> Only a few countries have been electoral democracies for a long time. Eight countries — Canada, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, New Zealand, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States — have been electoral democracies for a century or more. And according to this data, just two countries have been electoral democracies even longer: Australia and Switzerland have been democracies since the mid-19th century.
Am I missing something? By which measure was the US (and possibly another among the first eight in this list) not an electoral democracy for as long as Australia and Switzerland? All three had significant restrictions on suffrage, with Switzerland particularly regressive in this regard in the late 20th century.
EDIT: I was thinking of Iceland as well, which has a very reasonable claim to be the oldest (continuous and current) democracy along with the US and possibly the Isle of Man, depending on how democracy is defined.
I think, for the sake of precision, we should just go with the percentage of the population that could vote. For dead democracies, we can reference their peak, so:
Ancient Athens, 400s BC, 10%
Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, 1500s, 10%
Britain mid 1700s: 8%
Britain after reforms of 1832: 15%
USA before 19th Amendment: 20% peak actually voted.
USA after 19th Amendment: 35%
And so on. The percentage is more revealing than the label.
The elegant balance of the system is that everyone eligible to vote in Athens were eligible to be selected for office (through random lot). Officials weren't some distant elite separate from the voters, it could be your neighbor, it could be you next.
This sort of creates an incentive to moderate the use of ostracism to the times someone really fucked up bad.
I don't imagine exile would be as bad today as it would back then. Our national level politicians are fairly wealthy too. Getting exiled as a local level politician would be tough though.
You got to keep in mind most Athenian officials were selected via sortition (i.e. random lot), not elected. If you were eligible to vote, you were eligible for a term in office. Only a small fraction of the officials were elected, including for example generals.
Right, but who gets to vote is just one aspect of it. Regardless of the fact more people get to vote in our democracy, our officials almost without exception are from a fairly small socioeconomic elite. This has changed remarkably little since universal suffrage some hundred odd years ago. Despite how a lot of people get to vote, not a lot of people get to rule.
The key difference, in Athens, is most political appointments were by random lot. It was literally a government by the people. No matter who you were, if you were eligible to vote, you could end up with political office. This is just not true with our modern democracies. Most people eligible to vote have no realistic path to political office.
I think you are confusing "eligible" and "get elected to the biggest, most visible positions".
Turns out, even in Athens, for the really big jobs they were kind of picky - dokimasia is an excellent filter to remove those you don't want. (Part of the process was questioning your "moral character", which is a pretty good proxy for "has an in with the powers that be").
And if we exclude high-visibility offices, there's a lot of people who can and do run in the US, for their local offices. School boards, city council members, commissioners, etc.
If we want to debate shortcomings of modern democracy, we might want to focus on the devaluation of local offices to the point of only focusing on national office.
> Point is, this was rather small portion of population. And who you were, who parents were, mattered a lot in whether you was eligible to vote.
Sure, but what does voting matter if the options basically are the same?
> There is too many of us eligible.
Right, but I'll repeat the criticism you levied above. In modern democracy, who you are, and who your parents are, matters a lot in whether you are de facto eligible to hold office.
"In modern democracy, who you are, and who your parents are, matters a lot in whether you are de facto eligible to hold office."
The same as in Athens. Sure, you could throw your lot in, but... did you have the means to run for the office? Did you have supporters that "discouraged" other candidates from running?
The Athenians in office I can currently recall all came from rich or influential families. (I may well be wrong - my recall is certainly extremely spotty. I'd love pointers if anybody knows of an analysis on Athenian officials & their backgrounds)
You needed to be a male citizen landowner. But part in this is because eligibility to vote was eligibility to be assigned political office. Voting wasn't just a right, it potentially came with duties as well.
It's not that illogical to exclude slaves because a slave in office gives their masters influence over an official, exclude people without land because they were susceptible to bribery, and exclude women who could get pregnant.
Because otherwise you decide that segments of the population shouldn't be heard. Democracy is literally "government by the people" - anything but universal suffrage means you consider some part of the population not people.
No, you have to count children because the definition of "children" changes over time. In 1788 most USA states had adulthood start at age 25. Now it is age 18. How would you track that change over time, except by counting the whole population? I think so long as you are aware of what the numbers mean, then this is the most accurate way to do it.
It's still useless. How is it relevant that Norways %voters is higher than the US' if the US has 5x the number of people who can't vote because of age? (Numbers are made up) This says nothing about the health of a democracy and is completely to do with demographics.
To illustrate the point lets create 2 fictional countries each with 100M population. In their most recent elections they both had 30M vote. By your measure they have equivalent levels of democracy at 30%.
However if we say that in country 1 half of the country is under the age of 18 and is ineligible to vote and only calculate using eligible voters this becomes 60%.
If in country 2 1/10 of the population is under age 18 and ineligible to vote their number becomes 33%. So country 1 has nearly twice the democracy of country 2.
It looks like they consider the US to have become a democracy in 1921, which would point to the 19th amendment as the thing that made the US "become a democracy" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteenth_Amendment_to_the_Un...). The term "electoral autocracy" hardly seems to fit, whatever failings the US might have had prior to that time. Nor does the term "closed autocracy" really seem to make sense referring to the administration of George Washington. While Washington was unanimously elected to be President (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presiden...), the President had relatively little power at the time, and the other government officials were not unanimously elected.
They've used a constructive approach to this, and I think what flips from "Electoral Autocracy" to "Electoral Democracy" relies on a threshold calculation of "polyarchy":
"We claim that Dahl’s theory of polyarchy (1971, 1998) provides the most comprehensive and most widely accepted theory of what distinguishes a democracy based on six (1998,p. 85—originally p. 8 in his 1971 book) institutional guarantees (elected officials, free and fair elections, freedom of expression, alternative sources of information, associational autonomy, and inclusive citizenship). This conception requires not only free and fair elections but also the freedoms that make them meaningful, and thus avoids the electoral fallacy (Diamond, 2002; Karl, 1986). "
I don't know how they made and weighted that calculation, but you can see how any country near the threshold would have lots to argue about. US I imagine scored low (or high, not sure which way is +ve) on inclusive citizenship in earlier years, less clear on the others.
I mean, they can make up new definitions for the words "autocracy" and "democracy," I suppose, but that's not what they mean. It calls to mind Alice's discussion with Humpty Dumpty:
> 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'
> 'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
Whatever caveats need to be added or however much it would differ from our ideal, I've never seen anyone call the form of government of Athens in the period between the Persian War and the Peloponnesian War anything other than "democracy." The Roman Republic, for whatever it's short comings, was a republic. America in 1790 or 1850 was at least as democratic as either of them (by the six measures you list, or by any other useful measure).
Sliding back the US and Canada flipped from electoral autocracy to electoral democracy in 1921.
> In electoral autocracies, on the other hand, the chief
executive is dependent on a legislature that is itself
elected in de-jure multiparty elections (in parliamentary
systems), directly elected alongside a separately elected
legislature (in presidential systems), or a combination
of both (in semi-presidential systems)
I'm not sure what happened in 1921 to flip the U.S.. I think 1920 was the first election that allowed women to vote? But as you say, why that isn't counted against Switzerland I'm not sure.
That could be related to the direct election of senators rather than their appointment by states. The change happened around that time. Of course, Canada still has an appointed senate, so I'm not sure what the distinction is.
Arguably the United Kingdom was not a true electoral democracy until the 50s and until decolonisation. In the early 20th century the United Kingdom governed much of the world and non of those people had much say in the government that governed them.
The British Empire and the United Kingdom are not the same entity. The UK was a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy that ruled a non-democratic empire.
I've always found that to be quite the hair to split. Quasi-democracy in the narrowly defined homeland and crushing authoritarianism for all other subjects. Separating the UK and the British Empire that way feels like a bit of a fig leaf, a polite fiction.
This sounds like it fails to recognize much of colonial governments, which were typically in the case of the British a very far cry from simply installing an unelected leader or otherwise manipulating leadership through extortion and other means, as the US (among others) is now known to do. There’s an entire wing of cultural, linguistic, and legal imposition that doesn’t seem to exist in what might more accurately be called imperialism by the US, and these changes still have ramifications in how people in the ex-colonies see themselves, their society, and their relationships to the world.
The UK _still_ has an unelected upper house with theoretical veto power. One of its members is ... Evgeny Lebedev, son of former KGB man and oligarch Alexander Lebedev.
The veto power of the Lords is almost entirely non-existent. Essentially its only power of veto is over laws that the Commons might try to pass to extend the lifetime of a parliament. Literally it can stop the Commons unilaterally extending its power to govern; that's it. Otherwise it can only hold up legislation so as to make it endure more scrutiny, and then only for a year.
I think people outside the UK don't really understand the value of the Lords or the way it works, which is remarkably restrained and serious even given various governments' attempts to stack it, and your comment is giving a crucial wrong impression.
With a handful of exceptions, I'll take the UK House of Lords over a dysfunctional elected senate. There's very little bad-faith use of powers there and far less obstructionism, compared to, just say for example, the US Senate, which is almost totally dysfunctional.
In practice, the HoL isn't that bad, but it remains explicitly anti-democratic and it's a corruption magnet, since the Tories have started selling seats in exchange for donations. The value of the Lords is millions of pounds in Party donations per year.
The US counterpart isn't so much the Senate as the Supreme Court: permanently appointed partisan lawmakers. The US Supreme Court is limited in that it can only make law on the cases brought before it, but it's been a critical flashpoint for so much social change in the US. To a certain extent the US "gets" to have a dysfunctional senate because critical civil rights issues are fought in the courts instead.
(The people complaining about "judicial activism" have a very real point that a lot of critical US law comes from the Supreme Court, it's just that that includes basic things like "allowing people of different races to marry despite what Virginia wants")
It is also a problem that everyone runs to the US for comparison and not, say, the UK's elected devolved assemblies. Which seem to be reasonably functional with their proportional systems. (Stormont is dysfunctional because of the civil war, not structural issues in the assembly itself)
I happen to quite like our Senate. It’s a chamber for deliberation, not rubber stamping what the House throws their way, and since it is formulated differently it’s resistant to tyrannical majorities and you don’t typically find either a Marjorie Taylor Greene nor a Maxine Waters among their ranks.
What precisely do you find dysfunctional about the Senate compared to the House of Representatives or UK Parliament?
It's not a chamber for deliberation in the way the UK House of Lords is, because it has a role in creating legislation rather than just amending it/discussing it.
As I understand it in the USA system, you can get legislation starting in both houses that often get merged.
Whereas in the UK (apart from the one single form of the veto) the Lords can only delay or offer amendments to legislation, and the Commons can reject them.
It puts the Lords much more in the service of the Commons than the comment I was replying to suggests. People outside the UK might see an unelected chamber making law, but it doesn't and can't. It can only offer reflection and advice.
The US system, I'm sorry, but your Senate is wilfully obstructionist in its roles in federal appointments and judges, the majority abuses procedure to suit it, and it is abusing both the two thirds majority rule -- by simply refusing to even sit when things won't on the face of it won't get past strict party loyalty -- and the filibuster.
Look at how unseriously it treated its role in the impeachment
or Obama's supreme court picks; the whole world sees an unserious, childish organisation.
There is party representation in the Lords but it does not work the way it does in the Senate, because nobody is running for election (there are also many "crossbench" peers who have no affiliation).
Second, the way your system elects senators is by no means impervious to the MTG types. John Kennedy, Josh Hawley, Kyrsten Sinema -- these are not serious people; they either act in bad faith, play up to their base or don't turn up. Hawley is actively bad, John Kennedy is a fake and a disgrace, and Sinema is wasting her seat. (Let's agree not to talk about Rand Paul or Ted Cruz.)
Because of how the Lords works, almost nobody is in that sort of position, and the Lords functions in a genuinely more collegiate way. I mean someone offered to resign -- in good faith and all seriousness -- from a ministerial position in the Lords for being late.
> It's not a chamber for deliberation in the way the UK House of Lords is, because it has a role in creating legislation rather than just amending it/discussing it.
> As I understand it in the USA system, you can get legislation starting in both houses that often get merged.
> Whereas in the UK (apart from the one single form of the veto) the Lords can only delay or offer amendments to legislation, and the Commons can reject them.
Correct. I think this point actually makes it a more effective chamber of deliberation because the Senate is empowered to bring forth an alternative, initiate legislation that the House is unwilling to, or stop legislation in its tracks.
> It puts the Lords much more in the service of the Commons than the comment I was replying to suggests. People outside the UK might see an unelected chamber making law, but it doesn't and can't. It can only offer reflection and advice.
I don’t see this as a feature. A Senate in service to the House would be subordinate and less effective. If it works for the UK, great, but your Parliament has passed much legislation in the past 20 years that has made it a less appealing alternative to my own country over time, to me at least. Still a wonderful country to visit, just respectfully not a place I would choose to emigrate to. :)
> The US system, I'm sorry, but your Senate is wilfully obstructionist in its roles in federal appointments and judges, the majority abuses procedure to suit it, and it is abusing both the two thirds majority rule -- by simply refusing to even si when things won't on the face of it won't get past strict party loyalty -- and the fillibuster.
If you can stomach a single podcast episode on the American system of government, Constitutionally Speaking’s latest episode, Episode 77, has a good primer on the Filibuster in an American historical context and why we have it. The long and the short of it is, it benefits both parties, at least in the present, but likely only has a few years of life left in it because of our contemporary political situation. It’s 3/5 to bring cloture so the Senate can proceed to the next item on the agenda, and the Senate has both the power to revise its standing rules and does so regularly. If you can stomach two episodes, the preceding episode covers how the US House functions.
> Second, the way your system elects senators is by no means impervious to the MTG types. John Kennedy, Josh Hawley, Kyrsten Sinema -- these are not serious people; they either act in bad faith, play up to their base or don't turn up.
Resistant would be a more honest way of putting it rather than impervious, and I didn’t mean to suggest it was impervious, merely resistant.
That said, I agree with your assessment of the individual Senators save for the fact that I wouldn’t put any of them in the same league as the two House members I listed nor many more that I could list. One of the nice things about deliberative bodies of all stripes though is that they tend not to speak with one voice.
> Because of how the Lords works, almost nobody is in that sort of position, and the Lords functions in a genuinely more collegiate way. I mean someone offered to resign -- in good faith and all seriousness -- from a ministerial position in the Lords for being late.
It’s possible that this statement is true about the Lords being more collegiate, but my understanding of the Senate from listening to both Senators in interviews and from people who have worked on Senatorial staffs or spent a great deal of time in the chambers is that the Senate is quite a fair bit more collegiate than the podium and television camera politics let on. They all have a base that needs pandering to to one degree or another in order to get re-elected, they’ll do their pandering for the cameras, but I do wish we could throw out the audiovisual recording devices from both the House and Senate floors.
Arguably, a country without a fair, equal and representative electoral system is not a true democracy. This excludes the us and most Commonwealth countries, except new Zealand (since their electoral reform a decade or so ago).
You pretty quickly hit a ‘no true Scotsman’ situation pretty quickly though. If only one country (or a single digit percent) that calls itself a democracy qualifies under the criteria, what use is the criteria?
Maybe it's not useful? Or not as presented here? I mean, Malaysia and Japan have both been ruled by basically the same party for all but maybe a few years since the end of foreign occupation. One is ruled a democracy here, thee other isn't. I don't see a good reason why, other than Japan is friendlier with Western values than Malaysia. It's also useless when you look more than about 50 years in the past. In 1835 you were really democratic if every white man could vote, now even somewhere like Iran has suffrage for women and minorities.
> United Kingdom governed much of the world and non of those people had much say in the government that governed them.
Yes, and important point. India had a pet parliament, but the prime majority of Indians had no option to vote. In fact, it was mostly Britishers themselves who sat there until mid-192X
This reminds me of Shashi Tharoor's [0] speech at Oxford Union.
It is a bit rich to celebrate UK's democracy as 102 years old when they were practicing colonization and slavery less than a human lifetime ago (75 years), isn't it?
Can someone please explain Puerto Rico? I just read the Wikipedia page and I'm a little shocked to learn that their people do not have voting rights in the US.
Sounds outrageous to me that the US Give them equal rights or leave you can't own a nation... Or at least not while calling youself a democracy. Seriously, if I'm reading this wrong I would really appreciate an explanation.
Puerto Rico is not part of our union. And until recently, Puerto Rico generally wanted to be the gray area it is in within the USA. It's not sovereign, but it is exempted from laws that apply to all other states and incorporated territories. It can have a lower tax rate, doesn't have to follow the same regulations. It's like being part of the EU without having to follow all the rules.
And unlike US states, it can be granted independence by a simple vote of congress. It gives them the option to gain independence.
It's important to note they are full citizens in every respect. If you move from Puerto Rico to Florida, you instantaneously can vote, without having to anything other than register the same way Floridians do. And a Floridian who moves to Puerto Rico loses their ability to vote for President and doesn't have real representation in Congress either.
Though some territories, like American Samoa, don't even get citizenship. They are full-on colonies.
We don't have _federal_ voting rights in the US. We have the ability to vote for our city/state(oh-boy) policy and politicians. We also have a commissioner that 'represents' puerto rico in the house* of reps.
We also don't have to pay _federal_ taxes so we aren't being taxed without representation.
States have sovereignty separate from the federal government. Tribal nations have limited sovereignty from federal government. Territories do not have any sovereignty from the federal government - they basically are the same entity. Since the federal government was created by and is formed by sovereign states, no, territorial landholdings of that federal government don’t have a role. Think about them like a city relative to a state. Or perhaps like the frontier - they are lands held by the country, underdeveloped, and depending on sophistication of population, may or may not have organized local governments - and in those cases, yes, people vote for their own local government. When you think of the “wild west” those were territories that eventually achieved statehood. Or Alaska. People born in those territories (US Nationals) can move to US states to live and work, or continue to live in the “frontier”. And trust me, there are aspects of living in the frontier that make it “freer” than living in a state - basically that people give less of a shit what goes on out there if they even know where “there” is. Some territories (like Marshall Islands) elect not to become states but to become sort of quasi protectorates for lack of a better term - having their own internationally recognized sovereignty as independent nations but in tight alliance with and under the defensive umbrella of the US. At risk of pushing too many analogies, saying the US is less democratic because territories don’t have the same rights as states would be like saying your country is less democratic for not letting adolescents vote in elections. Well, maybe that’s true in strictest sense of the term, but then “full democracy” by that definition is not really anyone’s ideal. Perfectly pure systems for their own sake are usually not a desirable end outside of thought experiments.
The US is a democracy, but it's not a fair democracy. All non-proportionate[1] democracies are unfair in one respect or another. On a macroscopic set of trends, it's been getting more fair over the centuries.
[1] One can make arguments for why non-proportionate elections might be better than proportionate ones, but those arguments do not include 'non-proportionate elections are more fair'.
non-proportional elections are not what makes US democracy unfair. The real problem is that US has bunch of laws which seem specifically designed to deter poor black people from voting: the lack of government issued ID (which in my country you can get for free), not enough polling stations, forcing people wanting to vote to stand in line for HOURS, gerrymandering, or even the fact that US elections are held on work days instead of holidays (making it harder for people who work two jobs to find a time to vote).
There are multiple axes by which a democracy can be unfair. It's possible to have a fully enfranchised population, but let a constituency of five people determine one delegate, while a constituency of five million people determines another.
I don't think external occupation really works, yes there are a few people alive that have a memory of being oppressed by the invaders but that 5 years or so of Nazi rule does not wipe out the memory of democracy before it.
In the same way Denmark was a democracy since 1849 but because they had some people bossing them around that nobody wanted for 5 years all the traditions and understanding of how democracy works went out the window? I might actually think that appreciation of democracy might increase if you've had it, lost it, and then recover it.
If you look at the graphs for both Denmark and Norway it's clear that the nazi occupations "reset" the count for the sake of those maps - they're mapping the amount of time since the latest emergence of democracy. It'd be interesting to do a map with short-lived occupations excluded too, but it'd be a different thing.
Yes, I understand the concept. I'm saying I think the concept is bull for the reason I mentioned.
>they're mapping the amount of time since the latest emergence of democracy.
again emergence of democracy because you have a revolution and overthrow the dictatorial elements of your own society, and re-establishment of democracy by kicking out some invaders seem like two very different things.
All that may be true, but this research is about how old existing democracies are, not about which countries have a tradition of democracy that precedes the existence of the current democratic state.
With due respect, your comment would benefit from a better understanding of French 20th century history. Vichy France was not Nazi rule, and it was not oppression by invaders. It was oppression of the French and by (some of) the French, albeit with significant coercion from the Nazis.
To be clear: Vichy was a client state of Nazi Germany, but from 1940 to 1942 its southern portion was not occupied. It was collaborationist, but Vichy was not simply ruled from Berlin.
It would not be accurate to imagine Vichy as an entirely foreign invention. Like in much of Europe at that time, there were many domestic supporters of reactionary conservatism and authoritarianism. As for the strength of democratic sentiment in France, remember that a President of France (and republican) once gave it only the faint praise: "republicanism is the form of government that divides France least."
The domestic political situation was in no way unique to France. There existed significant authoritarian movements and tendencies in every European country at this time. You are probably aware that both Portugal and Spain had adopted authoritarianism, and not simply by foreign imposition. My point is: the Nazis found an existing domestic reservoir of authoritarian French willing to collaborate.
Just to provide a few more facts about Vichy:
Vichy was the French government formed after invasion and occupation of northern France by Nazi Germany. Its head of government was general Philippe Petain, and Pierre Laval was its prime minister. Both had been significant domestic political figures in France. Vichy France was formed after the National Assembly voted to give full powers to Petain.
Vichy had its own paramilitary militia (the Milice) consisting of about 30,000 Frenchman. This was similar to the SS and Gestapo, but considered more dangerous by resistance French.
Of course, unoccupied Vichy adopted anti-Semitic policies and deported Jews to be murdered by the Nazis. Maurice Papon (later the prefect of police in Paris 1958-1967) participated. You can look up yourself his subsequent misdeeds during the Algerian War. Unfortunately, even after the fall of the Nazis, there continued (and continue) to be significant reactionary and authoritarian political elements in France.
If you wish to learn more about this period, you can start here:
>With due respect, your comment would benefit from a better understanding of French 20th century history
In the comment to which I replied to there was a reference to Nazi occupation, and there was a reference to Vichy France.
I made a short paragraph commenting about Nazi occupation but not mentioning Vichy France. Why would you think that meant I did not know what Vichy France was? Normally I would think this person wants to focus on the Nazi occupation part here for some reason?
Then I segued into another paragraph where I mentioned Denmark and said I did not think the Nazi occupation meant that democracy was destroyed. At this point I might even think, that guy wants to talk about Denmark, or maybe just various Nazi occupations in general and thus his reasons for ignoring Vichy France!
But at any rate my point is that if Denmark had engaged in Vichy like collaboration with the Germans, if there had been established an independent Danish government forced into a quasi-fascistic mode then I suppose the return to democracy would have been more difficult and noteworthy, but as there was not such a system (there was an attempted National Socialist Danish party but it got very few votes) I don't think occupation was a destroyer of the democratic norms, especially as the Danish government was officially disbanded at one point in protest of the death penalty for sabotage being set by the occupying Germans.
Why did I say so much about Denmark in this post, and so much in the previous, and not really seem to care about Vichy France? I don't know, my name is just Bryan Rasmussen and I suppose the reasons for my interests in Denmark in this discussion must remain shrouded in impregnable mystery.
Whether you are Rasmussen or Ruggeri or live in Denmark, Italy, or the United States, when you respond to a thread about France it is not mysterious that others will interpret your reply with the context of that country, rather than substitute, post hoc, the context of Denmark.
> I don't think external occupation really works, yes there are a few people alive that have a memory of being oppressed by the invaders but that 5 years or so of Nazi rule does not wipe out the memory of democracy before it.
Pétain was a very French dictator, who got his absolute powers directly from the French parliament. Even if you say that the French government in exile in London was the legitimate one, it was not elected either.
I am not saying that the concept of ‘longest continuous democracy’ is very useful (I don’t think it is), but France did stop being a democracy for a few years.
Although there is an argument that the 3rd Republic did not end in 1940 (its constitution was not suspended or replaced until after the war), therefore the Vichy regime was illegitimate and thus should not count.
It’s hard to Monday QB the rump part of a destroyed nation (quote from 0). I’m willing to give France a pass on democracy being interrupted during WWII. On the other hand, WWII marked the end of France’s “Third Republic” and the current constitution was established in 1958 (1). I don’t think it is fair to consider the current democracy the same as the one before WWII.
The official postwar French position was that Vichy was a German puppet state. Some historians have since the 1970s rejected that position by arguing, "Vichy had a political agenda of its own, which it pursued without the slightest pressure from Germany".[6] Germany kept two million French prisoners-of-war and imposed forced labour (service du travail obligatoire) on young French men. French soldiers were kept hostage to ensure that Vichy would reduce its military forces and pay a heavy tribute in gold, food and supplies to Germany.
Even before it was dropped it still did not remotely affect our democratic status. There is a great deal of misinformation about this in the US media. It did not invoke a state of martial law. It did not invoke the military.
What it did do is allow higher level police to override local police that were refusing to do their jobs. It also allowed the government to temporarily use heavy tow trucks because the contracted companies were also refusing to honour their contract. The blockades were already illegal under normal laws. Protesting was always allowed and still is. Breaking other laws while protesting is not allowed.
More, our government has multiple checks and balances for using the emergency act, and they were all in play. Opposition parties had to agree to keep it in play, which they did. It was under continual review. At no point was it "not a democracy."
The list of universal suffrage (all men, all women, all ethnicities) is different from the article too though. Only New Zealand in the 19th century. Followed closely by Finland, Norway, Denmark, etc.
Switzerland only required all cantons to allow women to vote in 1991. Australia only allowed all ethnicities to vote since 1967.
I agree the original article has a concept of democracy that is hard to understand when it says Australia and Switzerland were the only ones in the 19th century.
In New Zealand women could vote, but not run. Only in 1919 were women eligible to be elected to the House of Representatives. And only in 1941 were women eligible to be appointed to the Upper House.
> Curiously a US woman was a representative before women had gained the vote.
Before women had gained a nationally guaranteed equal right to vote; women had the vote in many states (sometimes on an unequal basis) prior to that point.
To be honest, the USA is a kleptocratic oligarcic republic with the facade of "democracy". Even the founders held democracy in a great ill repute.
And in the USA, it was first deemed that only landowning white men could vote. Then in 1865, Black people were permitted to potentially vote, but in effect they simply couldnt.
Then women were allowed to vote in the 1920's. In a rights-review, black men were seen as higher standing than women.
And Jim Crow laws were in full effect until 1965. It took 100 years to go from 'kind-of-mostly-not-really ending slavery' (unless you get 12 angry white guys saying guilty, then you qualify as a slave. still do, btw) to the federal govt moving military in to enforce desegregation. Now it's just hidden.
And fast forward, in 1974, women finally apply and get credit (including credit cards, loans, etc). My SO was born in that year. And, not too long afterward in 1985, the Credit Check was created.
But if you're a white guy working in tech, its all cool.
> Then women were allowed to vote in the 1920's. In a rights-review, black men were seen as higher standing than women.
Did you actually mean to respond to my comment? I acknowledge this and mention Switzerland, where I lived for years, due in part to its refusal of women's suffrage through much of the 20th century (1990 or so in one canton). That seems to make this definition of democracy, if used to preclude the US, rather questionable if not inaccurate.
I liked that the article focuses on the important distinction between democracy and liberal democracy. There are lots of places I find democracy conflated with a "free country". It's limits on government power (regardless of what a majority want) and the ability for the people to kick out the current government that imo are most necessary for a free country. The other details don't really matter if you don't have these.
This is a very important point. Whereas there is "convergence" between for example the penal codes of states commonly referred to as "democratic", what is nothing in one country might be a crime to just say in the other. In fact, comparative political science has only some veeeeery basic "features" that make them say it's "a democracy"; there is a lot of freedom to tip the scales in one direction or another. Also, commonly overserved is the notion among elites that some democracy is "too much" (for example, no referendums in core governance questions).
Liberalism and democracy are two conflicting tendencies. This is acknowledged in the literature. The most important liberty under liberalism is the liberty to pursue property, and (or as Aristotle claimed) democracy threatens that since democracy leans more towards egalitarianism.
The most important rights are the negative liberties of the rich. Which of course are universal on paper.
The democracy part is a concession to popular pressure and also to serve as a unifying slogan, since democracy is valued even higher than liberalism in polite discourse.
But it’s really just a thin veneer. All it takes is one vote for the “wrong candidate” or for someone to read the first three paragraphs on The Republic on Wikipedia for that high-minded ideal to go out the window. Then
the specter of populism looms.
> It's limits on government power (regardless of what a majority want) and the ability for the people to kick out the current government that imo are most necessary for a free country. The other details don't really matter if you don't have these.
So a country where the people can't change their own government are what you call liberalism and democracy. Got it.
The politics threads on HN are very revelatory for me. I always thought the HN crowd is very analytical, logical and knows how to understand data and reason with it. In that sense these threads are more disappointing than some random interactions on reddit or twitter.
> I always thought the HN crowd is very analytical, logical and knows how to understand data and reason with it.
Did you arrive at that conclusion driven by observation and evidence? If so, then that means you notice this behaviour only on the politics threads. Now, ask yourself: are people here really not behaving analytically and logically only when it comes to politics, but you only happen to notice that when it comes to politics? Or maybe you only think that this happens in politics because you have an unreasonably emotional reaction to truly analytical points of view that contradict your political view points?
I'm having a brain fart on the word/phrase to describe this but it'd be really interesting to see how "split" accounts are when commenting on the technical articles vs fluff articles. It may well be different groups commenting on certain posts often and others not as often giving a strong rise to a real difference in tone/analysis. There may not be things like "subreddits" here but that doesn't inherently mean you can pick a random political topic and expect the same userbase is participating.
This wouldn't rule out the above, both reasons can coexist even, but it'd add to the understanding significantly.
It happens in politics because yes, people in general have much more emotional reactions to topics like politics and religion.
That’s why people who might otherwise have a logical and analytical approach to technical matters forget how to apply that when it comes to these topics.
That is also the reason why politics and religion are not generally “allowed topics” on this forum except when directly related to tech or a major world event.
> Did you arrive at that conclusion driven by observation and evidence? If so, then that means you notice this behaviour only on the politics threads
You second sentence does not follow from first one. It is quite possible for HN to have that behavior in more then one topic while OP making the first observation in politics.
Even analytical, logical people make interpretations; politics is prone to many different reasonable interpretations, and it’s often difficult to establish facts, so you see a vast variety of opinions.
I think generally speaking political discussions are discouraged on HN for this precise reason.
Technical discussions are far more ideologically driven than we give them credit for. Witness the hype cycles and evangelism machines around certain technologies, programming languages, etc. They're often barely rooted in technical merit.
Can't find the article, but I vaguely remember reading an article I think from Hacker News which aggregated some statistics like people with an engineering background are much more likely to be a terrorist, more likely to be on one extreme side or the other on the political spectrum, and things like that. Politics seems to be so ingrained in people, being analytical and everything can just help people can find things that support their biases easier.
I think it is more likely you came to that conclusion because you don’t agree with their opinions, a common mistake people make. Without good self-awareness we will assume people who don’t think like us are somehow dumb or irrational. Look no further than say, an opposing political party, and I bet you’d write off most of its members as blithering idiots.
Personally, I find the HN crowd to be very logical and intelligent on most issues, though there are some pockets of ignorance and SJWs. However, much of that ignorance is fueled by external motivations and misguided desires.
One thing to note: a huge threat to democracy is war.
Frequently autocracies invade democracies because autocracies are inherently unstable and need frequent propping up of internal support by fake "injections of popularity", such as war.
Look at Eastern Europe bloom in 1990 - 1992. For all intents and purposes these countries were under foreign occupation and regimes imposed from abroad.
> Frequently autocracies invade democracies because autocracies are inherently unstable
Simply not true. Ask north korea, cuba, etc. No democracy could withstand an enemy 1000X its size attacking it. Can you imagine the US withstanding an enemy 1000X stronger than us? Not a chance.
> need frequent propping up of internal support by fake "injections of popularity", such as war.
Historically, it's usually the other way around. Democracies have invaded "autocracies". In the past 100 years, most of the invasions have been by democracies ( predominantly the US and our allies ) against other nations.
Actually, "protecting democracy" was propaganda we used to get involved in ww1 against the wish of the american people. And it hasn't stopped since. In the name of "democracy" we've invaded dozens of countries and set ourselves a nice little empire.
That democracy is a good is modern propaganda. Go read up on what the founders wrote about democracy. Go read about what Socrates did. Most intelligent people throughout history have not been fans of democracy. For a good reason, the greatest genocides in history have been committed by democracies. Just think about it.
The parent makes a reasonable point. Cuba, an autocracy, has invaded no one in its history. North Korea is a bit of a special case as it's maintained a de jure state of war, but it has not invaded anyone new since the war that created it. Vietnam, an autocracy, has invaded no one since the war that created it and is doing quite well.
There are numerous old (multiple generations) autocracies in the world that are indeed stable. There are plenty of old democracies that have invaded no one and are stable, and plenty of democracies that have performed plenty of invasions.
It seems to me that there are enough counter-examples on both sides that claiming "democracy is stable and invades no one, and autocracy is unstable and must invade" doesn't fit with much of anything.
Foreign policy is more determined by consolidated power. And system of government doesn’t determine consolidation of power. The US had a very different global role before the world wars of the 20th century. It wasn’t because the US allowed women to vote that it became a superpower, for instance. North Korea is not insular because it’s an autocracy, it’s because it’s a vassal state of China and has no capability to exert its will independently in any meaningful way - arguably they would take the South given the elbow room. Throughout the globe and time you can point to plenty of autocratic nations with expansive foreign policy - not just meddling in other nations with kinetic actions but attempting to subsume entire territories into their own empire/nation. That this happens regardless of governing system seems to demonstrate that there is no strong deterministic bond there. I’m not saying there’s no indirect link - I tend to think that democracies when done right (separation of powers, rule of law, free and fair elections) make a country less brittle in the face of organic seasonal challenges - think agricultural society vs hunter gatherers. Being less brittle to the daily challenges may give them the adaptability to survive longer than the cresting and crashing empires. Maintaining continuity/momentum is beneficial to consolidating power, so there may be an indirect link. TBD. Democracies fall in on themselves too. Pure democracies in particular, implying pure democracy is probably not the ideal end state we should imagine ourselves working towards.
Making that claim, and holding up democracies in contrast to that, implies that democracies are inherently stable in a way that autocracies are not. I don't think that's a reasonable claim to make.
> Comparatively democracies are more peaceful than autocracies.
> And autocracies for sure have committed far worse atrocities in total numbers.
Completely agree here. I would certainly agree that autocracies tend to commit worse atrocities, but that isn't necessarily directly connected with the stability of the regime.
It's possible since each country has their own history books. What countries did north korea, cuba, etc invade in your history books. Now compare that with the list of countries britain, australia, france, canada, US, etc invaded.
List the countries currently occupied by "autocracies". Now list the countries we occupy.
List the nations genocided by democracies. It's rather shocking. So on and so forth.
Not saying autocracies are good. Just that the idea that democracies are necessarily good is simply not true. Democracies have committed the worst crimes against humanity. It wasn't an autocracy that did hiroshima or nagasaki. But we each have our own history books I guess.
Why don't you list them since you're the one making a claim.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a limp argument. Emperor Hirohito controlled Japan when they committed an absolutely disgusting amount of war crimes. It had to end.
