Articles and Essays on Legitmacy

The United States of America still remains the World’s number one super power.

Yet any objective and thinking person upon scrutinizing the political leadership pf America, might be inclined to take a few steps back and put together the following question “If Senator Hilary Clinton is elected to be the first woman President of the United States, and serves two terms, where is the legitimacy in the fact that two families will have controlled the destiny of this great and influential country for 28 consecutive years?”
Can it be possible that these 4 people out of the hundreds of millions who, theoretically at least, have been eligible to be elected to lead the American nation are the best suited?  That a father and son interspersed with a husband and wife has turned out to be the best people for the job. If you were asked what are the chances happening, you would have to answer in the hundreds of trillions.
However, every one knows this is not an object of chance. This is part of a political system that might be described as being very unhealthy.

When individuals who are members of either of the major political parties submit their candidacy for the president ship, then a well –oiled political machine swings into action. Campaign financing is a major issue and a sensitive one too. The candidate with the best backing and neccessarily the one with the ideal talents and attributes is chosen to represent the American people in possibly the toughest job in the World.

So what has motivated and continues to motivate the people who want to take on the awesome responsibility that goes with the job?

Is it the power, the prestige or the genuine desire to serve the people?

After all, history has shown that most of the presidents that have served in the last half century were in a very strong financial position, and certainly did not need the middle of the road salary and perks that went with the job.

A notable exception was Bill Clinton who served as President of the United States from 1993 till 2001. Clinton came from very humble backgrounds. Despite that fact, he succeeded in defeating the incumbent George Bush Senior in one of the biggest political upsets of the twentieth century.  Bush’s popularity was at an all time high just a few months earlier at the end of the 1^st Iraq War

What brought Clinton’s victory was his undoubted charisma which shone against Bush’s slightly staid and off-hand personality.

So the question is will Mrs. Clinton, an undoubted political veteran with tremendous ability, but considerably less charismatic than her husband have sufficient impetus to win the presidency and keep it in the family.

However she will probably be aware that there is another Bush waiting in the wings, Jeb, currently Governor of Florida, who is expected to stand in 2012.

These Bushes sure are talented,

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Many people think that the Global War against Terrorism began after

Terrorists successfully attacked and destroyed the Twin Towers in Manhattan, New York on the United States on September 11, 2001.

This was the day that brought on President Bush’s announcement on the launching of the Global War on Terror. This was to be a military and law enforcement campaign with the sole intention to bring the fight to America’s enemies. The very fact that a group of terrorist had many to plan an carry out such an audacious attack on such a prominent and symbolic target sent chills down the collective spine of the American people. The fact that 3,000 brave people had been victims of the largest single terrorist attack in modern history sent the American people a wake up call that they had been living in fear of. It told them the Global War on Terrorism would be a long and dirty war, and tactics would be employed that many people would later find themselves doubting their legitimacy.

Terrorism has been part of the global picture since the Nineteen Fifties and Sixties. Some early examples are the French curbing of terrorism in Algeria, and the British handling the IRA insurgence both in Northern Ireland and on the British Mainland. Heavy handed tactics were freely employed in both these campaigns. However in those days, the ability to impose censorship was much more pronounced that it is now, and many tactics were employed” behind the scenes” that eventually brought victory and sent the terrorists begging for a cease fire.

The Western World is only too aware that Osama Bin Laden is the leader of a massive terrorist community who are responsible for the killing of thousands of innocent victims all over the World. That retribution should be harsh and cruel there can be no doubt. However there are many people of principal who balk at the images of terrorist being held without trial in Guantanamo Bay for years.

These people are war criminals and are being held and interrogated to extract information that may well save innocent lives in the future. When some well meaning soul begins to question the legitimacy of interrogation and the methods employed, they should remember that all of us are in the firing line in the war against international terrorism. And all is fair and legitimate in war.

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Outsiders look upon the European Monarchies as being a cross between a media attraction and a throwback to times long gone by.

However the fact is undeniable that the European countries who do boast an active monarchy have displayed a political stability over the last century, at least, that other Western European countries cannot come close to.

There are those who say that if Great Britain did not have a monarchy during World War Two, it may have not won the war. The people, and especially the charismatic prime minister of the time, the late Sir Winston Churchill, got very far behind the Royal Family. And the Royal Family reciprocated by visiting the sites of the Luftwaffe bombing raids in London, exposing themselves to real personal danger.

