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>But sure, let’s concede Britain for the moment. Great - that was the point of my post. Not sure why you are going off on a bunch of other tangents. You haven'
by foldr 7y ago
>But sure, let’s concede Britain for the moment.
Great - that was the point of my post. Not sure why you are going off on a bunch of other tangents. You haven't mentioned any other country which banned people from voting on racial criteria.
>It’s all well and good to point out that Britain never disenfranchised black people during a time when approximately zero black people lived there.
You say this as if Britain started disenfranchising black people once they were present in significant numbers, but this is not the case. (This is not to deny, of course, that there is a long history of racism in the UK. I'm merely pointing out that the US is relatively exceptional in passing actual laws banning black people from voting.)
- philwelch 7y agoBecause you’re comparing a continent-wide federation to a tiny island-sized country. > You say this as if Britain started disenfranchising black people once they were present in significant numbers, but this is not the case. No, they just colonized Africa and disenfranchised them there. Totally different.
- foldr 7y ago>Because you’re comparing a continent-wide federation to a tiny island-sized country. I really don't see what you're getting at here. You yourself have been making (irrelevant) comparisons to France, which has about the same population as the UK. There is no such size as "island-sized". Islands can be big or small. >No, they just colonized Africa and disenfranchised them there. Totally different. Indeed, this is completely different.
- philwelch 7y ago> I really don't see what you're getting at here. You yourself have been making (irrelevant) comparisons to France, which has about the same population as the UK. I’m comparing the US as a whole to Europe as a whole. If you want to cherry-pick the best example of Europe, maybe I should cherry-pick one of the northern states that abolished slavery and enfranchised black people in the early 19th century. If you get to claim that France, Spain, Portugal, etc. don’t count, I should be able to claim Mississippi doesn’t count. Conversely, maybe we can compare the US to the entire British Empire. How many imperial subjects were truly enfranchised? Not the Indians, not the black Africans. Hell, even within the UK itself there was the entire Irish issue. But I guess Irish and Catholic aren’t technically races.
- foldr 7y agoYou were not comparing the US as a whole to Europe as a whole. It is not clear to me what point your are intending to make with this array of different comparisons.
- philwelch 7y agoMy overall point, I think, was adequately well-stated with my first comment in this thread: America has been one of the freest countries in the world for 150 years. Your counterarguments seem to consist of, “so was Britain” (which is insufficient to refute my point) and “Britain didn’t disenfranchise based on race” (which is factually dubious when you consider colonization as well as insufficient in terms of proving that Britain was substantially freer than America as a whole). You also alluded to “lots of Western countries”, which is why I specifically broke down specific periods where many (most?) Western countries were not free within the past century. This is when you doubled down on the UK angle, which is a fair point but proves very little. You also claimed the UK enacted women’s suffrage before the US. I didn’t bother fact checking this at the time, but the US enacted full women’s suffrage eight years before the UK. > In 1928 the Conservative government passed the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act equalizing the franchise to all persons over the age of 21 on equal terms. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_suffrage_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_suffrage_in_the_Unit...) The US: > After a hard-fought series of votes in the U.S. Congress and in state legislatures, the Nineteenth Amendment became part of the U.S. Constitution on August 18, 1920.[4] It states, "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_suffrage_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_suffrage_in_the_Unit...