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I am using "democracy" as a synonym for "liberal democracy." If you tell me about a country that: - Has a beautiful founding document that ensures what we'd r

I am using "democracy" as a synonym for "liberal democracy." If you tell me about a country that: - Has a beautiful founding document that ensures what we'd recognize as basic rights of all citizens - Has a well-designed federal system that empowers individuals and lower-level governments at the expense of the federal, - Has hundreds of thousands of enslaved people who form the foundation of their economy and are indeed bred into captivity, I would never, ever call that a democracy. The first two don't matter when the third is true, to me. If you would, that's fine; you wouldn't be objectively wrong.

throwaway_law 7y ago
>If you would, that's fine; you wouldn't be objectively wrong. I call the US a Constitutional Republic, where the representatives are elected through various implementations of the democratic process. Otherwise, I'm just highlighting the fact that the "inventors" of democracy had slaves just the same as the US (among other limitations on who had voting rights) at the time of the Revolutionary War/Independence. In some respects slavery was an inherited evil of the new US Constitutional Republic, an evil which the Constitutional Republic was unable to abolish through law/voting/representatives (as evidenced by half of the country attempting to secede rather than honor the law) and instead resulted in a war to maintain the Union and enforcement of the law through use of arms. Unfortunately, democracy/liberal democracy/Constitutional Republic whatever we call it, it was not effective an abolishing slavery with the stroke of a pen and instead threatened to breakup the very form of government which was only maintained through the most deadly war the Country has ever fought (in fact deadlier than every other US war combined). It begins to become a slippery slope when laws at the end of a gun, whether or not those laws are morally correct.
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throwaway_law 7y ago

>If you would, that's fine; you wouldn't be objectively wrong. I call the US a Constitutional Republic, where the representatives are elected through various implementations of the democratic process. Otherwise, I'm just highlighting the fact that the "inventors" of democracy had slaves just the same as the US (among other limitations on who had voting rights) at the time of the Revolutionary War/Independence. In some respects slavery was an inherited evil of the new US Constitutional Republic, an evil which the Constitutional Republic was unable to abolish through law/voting/representatives (as evidenced by half of the country attempting to secede rather than honor the law) and instead resulted in a war to maintain the Union and enforcement of the law through use of arms. Unfortunately, democracy/liberal democracy/Constitutional Republic whatever we call it, it was not effective an abolishing slavery with the stroke of a pen and instead threatened to breakup the very form of government which was only maintained through the most deadly war the Country has ever fought (in fact deadlier than every other US war combined). It begins to become a slippery slope when laws at the end of a gun, whether or not those laws are morally correct.

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