Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 June 13

= June 13 =

monopoly on the legitimate use of force
hello, this is somewhat of a German/ Continental Europe thing, but is there a similar concept in Common Law/the Anglosphere? Basically, the state promises to punish criminals and "we the people" promise to abstain from taking the law into our own hands in return. Asmrulz (talk) 02:54, 13 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, the same concept exists in the English-speaking world, although here in the US, we are rather worried that the government might run amok if given that monopoly. Hence the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. StuRat (talk) 03:32, 13 June 2015 (UTC)


 * The second amendment does not authorize using arms against the government. That's a spin that's been put on it by a subset of politicians. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:42, 13 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Actually, I had a friend who was committed against her will in New Jersey 20 years ago, and she jabbed the cop in the solar plexus with a baseball bat. Recounting the story to me she said that the law allows a citizen to use reasonable force to resist a false arrest, up to lethal force in Supreme Court precedent. (She was an adult, the police entered under false pretenses, and there was no court order.)  It turns out she was right. μηδείς (talk) 18:32, 13 June 2015 (UTC)


 * That's the reason there has been no argument to repeal this Amendment, as obviously the days of the US needing citizens with rifles ready to defend itself disappeared once the large standing army was formed in WW2. StuRat (talk) 18:37, 13 June 2015 (UTC)


 * The NRA shoots down attempts at mere gun control, and the probability of repealing or altering the second amendment is about as likely as my being elected the next Pope. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:59, 13 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Yep, but their effectiveness is due to the "protecting ourselves from government run amok" and "against criminals" arguments, both of which resonate with the American public. This is my point. StuRat (talk) 20:02, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Their effectiveness is due to their intimidation of gun control advocates, often with an implied threat of being killed. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:05, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * You can support that with anecdotes at least, right? —Tamfang (talk) 08:17, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Here's one example. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:42, 14 June 2015 (UTC)


 * In English law, the relevant concept is the King's Peace - at common law, violations of the state monopoly on force were charged as trespass vi et armis contra pacem Regis. The relevant statutory instrument is the Coronation Oath Act 1688, which requires the monarch to "govern the Peoples of the United Kingdom ... and of your Possessions and other Territories to any of them belonging or pertaining, according to their respective laws and customs", and "cause Law and Justice, in Mercy, to be executed in all your judgments". Tevildo (talk) 07:41, 13 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Social contract delves into the philosophical underpinnings of the concept. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:00, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Thank you everyone! Asmrulz (talk) 20:02, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Birmingham Erdington by-election, 1940
Did this by-election happen? It's a strange question, but the by-election is in the template for Template:By-elections to the 37th UK Parliament, but there is no reference to a change in MP. As a wartime by-election it would be likely that this was uncontested, but there is no obvious reason why a member would be seeking re-election. JASpencer (talk) 07:44, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Surprisingly, the official statistics here only go back to 1945, and finding definitive results for earlier by-elections is not proving easy. However, there appears to be less information available for this by-election than one might expect if it actually occurred.  There was a by-election in Edgbaston in 1940 (Birmingham Edgbaston by-election, 1940) on the death of Neville Chamberlain. Tevildo (talk) 08:24, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I suspect it never existed, and I say this because the only references I've found to it are links to the Wikipedia article. Maybe the author of the article confused "Erdington" with "Edgbaston", which is known to confuse residents and taxi-drivers to this day! --TammyMoet (talk) 10:17, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * There's no sign of it taking place and as the member elected in 1936 represented it until 1945 I'd say delete the redirect. Valenciano (talk) 10:22, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Westminster ties
How do typical Westminster systems handle ties? The Scottish Parliament has 129 members: one neutral presiding officer, 64 Scottish Nationals, 63 members of other parties, and one vacant seat. Should a non-SNP member win in a by-election for the vacant seat, and should the other parties combine in coalition against SNP, it would be 64-64. In the absence of a party changing sides (whether SNP going into a grand coalition with everyone else, or one of the others joining SNP), how would this be handled? Just looking for legal precedent (which might include "someone changes sides"), which would be more significant in a system where only two parties had all the seats (no Greens or Independents who could hold the balance of power) not for the ways that parties change sides to avoid the situation. Nyttend (talk) 11:36, 13 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I think in general, if the government loses the support of the parliament, the premier will resign and the monarch may give the job of forming a new government to someone else (who might actually be the same ;-). If no stable government can be formed after reasonable efforts, the parliament will be dissolved and new elections will be called. See Motion of no confidence and The parliament itself on the issue. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:45, 13 June 2015 (UTC)