It has been the adherence to traditions that has allowed European monarchy to last the pace, with an eye to keeping pace with times and the affections of the people. The costs of retaining a monarchy are expensive, whilst most members of European monarchies have amassed great personal wealth. However the bulk of costs involved in maintaining the monarchy fall on the taxpayer.
However the people seem happy to maintain this establishment and there is no sign of any of the major European families stepping down or being overthrown in the near future,
The British Monarchy, in relative terms, has gone through some more upheavals in the last century, from the abstention of King Edward to the death of Lady Diana. The temporary tremors that these major events caused were dealt with by the stoicism of the British Royal family, and fairly soon things returned to business as usual at Buckingham Palace.

The other European Monarchies have experienced less turbulent times, Spain, Belgium, Holland, Norway and Sweden all enjoying a stability that mirrors the public’s feeling of legitimacy towards the monarchy and the willingness to subsidize this venerable institution for the foreseeable future.

Over all, the monarchies have shown their willingness and ability to try some new directions. Whilst breaking down some of the more rigid traditions, they are yet to

Display any signs of radicalism that would suggest levels of informality indicating a break in its continuity.

European monarchy sits well in its role of being above the day-to-day political struggle. There role of being above the daily struggle to survive and prosper has actually gained the monarchies the respect and the love of their people.

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Ask anyone how we prefer to die, and most would answer “Peacefully in my sleep, with my family around me and my dignity intact.”

The inevitability of our death is one we live most of our adult lives with. Nothing we can do about it, and a peaceful and dignified death is all that we can ask for.
No-one would ever wish to be become ill from cancer which attacks our body in so many forms and usually means a long painful illness and a slow lingering death. Today cases of cancer are on the rise, despite an increase public awareness of the disease, and how to detect the earliest signs of it spreading in your body. Behind heart failure, Cancer is the second largest cause of death in the Western World.

Dying of heart failure or a heart attack can be sudden and sometimes without pain. Although sudden and a tremendous shock for the family, many those who lose a loved one are at least feel a certain relied that there was very little suffering involved.
On the other hand succumbing to cancer can be a very long drawn process, involving great suffering, not only for the sufferer but also for their loved ones. They can only look on in anguish as the disease slowly destroys all the healthy cells in the patient’s body.

Cancer has been around for many years, and the medical profession also stands by helplessly, as they have no effective cure for the disease.

Treating cancer usually involves some form of surgery to remove the cancerous tumor. The surgery is invariably followed by a course of chemotherapy to remove any cells that may have spread into other parts of the patient’s body.

Statistics show that many people are more afraid of chemotherapy than the cancer itself. Chemotherapy brings with it a notorious list of the cruelest side effects, ranging from hair loss to nausea, sickness and fatigue,

The sad fact is that the medical profession sanctions these medical procedures to continue, even when they know that the patient has very real chances for survival. There are many who question the entire legitimacy of treating the patients whose cancer has progressed to as stage where they it is untreatable. Is it not better to allow the patient to go home or to a hospice, and succumb to their disease as peacefully as possible.

The cynical amongst us who would question the legitimacy of chemotherapy in cancer treatment might find ourselves asking the following question; “Wouldn’t it be better if the money spent on research on how to refine these highly expensive drugs used in chemotherapy, were to focus on trying to discover what causes the disease to invade our bodies in the first place?” Maybe by finding an answer to that question would cause the pharmaceutical industry’s ongoing profits to slide. But only the cynical amongst us would ask that question.

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English soccer is very big business. Arguably the finest league in European, and certainly the most competitive, the turnover in cash over a season runs into billions of pounds every year. For the last decade, Manchester United, arguably the biggest and most popular club side in the World has ruled the roost in England, both on the soccer field and in the boardroom. In season 2003/2004 they posted profits of £52million, and Liverpool another highly successful club, and also based in the North of England with a rich history and heritage, showed a £25million pound profit, largely due to them winning the highly prestigious and highly profitable European Champions League.

Arguably this has been the best season in English football, and possibly for all of Europe. The never waning interest in soccer among Europeans has raised the standards of soccer and levels of competitiveness previously unseen.

What may well have brought on this catalyst is the arrival on the English soccer scene of Roman Abramovich In June 2003, Abramovich , a Russian born oil and investment billionaire, and one of the wealthiest men in the World bought controlling interest in Chelsea Football Club. Chelsea were always one of English football’s perennial also rans, more glamorous than successful on the football field and barely showing a profit of it.

