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How do you reconcile that idea with the fact that the United States is the oldest country with a continuously running democracy?
by Trasmatta 2y ago
How do you reconcile that idea with the fact that the United States is the oldest country with a continuously running democracy?
- overfeed 2y agoYou'd have to do some contortions on the current definition of "democracy" for that to be true. For most of it's history, not everyone could vote, and if that's your bar then democracy in the US is... returning to it's roots.
- wbl 2y agoWhy aren't you counting San Marino?
- ForTheKidz 2y agoWell we've only been a true "liberal democracy" for the past sixty years or so. Before that we were a de-facto apartheid state. Maybe at a stretch you could say 105 years if you go by the 19th amendment. And frankly i'm still skittish to call America pre-Trump a democracy with my full chest given the electoral college, completely bonkers division of the country into states, the senate, complete lack of a right to vote, our continual human rights abuses in terms of poverty and imprisonment/executions, etc etc. I'm just saying there's literally dozens and dozens of countries with far more obvious realization of democratic ideals than we've ever managed to figure out, and at this point our age and blind devotion to dead assholes ("founding fathers") are major barriers to any sort of movement forward.
- hcurtiss 2y agoI don't believe any of the founders believed they were creating a "true democracy," or even that it would be desirable. Read Federalist Number 10. The modern fetishism of democracy will lead bad places.
- ForTheKidz 2y agoYes, pretty much all claims of democracy come from the 20th century. I hardly think we were a more functional country at the time, though—it's only through the miracle of rampant exploitation we didn't all just immediately start killing each other. Thank god for the civil war to kick us to continue booting up a democracy. One day we'll finish the job, I swear. Pinky-promise.
- popularrecluse 2y agoI don't think anyone is arguing for a pure democracy where we all vote on every bill. Nice strawman tho
- thomassmith65 2y agoIt's history: if a person doesn't grade on a curve, every page of the textbook looks the same (ie: people being jerks). In order to deny that England, America, and France spearheaded the modern democratic system (albeit inspired by Ancient Greece), a person needs to explain who did?
- ForTheKidz 2y ago> In order to deny that England, America, and France spearheaded the modern democratic system That doesn't mean these governments make any political sense as a democracy today relative to the status quo. Hell, Britain is probably the only government on earth more dysfunctional than America's. At least France refreshed relatively recently; what the hell is Britain's excuse? Even North Korea and Eritrea seem to maintain more dignity internationally than any of the three of us and they barely even attempt to come across as "democratic".
- thomassmith65 2y agoWell, today? No, they're not exceptionally democratic in comparison to other nations – or, at least, not to other Western nations.
- ben_w 2y ago> what the hell is Britain's excuse? It's in the name: United Kingdom. The people like the pomp and ceremony.
- diggan 2y agoI guess I'd ask you to define "democracy" first, as for me it would at least include that all citizens are allowed and realistically can vote. It took until 1920 for women to be able to vote, and it wasn't until 1965 every citizen realistically could vote. I don't think in that case it would come close to being the "oldest country with a continuously running democracy".
- wwweston 2y agoFull franchise democracy in the US is arguably younger than living memory. So are a lot of things we take for granted as civil rights (and some of powers that be seem determined to roll those back). But even assuming the premise, it’s not hard to see how generations who’ve enjoyed a privilege might be more likely to take it for granted than societies that have more recently gained it, and are within living memory of fascism in power (or in neighboring states).
- rayiner 2y agoCivil rights is orthogonal to democracy. Creating a democratic country like the U.S. is the real achievement. Most countries never come close to accomplishing that.
- diggan 2y agoAccording to the Democracy Index (article about it here: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/democracy-index-data-economist-governments-b2705687.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/democracy-index-dat...) there are about 25 "Full Democracies", 107 Non-authoritarian regimes, and 60 authoritarian regimes. Fun fact: The US isn't counted as a "Full Democracy" by that index, so seems it's not as a great of an achievement as you seem to think. I'm looking forward to see how the ranking of the US changes in 2025, seems to be slipping downwards rather than upwards sadly.
- rayiner 2y agoWhat’s the basis of that index. Are they alleging US elections are rigged?
- machomaster 2y agoWhy are you asking questions instead of easily reading about the index criteria?
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- fmbb 2y agoThose are just words. The world has many old countries. Most of the world’s most democratic states are constitutional monarchies, with centuries of history of not being a settler colony like the US. How do you reconcile your comment with the fact that the US in the democracy index (from The Economist) is a flawed democracy, and considerably less democratic than a whole bunch of monarchies. It’s just words.
- mitthrowaway2 2y agoI don't think these ideas need to be reconciled, because there's no conflict between something having existed for a long time and it not continuing to exist. The Roman Republic had existed for over 450 years when Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon.