Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2012 October 24

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October 24

Priest vs. Clergy

Are there more priest in prison for child offenses than other types of clergy, say Baptist or Lutherans? I am not singeling out anyone, I really am interested in the percentages. Many thanks, JeffJDLane13 (talk) 01:20, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

When you say "priest", are you referring to Catholic clergy? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 01:21, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes I am and thanksJDLane13 (talk) 01:45, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Define "more". Total per denomination? Or percentage of the given denomination's clergy? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:41, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Also: in one particular country, or worldwide? Marnanel (talk) 04:58, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

And bear in mind that there are 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, and only 75 million Lutherans.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:27, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The OP did say he's interested in the percentages, which I suppose means looking at the relative proportion of offenders within each denomination. The Catholics do seem to get most of the bad press in this area. That's partly because there are a lot more Catholic priests and brothers than religious of other denominations, and it may be that some much smaller group has a higher proportion of offenders within their ranks than the Catholics do. But I hope that's never going to be used to downplay or point-score, along the lines of "We Catholics only have 15% of our people up on child molestation charges worldwide. You Discalced Restricted Calathumpians of the Blessed Foreskin of Zebedee have 25%, and you're the folks who obviously need to clean up your act before pointing the finger at us". -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 11:19, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Overall, I expect you would find the percentage of convicted felons in any denomination is an extremely low percentage. You occasionally hear about child-molesting charges in Protestant denominations. It seems to be same-sex among the Catholic and opposite-sex among the Protestant, which is not necessarily an endorsement or a condemnation of either denomination. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:41, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Not necessarily an endorsement? You mean it could be a plus, either way? And not necessarily a bad thing, either way? Regardless of who commits them, are you actually defending these atrocities?

Here's what the Deputy Police Commissioner of Victoria said last week to an official enquiry being held by the Victorian Parliament. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:06, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I think Bugs merely meant that there was no moral lesson to be drawn from the apparent gender biases of child abusers from different denominations, which is certainly true. However, I'm not convinced that such biases are statistically significant, and anecdotal evidence has suggested that women and girls abused by celibate clergy have a harder time being believed, because of the alleged same-sex preference factor. Moreover, Bugs seemed to find the topic amusing enough when he joked about it in the Boy Scout thread further back - in response to a question apparently asked by a Scout, no less. AlexTiefling (talk) 07:44, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I call it "dark humor". The common thread among these institutions is their public condemnation of "non-conforming" adult sexual interactions, while also tolerating and hiding predatory sexual interactions. As for the scouts specifically, the joke about starting a fire by rubbing two scouts together I first heard several decades ago, probably on TV, and I don't think it had any nefarious implications, although I was really too young to know about such things. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:55, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

The title of this section keeps bugging me. Priests are clergy; there are clergy who are not priests; there are priests who are not Roman Catholic. AlexTiefling (talk) 11:49, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes. It's a bit like saying "Pastors vs. Ministers". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:37, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The question is comparing apples and oranges. Baptist and Lutheran ministers may marry. You'd have to compare among all unmarried or all married ministers. μηδείς (talk) 16:04, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't get you Medeis. Married men are just as likely to be child-abusers as are single men, possibly more so as they have more opportunity. DuncanHill (talk) 19:25, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

You don't get me? More like you are not familiar with how to set up an objective experiment. One compares like to like and controls for independent variables so far as possible. μηδείς (talk) 05:00, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

wouldn't the later be part of the point though? Nil Einne (talk) 04:31, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

You could do both. Set it up as an observational study and use multivariate analysis to see if unmarked Catholic priests were more likely to abuse than other clergy in general and if they were more likely than other unmarked clergy You could even see what effect adjusting for the relative density of clergy has. Itsmejudith (talk) 07:11, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

That's what you might do in order to discover whether or not there's any correlation between marital status and propensity to sexually offend. But Medeis seems to be taking this as a given. Until otherwise demonstrated, the marital status of sex offenders is about as relevant as the colour of their hair or their astrological sign. Unless it's being suggesting that men abuse children or rape people only because they're sexually frustrated as a result of not being married. If so, where's the proof? And what about people who are not married in the eyes of any church or the law, but have ready access to one or more adult sexual partners? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 08:06, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I googled [list of clergy convicted of sexual abuse] just to see what might turn up, and there is no shortage of such lists. This one may be of some interest. The OP could add up the counts given for first letter of last name and divide by the total number of priests to get some very rough idea of a percentage. I googled [number of catholic priests in usa] and one of the items that turned up was Catholic Church in the United States, which suggests America has 40,000+ priests. One caution would be that 40,000 is only the active number of priests, so the ratio of suspects to priests would be inflated, but it would give an upper bound. It's possible someone has done the math on both Catholics and other denominations, which would require further googling. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:06, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Tax cuts