Abramovich was determined to change all that and he began a campaign of investment that shook the soccer world to its foundations, and made many question the legitimacy and financial reasoning behind his actions. Since taking over Chelsea and assuming its £80 million debts, Abramovich has poured a further £360 million into the club; the bulk in strengthening Chelsea’s playing squad, ostensibly the cream of crop of English and European players. With a wage bill to match

At roughly the same time as Roman Abramovich appeared, so did the Glaser family from Florida in the United States. They succeeded in buying controlling interest in Manchester United. However they financed the purchase by borrowing, and have invested very little liquid cash into the business, which is still extremely profitable, due to success on the field, prize money and incredible sponsorship income.

Chelsea on the other hand continues to post substantial losses. £140 million in season 2005/2006. But what does that sum mean to someone like Roman Abramovich whose personal fortune is estimated at over £10 billion. Making a profit appears to be of secondary importance to Abramovich, success on the football field seems to more important to him. And he has seen Chelsea achieve more success there in the three seasons that he has been in control, than in the previous fifty. But he has yet to see Chelsea win the glittering prize, the one that he obviously craves; the European Champions League.
The question that many argue is how long it will be before Roman Abramovich, who obviously is used to winning, becomes bored with his expensive hobby and moves onto something else. While there is a positive side, in that Mr. Abramovich’s millions have come into the sport from an outside source, and not as investment. The argument of the legitimacy of treating a business in any form as a hobby may be dangerous for Chelsea Football Club in particular and European soccer in general.

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In today’s society that hungers for instant information, more and more people are questioning the media’s role and their legitimacy in authentic news reporting.

The press seems capable of taking any situation, blowing out of all proportion, predict the outcome, anticipate what people will say before they say it, and put words in the mouths of people without any justification. The gutter press of today appears only to want to report on the negative aspects of any situation. The question that begs to be asked is: do the public only want to hear bad news?

Is this form of media reporting detrimental to the national moral? Are we entitled to ask the media to adopt a more balanced view point, and to keep things in proportion?

When challenged media institutions can become very defensive. When, on the rare occasion, that a member of the public, who is under scrutiny by the media, launches a counter attack, the media immediately adopts a semi-self righteous pose. They are inclined to operate in the grey area between supposition and truth and are masters of providing information that can be readily misconstrued .When accused of telling outright lies or at least cynically manipulating the facts to lend a little edge to the story, the counterattack by implying that their’s is the role of protecting this democracy and all it stands for, especially free speech. Even it is damaging or offensive.

Their point in arguing the legitimacy of media within a democratic system is that the very people who were the architects of constitution set one of the principal foundations to be the right to the freedom of speech. And it is true to an extent.
The media rightfully enjoys very high levels of protection for the reason that as flawed as members of the press can be in pursuit of today’s scoop, democracy would not function as it was intended to do.

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With the coming of the internet, came the boom in online gaming. A boom which has imploded on itself recently, with increase US government legislation to effectively ban gaming online, by starving the fuel on which it feeds. The flow of money.

There are many that would argue that wagering on line is a compulsive and dangerous pass time, and may even have a point. While online casinos will argue that the odds are 96% in favor of the player, statistics will show that the massive profits that these online casinos were earning prove otherwise. Where in a live casino, there is a theoretical possibility that he odds can work in favor of the player, in an online casino, the games are programmed as such that if a player continues to wager eventually the odds will wear them down.

However the facts are that certain games, classed as games of skill and where the players play against each other and not the house, should be treated in a different category, and the legitimacy of playing backgammon online as a game of skill should not be hampered.

Backgammon has reached tremendous heights of success due to its ready adaptation to the online media. Players all over the World play and enjoy this game. The same skills and strategies that made it the longest lasting and most popular board game have been captured by the software programmers.

Once again players can only lose a fixed amount. They can enter online backgammon tournaments where the prize money is calculated against the number of entrants. The backgammon games room only takes a percentage of the entry fee to cover expenses, and make a profit.

Backgammon players have to be aware of all the strategies and percentages to proceed in these tournaments and even win one.

If they don’t then the entrance fee that they will have lost will surely have provided them with some fine entertainment as well as some international camaraderie. Take into account the fact that finals of online tournaments are decided over 21games. Luck will play a part over two or three games but a successful backgammon strategy will be required to win a long series of games.
The first and most important thing that the backgammon novice has to understand that luck plays a pretty small factor in the game. In order to win consistently at backgammon, strategy and experience plays a much larger part.

These are facts that those who question the legitimacy of playing backgammon online should be aware of.

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The causes and consequences of the global debt crisis is one which should be a source of worry for most people. However most of us are either oblivious or unaware of it, although it has now reached massive proportions.

