Historical or current examples to support Affirmative

Post historical or current examples to support the affirmative case here.

Historical example of Democracy or popular sovereignty

Scandinavia in the 8th century experimented with a Democracy. These gatherings were called things. It was on a small scale, but because of its success it is used in small groups today such as in the names of the parliaments of Iceland (Althing), Norway (Storting) and Denmark (Folketing)
More at this site.

Supporting the Affirmative Case

It can be found in some Greek city states of antiquity, and among the Germanic tribes of northern Europe. At the time of the Greeks and the Romans, the northern Europeans lived in small groups in sparsely populated areas. In such societies, there are definite limits to op­pression. If people are dissatisfied, they simply gather together in a little group to move on to greener pastures elsewhere. This way of life naturally leads to an essential equality in fundamental political decisions. After all, these groups or tribes can only be kept together by voluntary compact. Thus the nature of frontier society gave every young able-bodied individual a stake in fundamental decisions.

Later, voting with your feet largely ceased being an option as the more fertile parts of Europe became more densely populated and land became scarce. The emergence of agriculture as the dominant food source reinforced the vul­nerability of ordinary people. In an open landscape, with a sedentary lifestyle it became harder to escape tyrants and their professional fighting men. Over time this lack of effective countermeasures led to the emergence and growth of feudal institutions.

In the less accessible parts of Scandinavia and Switzerland, however, repression was more difficult to enforce, and the local landsgemeinde or things survived for a considerable period. The original landsgemeinde were general assemblies of all adult freemen that met once or twice a year to resolve important issues. In Norway during the time of the Vikings (around 1000 a.d. and even later) kings were still elected or approved at the local direct as­semblies, and usually there was more than one contender. This multiplicity of choice acted as a brake on royal ambition. For a long time there was no real central govern­ment, and even after its creation, the geographical conditions were such that only occasional super­vision of local communities could be accomp­lished. Even if you did have a fall-out with the monarch, you could usually escape to other Viking com­munities in Iceland, Normandy, Ireland, England, the Orkneys or the Baltics with impunity.

The regional representative assemblies assumed many powers of the earlier Norwegian direct assemblies beginning about 1000 a.d. However, these representative assemblies had almost un-fettered legislative powers at least until 1152 when the first serious attempts at national legal harmoni­zation were made. The things or representative assemblies did survive until 1662, but their powers steadily eroded with the increasing influence of the church, the dwindling number and professionalisation of members, and the appointment by the king of an ever-larger fraction of the total.

Even after the time of the Vikings, during the more powerful Danish-Norwegian kings, central government enforcement was still difficult, and several tax collectors failed to return to the capital. On the continent or in the flat eastern part of Norway, the king or the feudal lord could employ heavily armed profes­sional soldiers on the sedentary population. But heavy arms were of little help in Switzerland, Iceland or in the Norwegian mountains with their ample oppor­tunities for ambush and guerrilla warfare. Neither were there many fields to burn as the popu­lation to a large extent relied on husbandry, fishing and hunting for subsistence.

Thus by the Middle Ages the democratic traditions of citizens' assemblies survived only in Iceland, in parts of Norway, possibly in parts of Sweden, and in the original Swiss cantons. Scandinavia eventually succumbed to absolutism, and direct democracy survived only in Swiss towns and cantons.

I'm not sure who all this will help but I think I'll be able to use it in my case.

Affirmative example: Jennifer Mee, the girl who around 5 years ago had hiccups for five months, killed her parents. You've probably heard of her. she got a lot of publicity. Anyway, when in court, her defense said that the reason she killed her parents was because of those hiccups. Obviously that is crazy. However because our government respects individual rights it had to be considered.

Does this work?...

a historical example of popular sovereignty is Russia during world war 2. During that time the people voted on every decision the government made.

IDK if this works...but, here goes:

The upcoming election will be decided by popular sovereignty...basically the general will of the people, or majority vote.

when slavery still existed, different teritories had different opinions so, they let each teritory decide if they wanted slavery or not.

Russia during world war 2. During that time the people voted on every decision the government made. They Even voted that the national food is ice cream!
(this information was from a citizen of Russia during this period and she was one of the people that voted for ice cream!)

When president Obama was elected, he was elected because he was most popular.

Hopefully I have this right!

>The election has been decided on by popular sovereignty
>Russia use to vote on EVERY decision(even small things) that the government would make.
>Popular sovereignty is a political doctrine. Rather than dictating whether or not a territory or state would or would not have slavery, government officials permitted people residing within a territory or state to decide the issue for themselves by popular vote. The government used it in both the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.

Historical example#42

Roman Democracy

All I can remember is that the Romans voted on representatives for a Roman congress.

United States is an example of popular sovereignty because the power of the government lies with the people.

Political doctrine that allowed the settlers of U.S. federal territories to decide whether to enter the Union as free or slave states. It was applied by Sen. Stephen A. Douglas as a means to reach a compromise through passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Critics of the doctrine called it "squatter sovereignty." The resulting violence between pro- and antislavery factions (Bleeding Kansas) showed its failure as a workable compromise.

(This could work for both)

An example of a nation state is the United States. The U.S. is different from a state, such as, Indiana, because the United States government rules all the people in all 50 states whereas Indiana's government rules only Indiana. Sometimes the nation state is elected by the people and sometimes the nation state government imposes itself on the people. Most often people in a nation state have similar traditions, culture, and identity. Regardless of how the nation state gains power, usually its citizens are given certain rights. This also means that the nation state has certain rights such as liberty, or freedom, from outside forces.

http://learningtogive.org/papers/paper50.html

This might be an example.

Bethany wrote:

Does this work?...

a historical example of popular sovereignty is Russia during world war 2. During that time the people voted on every decision the government made.

Bethany,
This could be easily refuted on many different levels. For example, Lenin was elected by his Russian peers as the best choice
to lead his country. He proceeded to go on and start a man-made famine that killed over twice as many people as Hitler. That is over 14,000,000 people. Someone could say, "Yes they had popular sovreignty, but it was extremely insuccessful."

Just trying to help out.

The Mayflower Compact was a great example. The main goal presented in this document was said to be to further the kingdom of God and spread the Gospel to the natives, (or something to that effect, i just don't know the exact quote). Even though everyonw signed it, I am sure a feww did not believe in this. They even had a name for such people. They were called "strangers". However, most of the pilgrims agreed with this philosophy. The majority (in this case, the unanimous majority) chose to uphold what was written in the first political document for America.