very much theocratic.

Similar perhaps to the state of Utah where the Mormon - - Utah does have a certain amount of control over the laws of Utah, but the governor of Utah is not the head of the Mormon church and today in Utah, many more laws are being passed, often to the regret of the very strict Mormons.

Q A - what's the difference between theocracy and theocratic? It's that in a theocracy the religious and political leader are the same. In a theocratic society, religion dominates but you have separating leaders of church and state. Any other forms of government -cracys that you can think of? Aristocracy? -- is usually determined by blood.

There are lots of them that are out there, but the one that appears in the papers is plutocracy. Does anybody know what that means? Plutocracy comes from the Greek word Pluto which refers to wealth. It means ruled by the wealthy and you will often hear the word plutocrat. Meaning wealthy class.

I guess that's most of the biggies, a lot of little ones, but those are the ones that seem to pop in and out. Now government are also structured differently and usually we refer to the structure in three ways -- unitary, federal and confederal. What are we? Federal. Simple enough. It wasn't a trick question. When we say we're federal, how do we identify it as being federal? What do we mean by federal? We have one central government also smaller governments within that and although many other unitary and that, what's the difference between our central government and our
subdivisions? They're not all powerful. The central government are not all powerful. Translation: It's a sharing of power.

In a federal system you have a sharing of power between the federal or central government and the subdivision. We call our subdivisions states. Why didn't I just say states? Because some countries don't call them states. What's Canada -- which law takes authority if there's - the federal one overrides it, right? Constitution says basically federal constitutional law supersedes and if the law can, then that does not necessarily where the federal government can pass legislation that is in the realm of the states' responsibility.

For example, the federal could pass legislation setting a speed limit, but they couldn't tell the states what speed limit. So how come we all had a 55 mile an hour speed limit? Because unless they did, they would lose federal funding. Isn't that also why the drinking age is 21? Federal funding for roads would have been cut, and of course that runs into the whole questions of drugs. Better said, legalizing marijuana. Like the Californians can create a "legalize marijuana initiative" and it is legal in California, but since doctors prescriptions are regulated nationally, doctors can lose their right to write prescriptions if they prescribe marijuana. Also because drugs are under laws prohibiting transportation across state boundaries. Then the federal government can come in. So that's one that's being put in the courts right now. The federal government has been coming in to break up the clubs and others that are dealing with federal laws. So they definitely are overlapped in conflicts that are difficult to resolve until the Supreme Court states it.

It is also true that the state can go further in it's laws. If the federal law creates a minimum the state can do more. For example? Gun control. Federal laws create a 5-day waiting period, but in California you have a 10-day waiting period. So we can go greater. But we could not create a law with a 1-day waiting period. The Sixth Amendment -- I'm sorry -- the Sixth Article of the Federal Constitution says - it's called the Supremacy Clause - that federal constitutional law supersedes state law and that's under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.

Now, it is true that we have become closer to being unitary. We mentioned two of them, driving speeds and drinking. Much more so than when I was your age. When I was your age I lived near Ohio and they used to come from Indiana to drive over to Ohio because Ohio allowed 3/2 beer at 18. Those kinds of things today have created tremendous differences making us more unitary where unitary meaning that the power rests in the central government with little or no power in the subdivisions. The power rests in the central government in the subdivisions. Sometimes it's difficult for people from a foreign country to understand that we have 50 separate countries. But sometimes they act as it. Laws for marriage, laws for divorce, different education laws, different driving laws, different -- I mean, it was the strangest thing for me to make a right turn on a red light. Because I grew up in New York and you're not allowed to. Hong Kong's the same. You can't turn right on red either.

I was going to say, 3/2 beer is no longer in existence, right? No it's still out there. What is a 3/2 beer? It's limited to the percentage of the alcohol per limitation so it's a very low alcohol content almost at the level of near beer which has no alcohol content. O'Douls, the nonalcoholic beer. I remember this kid down the street at 13 was walking around with a thing of near beer. It tastes like beer. It has yeast in it and it was amazing one day about three months later, he came out with this beer belly at 13.

Where is there a system that is unitary? Central government has control with little or no control in the subdivisions. Where is unitary? England, They are now working through a big word that we learned the other day. Devolution; to bring down that system, but England has been unitary. You can run for office in England from anywhere in the country, you don't have to live there. The most recent that wants to run for senator is whom? I'll give you a hint: She wants to run for senator in New York City. Hillary Clinton. She has announced that she is going to run for the vacated seat. She has, to the best of my knowledge, never lived in New York. And Madeline Allbright from Czechoslovakia. Yeah she found out a few years back that she was of actual Jewish origin that her parents are converted to Catholicism or whatever it was and then left the country and she didn't know about the Jewish background. But yeah she's from Czechoslovakia, so she couldn't run for president. I mean for -- she could run for senator though. So there is a very good chance that you will be seeing an interesting campaign with Hillary Clinton running for senator from New York. It looks like a foregone conclusion. Bill's comment was that he thought -- who was the other carpet bagger? Hoard Stern? No. He's a New Yorker. Born, bred, and acts like a New Yorker. With that accent and that personality? That's a New York personality. Did he run for governor or senator? Governor. Maybe two seconds, he dropped out.

Now who was elected senator from New York that was a carpetbagger? Robert Kennedy. Massachusetts. The whole Kennedy family. New York had an opening. Kennedys had a townhouse on Park Avenue that they vacationed in. Can you imagine somebody wants to come from Massachusetts and vacation in New York? So there was an address there and so he was able to run. I am very curious as to what kind of residency Hillary Clinton will come up with. How many of you heard that Hillary Clinton was considering to run for the senator? She's from what state? Arkansas? Illinois. No, not Arkansas. She's from Arkansas now. So that will be a very interesting campaign.

The real question is that after she becomes senator from New York, not necessarily foregone conclusion, will she divorce Bill Clinton or not? Weren't they about to do it before he became president? I don't know if they ever did it. That's why he did Monica Lewinsky. No, I'm sorry. Go ahead. I read something on tabloid newspaper. They had gone through problems: One of bimbos that he was knocking around with. Only one of them? He had a woman that was for a number of years. Jennifer Flowers. Before Paula Jones and Jennifer -yeah. That was during the times that they said there were problems in the marriage and it wasn't an issue. When we talk about Paula Jones, which may have been in a sense sexual harassment, but certainly a clearer case of Monica Lewinsky because -- in any case, the fact is that it will be interesting to see what happens. They both said that she's been the power behind the throne anyway.

I just read a funny quote a couple of days ago from Hillary Clinton. She said, "They can't impeach us. We're the president." It's not a real quote, in case you didn't know that. I wouldn't doubt it was real. No she's a senator to play into the hands of those that call her the president. Everyone has stupid moments though. I'm not sure about her.

Confederation. When that's -- when what's left? The power is in the subdivisions with no power in the central government. Power is in the subdivisions with no power toward little power in the central government. I can't think of a country today that we could call confederal. Perhaps the closest is Switzerland where the cantons they take turns at being president. Or sorry, prime ministers. Each one is little more I said than our state. However, in American history we had two confederations. Does anybody know what those two were? The confederacy in the south. During the war with Britain, the revolutionary war and until the Constitution was put into effect in 1789 the United States functioned under the Articles of Confederation. We took the name United States in 1777. We declared our independence from Britain in what year? What date? July 4th, 1776. These are not trick questions. I just want to see how many people say 1492. I get scared with my questions here.

So in 1777 we declared ourselves the United States and we had a congress who elected a president of the Articles of Confederation and he ran the country. And his name? The first president of the United States under the Articles of Confederation was a man named John Hancock. However, it is often stated that the first president of the United States was John Hancock. Why John Hancock? Didn't he preside? presided over the first continental congress when we declared our independence and that is why his name appears so bold in the Declaration of Independence and of course, we still say "sign your John Hancock." Washington then was not the first president despite what your parents tell you and your school teachers. So why do we call him the first president? He was the first president under the new Constitution that we function under and he therefore became president in April of 1789. Up until that time, there were actually fifteen people who served as -- 12 different people, but there were fourteen presidents before Washington.

Those nice little provisions of American history. The real question is why don't we learn more about the Articles of Confederation? But I think it is interesting how we don't emphasize the fact that we don't have a constitution and itself before George Washington and the present constitution it was almost like a cover up. People don't like commenting on the subtle mistake in our history. Well I'm not sure it's a mistake. I think maybe it was.

Countries also have either presidential system or parliamentary system. What's ours? Presidential. Why? Because we have a president. But there are many countries with parliamentary system that have presidents. Israel has a parliamentary system with a president. They don't have a king or queen. Usually we identify the system with England with the queen as the figure head. What's the difference then between a presidential system and a parliamentary system? The basic difference is that in a presidential system the executive power rests with the president. He is the real executor of the law. He carries out the law and is of the legislature pretty much.

In a parliamentary system who is really the chief executor? Prime minister. Who is the representative of the parliament. It is very common in parliamentary systems when a new majority comes in that the chief executor is removed and their leader takes over. During a period of time when the -- an off-year election or problems with the leader votes are taken which we refer to as no confidence and during the vote the person is removed and a new prime minister is brought in. In England, elections for parliament are held over 5 years. And there are elections when a vote of no confidence occurs. The United States has - A separation of power, if you will, between the executor and the legislative branch. If the legislative branch were allowed continuously - for political reasons the president - in the sense that it will change the actual functioning of our constitution to what we might refer to as a parliamentary system.

So there was a lot of thought in discussion in that although not in the press because all the press was interested in was the scandal itself and the impeachment, but this was a concern as to what this meant for our constitutional system. Will there be a chance for the president to even appeal the decision? Not on impeachment. If he had been convicted it's just done, over with, see ya. There's no appeal. Even to the courts, no. That's a separation of powers between the legislative, judicial, and executive branch. Whatever was done, is done.

Any questions then on parliamentary versus presidential? Who will probably be prime minister of the United States if we had a prime minister system? A parliamentary temp, but the position is majority leader -- it's possible, I wouldn't say you're wrong. It's possible. it's more likely that it will be the Speaker of the House. Either of them are basically the representative of the parliament if you are. The House and the Senate. Usually we look to the House as the lower body which is where the prime minister comes from anyway. It could be the majority leader of senate or the speaker of the house.

Well, are there any questions or redefinitions before we move to democracy. Then we're going to move onto democracy, but we're going to do that next time rather than get started today.