Debts to Third World Countries grew dramatically during the seventies. At that time it was felt that these countries were about to go through a period of rapid growth, and banks were very interested in getting in on the ground floor and lend money to these developing countries. A prominent banker of the era proudly pronounced that lending to governments is safe banking because sovereign nations do not default on their debts. He was later proved to be seriously wrong on his estimation

Twenty years later the world’s poor and developing countries owed more than $1.3 trillion to industrialized countries. By 1997 it had grown to $2.3 trillion, and estimates are that by end of 3007, it will have reached $3.3 trillion.

Of the total developing-country debt, roughly half is owed to private creditors, mainly commercial banks.

The rest consists of obligations to international lending organizations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, and to governments and government agencies—export-import banks, for example. Of the private bank debt, the bulk has been incurred by middle-income countries, especially in Latin America. The world’s poorest countries, mostly in Africa and South Asia, were never able to borrow substantial sums from the private sector and most of their debts are to the IMF, World Bank, and other governments.

The debate that has been raging since it became obvious that most of these countries, and especially the poorer ones are experiencing major difficulties balancing their budgets, is on the legitimacy of writing of the debts of Third Word countries, and what would be the implications for the future.

World bankers have now reached the conclusions that the economic debts of the developing world cannot ever be made good. Situations in African and far eastern countries will continue to deteriorate, global warming is taking its toll. Scientists estimate that natural disasters such as the tsunami of late 2004 will occur on a semi-regular basis and the people’s plight will only gradually worsen.

These nations should be looked upon by the global financial community as being need of charity, instead of loans, Any debts that they have outstanding should be written off, and they should instead regular financial assistance in the form of grants to help them survive the difficult times ahead.

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Types of Legitimacy

Numinous legitimacy: The dominion of a godking of which ancient Egypt offers the best example, is the theological doctrine according to which every Pharoah is himself (among other things) the god Horus, son of Osiris. The doctrine seems to go back to the very origin of the empire. The Christian priesthood derived its legitimacy and still does from a source very similar to that of the kingship; according to official doctrine the Papal office is based on Christ’s designation of St. Peter, which continues to sanctify and legitimize the rule of every successive pope.
Civil ligitimacy: Civil legitimacy exists when a system of government is based on agreement between equally autonomous constituents who have combined to cooperate towards some common good. Every modern constitutional system or every system of representational government is founded either on a basic agreement to follow certain rules or at least on a justifiable assumption that a basic agreement to follow certain rules exists. Modern constitutional government makes one characteristic of civil legitimacy particularly clear: Governmental offices are ordered by trust rather than exercised by dominion. This is expressed in the institution of public elections.

Sources of legitimacy

Weber’s Three Sources

The German economist and sociologist Max Weber argued that there are three forms of legitimacy, and that all human societies, across history, have been based on them.

• Charismatic authority. Legitimacy based on the charisma of the leader, often partly based on the perception that this leader has certain extra or supernatural attributes. Example: a tribal chieftain or a religious leader.
• Traditional authority. Legitimacy based on tradition; e.g., people accept the government for the simple fact that it has been around for so long and is based on popular customs and usages. Example: a monarchy.
• Rational/legal authority. Legitimacy based on the perception that a government’s powers are derived from set procedures, principles, and laws which are often complex and are written down as part of the constitution. Example: representative democracy or bureaucrats.

Weber like the British Philosopher Thomas Hobbes, had an extremely negative and pessimistic view of human nature, and believed that societies often went through cycles. Weber did not see democracy as being necessary for legitimacy, as a government could be legitimized through laws and principles not established by a vote. Weber also claimed that it is perfectly possible for a modern society to revert back and become a follower of a brutal form of charismatic leadership, a phenomenon which later occurred in his home country of Germany under Adolf Hitler and which was also witnessed in other parts of the world, such as Mussolini’s Italy.

French political scientist and social thinker Mattei Dogan offers a more contemporary conception of this typology of legitimacy. While Weber’s typology (traditional/charismatic/legal-rational) was seminal throughout the previous centuries, Dogan argues that it is insufficient to cover the complex relationships between legitimacy and political systems. In fact, in Dogan’s view, the first two types (traditional and charismatic) are today obsolete. The most recent example of charismatic legitimacy dates back to Khomeini. Dogan believes that traditional authority has disappeared completely, with the exception of two or three regimes in the Middle East (like Saudi Arabia). The third type called rational-legal is, in Dogan’s view, an amalgamation of many varieties, to such a degree that they no longer constitute a “type.”

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