DePudyt, a proponent of laissez-faire economics, wrote that “governmental competition” would allow “as many regularly competing governments as have ever been conceived and will ever be invented” to exist simultaneously and detailed how such a system would be implemented. As David M. Hart writes: “Governments would become political churches, only having jurisdiction over their congregations who had elected to become members.” (CC Wikipedia 05/03/2010)

There are several varieties of democracy, some of which provide better representation and more freedoms for their citizens than others. However, if any democracy is not carefully legislated – through the use of balances – to avoid an uneven distribution of political power, such as the separation of powers, then a branch of the system of rule could accumulate power and become harmful to the democracy itself. (CC Wikipedia 04/25/2010)

Socialists generally share the view that capitalism unfairly concentrates power and wealth among a small segment of society that controls capital and derives its wealth through a system of exploitation. This in turn creates an unequal society, that fails to provide equal opportunities for everyone to maximise their potential, and does not utilise technology and resources to their maximum potential nor in the interests of the public. (CC Wikipedia 04/23/2010)

The Whig party slowly evolved during the 18th century. The Whig tendency supported the great aristocratic families, the Protestant Hanoverian succession and toleration for nonconformist Protestants (the “dissenters,” such as Presbyterians), while the Tories supported the exiled Stuart royal family’s claims for the throne (Jacobitism), the established Church of England and the gentry. Later on, the Whigs drew support from the emerging industrial interests and wealthy merchants, while the Tories drew support from the landed interests and the British Crown. The Whigs were originally also known as the “Country Party” (as opposed to the Tories, the “Court Party”). By the first half of the 19th century, however, the Whig political programme came to encompass not only the supremacy of parliament over the monarch and support for free trade, but Catholic emancipation, the abolition of slavery and, significantly, expansion of the franchise (suffrage). (CC Wikipedia 03/27/2010)

Cuba is home to over 11 million people and is the most populous insular nation in the Caribbean. Its people, culture, and customs draw from diverse sources, including the aboriginal Taíno and Ciboney peoples; the period of Spanish colonialism; the introduction of African slaves; and its proximity to the United States.

The Castro’s government has been accused of numerous human rights abuses including torture, arbitrary imprisonment, unfair trials, and extrajudicial executions (a.k.a. “El Paredón”). The Human Rights Watch alleges that the government “represses nearly all forms of political dissent” and that “Cubans are systematically denied basic rights to free expression, association, assembly, privacy, movement, and due process of law”.

Cuba was the second biggest prison in the world for journalists in 2008, second only to the People’s Republic of China, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an international NGO. As a result of computer ownership bans, computer ownership rates are among the world’s lowest. Right to use Internet is granted only to selected people and these selected people are monitored. Connecting to the Internet illegally can lead to a five-year prison sentence.

Cuban dissidents face arrests and imprisonment. In the 1990s, Human Rights reported that Cuba’s extensive prison system, one of the largest in Latin America, consists of some 40 maximum-security prisons, 30 minimum-security prisons, and over 200 work camps. According to Human Rights Watch, political prisoners, along with the rest of Cuba’s prison population, are confined to jails with substandard and unhealthy conditions. Other dissident thinkers such as Yoani Sánchez are under tight surveillance.

Citizens cannot leave or return to Cuba without first obtaining official permission, which is often denied.

In practice, common law systems are considerably more complicated than the idealized system described above. The decisions of a court are binding only in a particular jurisdiction, and even within a given jurisdiction, some courts have more power than others. For example, in most jurisdictions, decisions by appellate courts are binding on lower courts in the same jurisdiction and on future decisions of the same appellate court, but decisions of lower courts are only non-binding persuasive authority. Interactions between common law, constitutional law, statutory law and regulatory law also give rise to considerable complexity. However stare decisis, the principle that similar cases should be decided according to consistent principled rules so that they will reach similar results, lies at the heart of all common law systems. (CC Wikipedia 03/28/2010)