 * The Presiding Officer breaks ties. Sleigh (talk) 13:40, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The Presiding Officer, will in the event of a tie, vote for the Status Quo. However, the first SNP-lead parliament had a minority of 17; it managed to pass bills by ad-hoc deals with the other parties. The 2 Green MSPs are likely to support the SNP for most bills. It is not automatic that the opposition will vote against SNP bill, or that all MSPs will fail to follow their parties' whip (official line). LongHairedFop (talk) 14:46, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The UK parliament itself is governed by Speaker Denison's rule. See this page (from HMG) and this page (not an official government document): the latter gives the results of all tied divisions at Westminster for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  The Speaker has the casting vote, and the precedent is (where possible) to avoid making a positive decision (that is, to allow the debate to continue), and to maintain the status quo. Tevildo (talk) 15:32, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry that I wasn't clear: I meant on a much wider level. The UK House of Commons has 650 seats: imagine that at the next election, the Conservatives win 325 seats and Labour win 325 seats.  Is there precedent on how they'd decide on how to form the government?  Or if the SNP win the same number of seats at the next Scottish election, but all of the other non-speaker seats are won by the same other party.  Again, is there precedent on how the government would be chosen?  Nyttend (talk) 23:18, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Then you would have a hung parliament. If no coalition can be formed then the incumbent (previous) Prime Minister usually has to resign and the government rule will be handed to the opposition until the next election is called. See this. Nanonic (talk) 23:31, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * But who's the opposition? If there are 325 Tories and 325 Labourites, either the incumbent government will survive a vote of confidence, or their would-be replacements won't: assuming that the whips don't face any mutinies and that there aren't any absences, exactly half the House will have confidence in the government and half won't, and the same thing when they vote confidence in the other party's shadow government.  The parliamentary website you link addresses situations where seats are split among three or more parties, where it's possible to form a majority coalition while leaving other parties out.  When you're split exactly halfway down the middle, the only possible coalition is a grand coalition of both parties; it has precedent in situations like the Depression and the World Wars, but is there any UK precedent for a grand coalition just because it's mathematically the only way to achieve a majority?  Nyttend (talk) 01:11, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The official opposition would be whichever of the two parties did not form the previous government. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 removed the ability to hold most votes of confidence except that of government as a whole and also prevented other types of snap-election calling, it will be put to a motion and 2/3rds of the house must agree to hold a new General Electon - otherwise the parliament will not be dissolved until it's term expires (5 years) or a by-election result provides a majority. If the incumbent PM is forced to resign, this would cause a by-election. If the winner of this is from the other party, they would have a majority (one more MP) and form the government. Otherwise it's back to stalemate. The Cabinet Manual sought to address this but was found to be very non-specific in parts. To the extent that the new PM could just be decided behind closed doors and could potentially be a member of either party 'Where a range of different administrations could potentially be formed, political parties may wish to hold discussions to establish who is best able to command the confidence of the House of Commons and should form the next government.'. Nanonic (talk) 02:09, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Affirmative action: Who decides who is Black?
Maybe a frequently asked question...? If an American university has a admissions policy that "gives special consideration" to certain racial minority groups, for example African-Americans, how is membership to said groups determined? Is it based entirely on self-description? Contact Basemetal   here  17:43, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Does this have to do with the white woman running an NAACP chapter who "identifies" as black? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:46, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes and no. The situations are very different but this is indeed the case that prompted my question. Contact Basemetal   here  17:49, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Rachel Dolezal, if anyone needs reminding. AFD?  It's been the lead item on the BBC news for the past two or three days.  But, WP:NOTNEWS and that. Tevildo (talk) 17:53, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * My question is not about Rachel Dolezal. Could we get back to my question? Contact Basemetal   here  17:59, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * There is a built in assumption that there is a decision on this, but is there? Bus stop (talk) 18:08, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I googled "white identifying as black" and a lot of editorial opinions turn up. This might be another one of those things that the courts will have to decide eventually. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:09, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes but my question was about universities admissions policies. I'm asking this: if they give special consideration etc is it entirely based on the applicant having checked a box on the application form? Or do they have to see a photograph and decide themselves that they believe the applicant is really Black? What if the applicant has checked "Black" but is obviously White? (Again: not the case of Rachel Dolezal who had assumed an active "Black disguise" from pictures I've seen) Of course if the process of admission is completely opaque we may never know but assuming there's enough transparency can we tell how Admissions would react? Contact Basemetal   here  18:16, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Presumably university policies would need to conform to the federal law (as well as any state laws which might augment the federal). If I were you, I would look for the wording of the law and also for court cases. It may be that racial self-identity which is contrary to the obvious may not have been considered. Or it might be that such a student could be expelled for fraud if they were found out. But for info on exactly how they determine it, beyond the "honor system", you might have to do some research. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:29, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, but deliberate deception to gain something not otherwise available to you had you not used the deception is the basic definition of fraud, which is a crime in almost any civilized jurisdiction, and certainly in every one of the U.S. states and federal government. Many things we declare about ourselves are not checked immediately upon declaration; the resources necessary for a government to verify, beyond a shadow of a doubt, every single declaration about themselves and their action every person every makes is prohibitive, and that's why we don't do it.  However, when legitimate doubts arise, and people are called to the table, they can be expected to have been truthful about these matters, and held legally accountable if they had not been.  People confuse "being prevented from doing something wrong immediately" and "getting away with it for a time before one gets caught and consequences arise" as different.  We do not have the means to do the former, and don't need to as most people are likely honest enough that catching the dishonest ones represents a waste of resources not worth the effort.  The latter is how it always has, does, and will work.  -- Jayron 32 13:37, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Someone declaring themselves "Black" when they are in fact "White" without assuming a disguise and without lying about who their parents are this cannot immediately be characterized as deception. That's why my question was "who decides who is Black?" This is not Nazi Germany or Apartheid South Africa. There's no official definition of "Black" or an official body in charge with determining who's Black and who isn't. Somone may say they're Black because they consider themselves Black or because they're descended from people who left Africa a hundred thousand years ago. Active deception is what Rachel Dolezal did which was to lie for example about who her parents were. I think those are two distinct situations and this is why I tried to keep my question and the Dolezal case firmly apart. Contact Basemetal   here  13:52, 18 June 2015 (UTC)