If we are to offer people in the U.S. tax cuts with the premise of helping American achieve jobs, innovation and etc., can it be mandated that the money offered must remain in the U.S.? Why would give tax breaks for someone to take it out of the the offering country to another because the make more profit? Wouldn't this defeat the intended purpose? Thanks JDJDLane13 (talk) 01:28, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The Reference desks are intended for questions that can be answered with facts or references. That doesn't hold for this question, so it really isn't appropriate here. Looie496 (talk) 01:52, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The first question is appropriate for the ref desk. The second and third are the problem. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:01, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

How exactly would you enforce such a law ? It wouldn't be enforceable on an individual level like that. However, multinational corporations are required to report where they spend their money, so it might work on that level. StuRat (talk) 03:19, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Money is fungible... the multinational would simply take some of the funds it was originally planning on spending in the US and spend it elsewhere instead. Blueboar (talk) 03:44, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

On a technical level, the refund could be in the form of a debit card that is only authorized for purchases from American corporations, although that doesn't guarantee the money will stay in the US in the end. Don't food stamps now come in the form of a debit card that only works at places that sell groceries? Someguy1221 (talk) 03:29, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I believe food stamps were always restricted to certain foods. They now have the bridge card, with similar restrictions. Also, a tax cut isn't the same as a tax refund. If the government never has the money, it can't really control what people do with it. StuRat (talk) 03:35, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The premise of the question is that keeping the money in the US is best, but that's not at all clear. Suppose that I got a tax cut of $20,000, and I used the money to buy $15,000 of Vietnamese blue jeans with fancy custom stitching on the pockets, then spent $2,000 to have them shipped here and to have, I don't know, $1,000 worth of rivets from Mexico riveted onto the legs in downtown Los Angeles, and then I spent $2,000 on web banner ads on a Canadian website, and I sold half of the jeans here in the US for $30,000, and half in Canada for $20,000. My profit is $30,000, all of which I then use to buy a Honda Accord that was assembled in Ohio. And I use the $20,000 left over to do this again with the blue jeans. Is this so bad? An American (me) now has a $30,000 car plus this interesting cash engine of a blue jeans business. Globalization is super-complicated and although there is an obvious appeal to spending money within the US, because it adds to the country's GDP, it might be better for numerous Americans in the chain if the money goes outside of the US in exchange for something else. Tarcil (talk) 03:56, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

People are talking about "money offered" and "refunds", which is not what tax cuts are about. The govt would simply be taking less off you than they would otherwise have taken. They're not giving you anything. You're still giving money to them, but less of it. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 05:21, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The idea of Tax expenditures is well-accepted in some contexts... AnonMoos (talk) 06:09, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

They might be giving you something. Tax credits fall into two classes: refundable and non-refundable. The difference is that only refundable tax credits can bring your tax burden below zero. (An example of a refundable tax credit is the EIC in the US.) If you have enough refundable tax credits on your income tax, you will receive money from the government at the end of the year. They are commonly used as a subtle method of wealth distribution to ensure the poor don't actually starve, while not riling the right wing about "handouts". Marnanel (talk) 06:42, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Multiple manslaughter

Is "multiple manslaughter" really a crime in Italian law, or does the phrase simply mean "multiple counts of manslaughter"? Our article on the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake speaks of scientists being convicted of "multiple manslaughter", as does the BBC, so I'm rather confused. Nyttend (talk) 02:29, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The news stories I've seen in the Italian press say omicidio colposo plurimo, "plural manslaughter". I don't know whether that's a legal phrase in Italian or not, but at least the Beeb came by it honestly. --Trovatore (talk) 03:02, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Mayor of Rurutu

Does anybody know the names and terms of the Mayors of Rurutu? I need to know the name of the mayor in 1982.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 05:41, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

According to Teuruarii IV's article, his grandson, Toromona (Solomon) Teuruarii, was "mayor of Rurutu in the 1970s". The JOURNAL OFFICIEL DE LA POLYNESIE FRANGA1SE (sic) lists "Solomona Teuruarii" as le maire on 8 May 1980. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:10, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Pierre De Chevigne

Was Pierre De Chevigne Secretary of Defence in the French Government in November 1952 because an account in the National Archives,ref. 751G.00/11-2452 of RG 59 of 24 November, has him visiting Indochina for three weeks using that title. You have withthat title only from May to June in 1958.124.176.54.133 (talk) 07:38, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The French wikipedia has a detailed list of Chevigné's various mandates [1]. He was Secretary of State for War ("Secrétaire d'État à la Guerre") from August 1951 to June 1954, keeping the title under five successive Prime Ministers in those thays of short-lived governements. The title means he was a junior Minister of Defense responsible for the Army; in those days, France has a Minister of National Defense, an Associate Minister of National Defense (at times), and Secretaries of state for War, for the Navy and for the Air Force. He was briefly the actual Minister of Defense from May-June 1958, in the short-lived Pflimlim Government that was the last government of the IVth Republic. In November of 1952, René Pleven was the Minister of National Defense, and Chevigné was one of three Secretaries of State reporting to him. See here [2]. --Xuxl (talk) 08:34, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Electoral College - Tie Scenarios

I am sure they exist somewhere, but I can't to seem to find them. Where can I find a list of possibilities for an Obama/Romney tie? or even colored maps showing such scenarios? Also, what is the most likely path towards a tie come election day? _{Hisham1987 (talk) 08:17, 24 October 2012 (UTC)}

This has been discussed a bit on FiveThirtyEight.com. The entry on 1st October 2012 discusses it in detail. 86.166.191.232 (talk) 09:43, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

See Electoral College (United States)#Contingent presidential election by House and Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In any case where someone doesn't receive a clear majority (more than half) of the electoral votes, then the election of the President goes to the House of Representatives, and the election of the VP goes to the senate, with each state's delegation (not individual legislators, the delegation as a whole) getting one vote. A clear majority (not merely a plurality) is needed for a win: it can be a perfect tie, or it can be a case where there are three candidates receiving votes, and none gets more than 1/2. Per the text of the twelfth amendment "if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote" --Jayron32 12:03, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Note that the Senate would choose the vice president from among the top two electoral vote recipients for vice president, a majority being necessary. This would be the newly-elected House and Senate, by the way, as they do not meet for the joint session at which the electoral vote is counted until after January 3. Not sure if the vice presidential tiebreaking vote applies, if it goes 50-50.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:12, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I think Jayron's and Wehwalt's posts miss the point of the OP's question, which I believe is what plausible combinations of states going for Romney and states going for Obama would lead to a tie. Interesting question. I can't see how to get to the 1 October article on FiveThirtyEight.com that was referenced by 86.166.191.232. Duoduoduo (talk) 14:28, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

It's here [3]. It's easy to get to by scrolling to the bottom of the blog and following the link to older enteries and keep going back until you find the enteries for 1 October 2012 and then finding the relevent post. You have to go back a few times since the blog is updated regularly but it shouldn't take long, it was on page 5 when I looked for it just now (and you can always modify the page number in the URL to skip a few pages). Nil Einne (talk) 15:57, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you everyone - OP here. The fivethirtyeight link answers my questions perfectly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hisham1987 (talk • contribs) 16:13, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I know he said this was answered, but I just spent like 30 minutes working this out, so I'm posting it anyways, after the edit conflicts. AH! Sorry, in that case, assuming no state ends up going for a third party candidate, there are quite a number of scenarios leading to a 269-269 split. In general, most of the states aren't "in play", that is some states will vote Republican, and others Democrat regardless of who is running as a candidate (back in the days of the Solid South, this was referred to as Yellow Dog Democrats: people who would vote for a Yellow dog than vote for a Republican. This concept still applies to both parties in certain states, such that there is no realistic chance of having a close race in them). Looking at the article Red states and blue states and Electoral College (United States) we see the following breakdown, based on recent past performances of the parties:

• Romney is probably a "lock" in the following states: Idaho 4, Montana 3, Utah 6, Wyoming 3, North Dakota 3, South Dakota 3, Nebraska 5, Kansas 6, Oklahoma 7, Texas 38, Alaska 3, Alabama 9, Mississppi 6, Georgia 16, South Carolina 9, for a total of 121 votes
• Obama is probably going to win all of the following states: Washington 12, Oregon 7, California 55, Hawaii 4, Minnesota 10, Wisconsin 10, Illinois 20, Michigan 16, Maryland 10, Delaware 3, Pennsylvania 20, New Jersey 14, New York 29, Vermont 3, Massachusetts 11, Connecticut 7, Rhode Island 4, Maine 4, D.C. 3, for a total of 242
• The following states are thus "in play", or "swing states" as they are popularly known: Nevada 6, Arizona 11, New Mexico 5, Colorado 9, Iowa 6, Missouri 10, Arkansas 6, Louisiana 8, Indiana 11, Ohio 18, Kentucky 8, Tennessee 11, West Virginia 5, Virginia 13, North Carolina 15, New Hampshire 4, Florida 29, for a total of 175

Several of the above "swing states" are probably more in one camp than the other, but this is probably the largest list of states where the election could go either way (realistically, I've seen several news reports that narrows it down to just 4-6 states: Ohio, Virginia, Florida, and North Carolina being the most important as they are closest to a 50-50 split, and have enough electoral college votes to make it worth the while. Also, there are a few "solid" states I wouldn't be surprised to swing this election. Georgia has a strong, affluent African-American population in and around Atlanta that could swing the state Democrat, likewise a state like Pennsylvania could also be in play for the Republicans, likewise Romney's home state of Michigan, or Massachusetts where he was Governor). However, just on the lists above, which gives the widest, most realistic chance of making the election, if every candidate took exactly the states they are supposed to, you could have the following swing states break the following ways:

• Obama gets: Virginia (13), New Hampshire (4) Missouri (10) = 27 more than his "locks" = 269 total
• Romney gets all the rest for 269 total.

There's your tie. There's probably many other ways it could break down for a tie, (especially if either Nebraska or Maine split their vote, as they do from time to time) but there's one realistic scenario. --Jayron32 16:24, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Finding ties in the electoral college is an interesting example of a subset sum problem. Duoduoduo (talk) 16:25, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

For any given value of 'interesting'. --Jayron32 18:58, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Commanders who never lost a battle

From the introduction of the Jan Žižka article: "Žižka is ... one of six commanders in history who never lost a battle (alongside Alexander the Great, Scipio Africanus, Genghis Khan, Alexander Suvorov, and Khalid ibn al-Walid)." The introduction of Alexander Suvorov lists Lucius Cornelius Sulla instead of Scipio Africanus. But other articles attribute the same virtue also to other military leaders, in a trice namely Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck and possibly Uesugi Kenshin. I assume the lists above to be original research and POV; where do they come from? Are there lists that might possibly claim justifiably to be complete? But then, there might be several military leaders who just won a single battle in their life and then died of a disease... any help to clear this is welcome. --KnightMove (talk) 08:37, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

This seems a rather vague thing to try to define. Would a commander who never fought a battle count ? How about a commander who only fought one ? Or a commander who avoided all battles except the easy victories ? None of these sound particularly heroic, do they ? StuRat (talk) 08:57, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's a pointless categorisation. Someone who only became involved in a war in its dying stages could easily score that label. HiLo48 (talk) 09:37, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

To say nothing of the fact that a number of the commanders above probably did loss a battle. Alexander the Great for example lost a number of engagements, it has just become common not to count any of them as a full battle, but in that case what are we really recording? 86.166.191.232 (talk) 09:41, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree it is a pointless characterisation, and furthermore, unless it is directly stated in a reliable source, it is synthesis and should be removed from Wikipedia on that ground. I suggest you remove it; or discuss it on the article's talk page if you are not confident in doing that. --ColinFine (talk) 10:11, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

What about American commanders who led only in the Spanish-American War, say, and retired before WWI?--Wehwalt (talk) 12:14, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

It can't possibly be supported by a viable source in any event. Definitely a contentious claim and almost assuredly someone's original research; definetly needs to be removed. Snow (talk) 05:17, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

The list is blatantly incomplete. Marlborough is famous for never having fought a battle he didn't win, and never having besieged a city he didn't take. Looie496 (talk) 14:47, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I've just removed this claim from the article per the above discussion. Nick-D (talk) 22:45, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

... and I did the same for Alexander Suvorov. --KnightMove (talk) 06:18, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Why hasn't the electoral college system used in the United States caught on in the rest of the world?

With the US presidential election happening in a few weeks, this question came into my mind. The United States is extremely unique among presidential republics in that people don't actually directly vote for the president, but rather the people vote for a group of people who will make the decision for them. As I pointed out in another related question here, this is, to my knowledge, the only system of kind in the world (the electoral colleges of India and Pakistan being composed of lawmakers rather than a group of people elected specifically to elect the President). The closest equivalents would probably be the Election Committee of Hong Kong which elects the Chief Executive (although I'm not sure if the Committee's members themselves are elected or are chosen by interest groups) or the Assembly of Experts which elects Iran's Supreme Leader (although he isn't a president). Interestingly, the American sytle of government has been copied around the world, especially in South America, except for the electoral college. The question is, why? Why has the concept of an Electoral College not caught on in the rest of the world? I know that the College was a product of the Great Compromise, but if other countries can copy other elements of the US government (like having an executive president with veto powers), then why didn't they copy the Electoral College? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 12:45, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Why would they? What would be the advantages of the elctoral college system? The US is one of the oldest electoral democracies around, and as a result it has a highly anachronistic electoral system. --Soman (talk) 12:49, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Honestly, I'm not a big fan of the electoral college system (I prefer direct elections), but I can see why they used it. it would benefit states with small populations. This would mean that even the electoral votes of, say Wyoming or Alaska, would have the same weight as the votes of Texas. Not really, but it would mean a more proportionate voting. That is why they had the Great Compromise in the first place. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 12:56, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

(ec) It's not at all clear on the surface that the Great Compromise -- the disproportionate power granted to small states in the Senate -- is tied to the Electoral College. Without knowing the Federalist Papers offhand, I rather suspect that the reasons for the College shape closely to Article 1 Section 3, that is, the indirect election of Senators (which has no possible ties to state size). Note further that there is no constitutional requirement that Electors vote in accordance with, well, anything. Strictly speaking, there's not even a requirement that a popular election be involved in Elector selection (and this is a key component of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which is attempting to tie state electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of state-level results). So no, it's not a Great Compromise thing, but rather a means of insulating the more powerful offices (i.e. anything but Representatives) from the common voter. I'm sure the Federalist Papers go into detail somewhere about why that gap was written in, both for the President and for Senators. — Lomn 13:48, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Relevent Federalist Papers to the topic worth reading (a great insight to understanding the mindset and rationale of the Constitution writers themselves) are Federalist No. 49 and Federalist No. 51 (on the need for checks and balances generally), Federalist No. 10 (on the problem with factions, and on the need to institute measures in the government to combat factions, even factions of the majority, aka Tyranny of the majority), Federalist No. 39 is relevent, as a sizable portion of it deals with the inherent nature of whether the national government was intended to represent the Governments of the States, or the People directly: measures were built in to address both, but directly relevent is that the Presidency and the Senate were supposed to be representatives of the states, while the House of Representatives were representatives of the people. However, if we really want to get down to brass tacks, the relevent paper is Federalist No. 68, titled by Hamilton "The Mode of Electing the President", the text is availible at Wikisource if you want to read it, but especially germane here is the passage:

It was desirable, that the sense of the People should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preëstablished body, but to men chosen by the People for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture. It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations. (bold mine)

The founding fathers believed in representative democracy over direct democracy because they believed that the great masses of people were easily swayed by small, inconsequential things, and that it would be trivial to establish a majority which would decide issues that, in the end, would not be in the best interest of the country. The idea would be that wise, well-trained, and well informed individuals would themselves be selected by the people, and THOSE individuals would make all of the important decisions. The "electoral college" was intended to be as independent and vital as the Senate and House of Representatives; it was basically intended to be a third, special-purpose legislature which would meet, debate and deliberate, and then elect a president from their deliberations. That was the clear intent of the body from Federalist No. 68. Now, that it very quickly devolved into a mere formality is a historical fact, but was not something the Constitution writers envisioned or hoped for: the original intent was that the Electoral College would be chosen, not to represent specific candidates (as is done today), but to represent the people generally, and would through their collective wisdom and deliberation, elect a President themselves, but that the members of the College would be unencumbered by direct association with any party or faction. It is somewhat ironic that the actual operation of the College works exactly opposite of that: the members of the Electoral College are tied directly to the party they represent, and are in many cases actually forbidden by state law from voting independently. --Jayron32 14:30, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Judging from what I read at the time of the Bush-Gore debacle, and from the article on the topic, the whole point was a compromise between secondary election (by individual states) and direct election (just one person - one vote). The downside is that it currently works much like a direct election, with this intermediate business of electoral colleges. I see no reason to imitate. IBE (talk) 13:40, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

(ec) And that (the fact that it was designed to suit the peculiarities of US politics back then) is in a nutshell why it has not caught on elsewhere.

The electoral college is mechanically similar to any other method of choosing a leader via electorates - for example the way the UK prime minister is chosen (voters voting in electorates for MPs, the candidate commanding the support of the largest number of MPs gets to be prime minister). However, in reality the electoral college is just a slightly less democratic version of a directly elected system. So in countries where there isn't the same precise pressues that led to the electoral college model being adopted (and, countries being as different as they are, these would be few and far between), it would be more expedient to simply choose a directly elected model, or an appointed model, or a parliamentary model, or a different kind of compromise to suit their own situation.

So, as the OP mentioned, the "electoral college" in Hong Kong is partly directly elected, partly elected by interest groups, and partly appointed. It is a different kind of compromise, this one between the pressues of democracy, interest groups and the Chinese government's wish for control over the process. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:43, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I would also be cautious about simply regarding a country's system as "copied" from another. Most mature political systems are compromises of some sort, adopting elements of earlier systems and applying certain innovations or reforms. There are quirks to each country's system, so it would be rare to find one that's identical to another in any respect, not just the electoral college. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:47, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Narutolovehinata5 -- the electoral college was well-adapted to the U.S. situation in the late 18th century and early 19th century: i.e. a semi-loose federation spread over a wide geographic area with relatively poor communications, where there was a legitimate concern that voters in one state might not know enough about politicians in other states to have an informed opinion on them, and there was little desire to have centralized government control to the degree that voting qualifications and election administration could be standardized between the individual states in a manner which would allow for throwing all the votes in the states together into one common national pool (a necessity for a national popular vote system). So as late as 1824 there weren't really national presidential candidates, but only a series of regional candidates; as late as the Dorr Rebellion of the early 1840s there was resistance in some areas even to Jacksonite "universal white manhood suffrage"; and as late as 1860, South Carolina didn't allow individual voters to vote for president at all.

Of course, there's no reason why what was found to be necessary for the U.S. in the late 18th century and early 19th century should be considered ideal for any other country in 2012... AnonMoos (talk) 14:04, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

That's fascinatng, AnonMoos -- as late as 1860, South Carolina didn't allow individual voters to vote for president at all. Do you mean just in 1860, or in all years up to and including 1860? Can you provide a reference about this? Thanks. Duoduoduo (talk) 14:38, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

It's also true: From 1788-1860 inclusive, South Carolina's state legislature selected it's Presidential Electors, without the use of a popular election. Start at United States presidential election, 1860 and work backwards and you can confirm that there was no popular vote in South Carolina. As you go backwards, you can also confirm that there was no popular vote in progressively more and more states. South Carolina was a pretty long hold-out in not using a popular election, but United States presidential election, 1828 shows that Delaware didn't hold a popular vote either, and United States presidential election, 1824 shows 6 states which appointed the electors in the Legislature, and United States presidential election, 1816 has a near even split: of the 19 states at the time, 10 used a form of popular vote, with the other 9 having electors appointed by the legislature. Prior to that, about half (more or less, depending on the number of states at the time) didn't have a popular vote. --Jayron32 15:24, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

After the 1824 election (whose outcome was considered deeply undemocratic by many, see Corrupt_Bargain#Election_of_1824), there was the rise of "Jacksonian democracy", which in presidential elections meant a close approximation to universal white manhood suffrage, and direct popular election of presidential electors -- Rhode Island and South Carolina being the main holdouts... AnonMoos (talk) 16:58, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Please say "male sufferage". When you say "manhood sufferage" it makes it seem like only a specific part of the body is voting. Of course, that lends an interesting twist on the phrase "pulling the lever" (from the old "lever style" ballot-marking machines) to refer to voting. --Jayron32 17:37, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