 * (ec) On both my undergrad registration form and in my large corporate job I had to fill out which of the usually (at that time) census race categories I fit into, and it said that if I refused to self identify (I wrote human in the "other" slot) the registrar would use her opinion to determine my race for me. That has not been the case for any of my other jobs or in my post-grad education, but the school and the employer I mentioned were getting federal funds for my full scholarship and tax credits due to my "underprivileged" work location, so they were probably somehow required to show the funds were being distributed evenly or at least to make possible an analysis of how the races noted were benefitting from the funds--the forms said the question was in compliance with federal law. I don't know what happened to my self-identification at school, but my answer in my corporate job was crossed out, and the registrar did check one of the standard boxes. μηδείς (talk) 18:24, 13 June 2015 (UTC)


 * For the US, see this guidance document from the Department of Education and the related policy questions. Medeis' experience is probably explained by the answer to Q7 on the second link. It appears that the US Department of Education requires ethnicity to be recorded in some way, whether declared or observed. Nanonic (talk) 19:56, 13 June 2015 (UTC)


 * (@ OP) You could try asking Vijay Jojo Chokalingam (Mindy Kaling's brother) ... "Almost Black". ---Sluzzelin talk  00:56, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I wonder if there isn't some deception on Chokaligam part. On his site he posts two pictures side by side as if he had been rejected when he applied as someone of South Asian descent and only got in when he applied as an African-American. But I don't think this is true. I think the only time he applied was as an African-American. At least I couldn't find him mentioning he applied as a South Asian in the text. I'm not questioning the fact that that may have happened if he had applied twice. I'm just saying as far as I know he didn't. Contact Basemetal   here  13:52, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

See here. Count Iblis (talk) 13:47, 14 June 2015 (UTC)


 * There was a 1986 movie wherein a white man disguised himself as a black man to get a blacks only scholarship to Harvard Law: Soul Man (film) . Lowered admission standards, quota systems, and special admissions for some minorities were a fact of college life in the late 20th century. See Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. Being a preferred minority could gain a scholarship, or admission with lower test scores and grades. Are there actual cases of fakers being exposed? Edison (talk) 19:00, 16 June 2015 (UTC)