And actually the word is "suffrage". I don't even want to think about "manhood sufferage"...--TammyMoet (talk) 17:57, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I'd vote against that... --Jayron32 18:01, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I didn't come up with the phrase -- see article Universal manhood sufferage... AnonMoos (talk) 19:28, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Which redirects to the correctly spelt Universal manhood suffrage. Which in turn ought to be moved to Universal male suffrage because the "manhood" version of the terminology is outdated, but that's already a redirect to Universal suffrage. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:53, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

"Universal manhood suffrage" was the historically-used term, and doesn't create any potential confusion about whether boys are allowed to vote... (By the way, I was spelling it correctly before I picked up on Jayron32's misspelling.) AnonMoos (talk) 00:23, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

In 2005 there was an unsuccessful proposal on Talk:Universal manhood suffrage to change manhood to male. Duoduoduo (talk) 16:47, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to change the redirect for Universal male suffrage away from Universal suffrage to Universal manhood suffrage. Duoduoduo (talk) 16:47, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Why? Because there doesn't exist a single country structured like America. America is unique in this respect, and is foremost a nation of states. During the Civil War, a lot of people chose sides based on what state they lived in, even if they disagreed with ideaology over slavery. Befor the American Revolution, people identified themselves not as Americans, but as a Virginian or a New Yorker... In orderto properly represent the views of all these states, rather than represent only the views of about 5 large states with large populations that can elect a president, the electoral college is a unique system that works. --Jethro B 00:02, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Not exactly so. Switzerland was assembled much like America: originally as an association of essentially independent states that have gradually, over time, grown into a more federal (than confederal) relationship. See Old Swiss Confederacy for some perspective. South Africa also has its history as a voluntary federation of independent states, but it is today a unitary state. America is certainly an unusual type of nation, given that more states are "unitary states" without any subnational unit having true sovereignty, and most of the remaining federations have a "Strong federal" model whereby the National law supercedes State/Provincial law in more cases than not: In countries like Canada, unless something is specifically assigned to the Provinces as their responsibility, it is reserved to the Federal government. The U.S. has a "weak federal" model whereby the National government has only a series of "enumerated powers" and other than those specific powers and roles (such as military, currency, interstate commerce, etc.) all other sovereign powers are specifically reserved to the states. Unusual, but not sui generis. Other states with similar arrangements include the aforementioned Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia. --Jayron32 03:08, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Every country is different. Australia is also an assemblage of formerly separate colonies, and federal powers are also enumerated in the constitution, either as exclusive to the federal government or as shared by the federal and state governments (but with federal laws prevailing to the extent of any inconsistentcy). All other powers not so enumerated is reserved to the states.

However, Australia has never had a need for an electoral college system because the Australian head of government is selected by the majority parliamentary party from among its ranks, and the Australian head of state in practice (the Governor-General) is mostly ceremonial and nowadays basically appointed by the government.

Every country is different, and no doubt reasons also exist why the other countries you listed would not have adopted an electoral college system. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:35, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

And also relevant — the Governor-General has never been an elected position; regardless of who chooses him (government or Colonial Office), he's always been appointed. Nyttend (talk) 15:08, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

female muezzin and female imams reading the prayer out loud during Maghrib, isha and fajr prayers.

What does islam say about women being muezzin for women-only congreagtion only and also, if a woman leads the maghrib, isha and fajr prayers for the women-only congregation, does she read the prayers out loud or not? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Donmust90 (talk • contribs) 16:20, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I expect that someone who knows more about this than I do will be along shortly. But just as with the earlier question about female clergy in Christianity, there's no single unified position about this within Islam. I remember reading recently about a large programme in Turkey to train women for ministry as imams. This was met with a wide range of reactions, and this reflects the complexity and diversity of opinion - popular and scholarly - even in such a clearly Muslim-majority country as Turkey. AlexTiefling (talk) 16:32, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles Islamic_feminism#Equality_in_leading_prayer and Women as imams... -- AnonMoos (talk) 17:05, 24 October 2012 (UTC)