No. My argument is that being a democracy doesn't make a nation good. Democracies can be just as barbaric, evil and genocidal as autocracies. I provided a simple example - hiroshima and nagasaki. I think murdering hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children in seconds qualifies as evil. Don't you? If you think that only that democratically elected nazis ( people always forget that a democracy gave us nazi germany and that hitler actually won his election to gain power ) were evil in ww2, then you are missing at least half the story. Also, if you think only autocracies commit genocide, then you might want to explore the history of the genocide against the native americans, aborigines, africans etc by democracies.
Like my other reply to your comment, this is <<not>> about absolutes. Democracies are generally more peaceful and produce lower casualties than autocracies. There's a reason people like them more when they can vote with their feet.
> I think murdering hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children in seconds qualifies as evil. Don't you?
I do, but do you know why they did it? Honest question, why did the UK nuke Japan?
> Like my other reply to your comment, this is <<not>> about absolutes.
Agreed. But your replies to me seem to indicate absolutes.
> Democracies are generally more peaceful and produce lower casualties than autocracies.
Not sure what you mean by "generally" or "peace". Internally or externally? Because I'm betting autocratic countries are much more peaceful internally. If you mean externally, I've already shown you that democracies have shown themselves to be more violent/invasive. Just take a look at the US. In our short time, we've "grown" from 13 states to 50 states + many territories. And in the last 100 years, we've invaded more countries than any autocracy. We currently occupy more countries than any autocracy. Two democracies ( US and Russia ) have invaded Ukraine in the last 10 years.
> There's a reason people like them more when they can vote with their feet.
Is that why everyone is fleeing to india, the largest democracy in the world? Nobody comes to the US, Canada, Australia, etc for democracy. People come here for money/wealth. The countries with the highest proportion of immigrants in the world is saudi arabia, UAE, qatar, etc. None of them are "liberal democracies".
> I do, but do you know why they did it? Honest question, why did the UK nuke Japan?
Of course you do. And I do. But instead of stating the truth, you'll say because japan refused to surrender/etc. But that makes it even a more heinous war crime in my mind. The US was a racist nation in the 1940s. We did hiroshima/nagasaki for the same reason we sent jewish refugees back to europe in the 1940s, racial hatred.
Your assertions are what we were all raised with. Most just blindly believe it. But if you were correct, then everyone would be immigrating to india for democracy and not saudi arabia, qatar, etc. North korea would be the most violent nation invading everyone. Instead it's the US, britain, france, etc.
> 1. The US didn't invade Ukraine, or did I miss something?
I thought we did. Remember there being a coup a while back. But I may be mistaken.
> 2. Russia is not a democracy, did you even look at the article this whole discussion is based on? :-)))
Just like Venezuela isn't a democracy. Just like Iran wasn't a democracy. Chile wasn't a democracy. Democracies that don't vote the "right" way are not democracies.
> Numbers. US planners estimated that the Japanese would defend their homeland and that the number of casualties would be over 1 million people.
I know. That and the billion purple hearts argument.
All your assertions are standard propaganda we all grew up on. I used to believe it too. Now I know better as the evidence to the contrary is rather convincing. I gave you enough information for you to get started and explore incovenient truths. Good luck.
I sorta loathe this sort of revisionist history. Especially the type which casually tries to wipe out 200+ years of American democratic history by simply saying, "Yeah, but it wasn't a real democracy." So cliche!
There's just too many pedantic definitions, technicalities and arbitrary choices which make any sort of analysis like this arguable in soooo many ways.
Just one glaring example: The US has "technically" been a Democratic Republic since our Constitution was ratified in 1789. But Boston, where I grew up, was founded in 1630, 159 years earlier. Massachusetts and other states implemented various democratic systems that continued through the founding of the Federal government. Putting the line at 1789 doesn't tell the full story because the states of the United States are all pseudo-nation states and existed decades before the Union, and I will bet many exist nearly unchanged after the Union is dissolved some day as well.
One could also argue that after the English Civil War, the king was mostly a figurehead and that the Parliament was actually a form of representative government that was copied by the Americans, and that we were basically throwing a hissy fit for having to pay our fair share of taxes and not really rebelling against tyranny. In fact England had been electing representatives to Parliament since the 1500s. And that's totally a valid way of looking at it. The point stands.
Anyways, I feel that the American pride in the fact that we're the first "real" democracy (for whatever definition of real you want) is well founded *without any caveats*. Our ancestors could have done better, and so can we!
What's the preferable alternative? It's not perfect, but democracy is undeniably better at serving the interests of average people than any other alternative that I'm aware of ever being tried on a large scale.
The Chinese government has been incredible for the Chinese people (not all of them, but most of them). Democracy with much more limited suffrage is probably more appropriate for the Western man, but we are ideologically closed to that option.
An inaccuracy. The important propaganda is aimed at the 10–20% of the population that has a stake and an impact on politics. Patrons of outlets like The New York Times. That’s most of what media critics like Chomsky has been writing about for half a century.
Most of the population of liberal democracies (or at least in the US) have very little influence on politics. To the point where they are not being propagandized against as much as they are kept distracted with less “serious” things than opinion pieces about killing babies in incubators.
Autocracy revolves around the ego of the autocrat. Usually the autocrat’s message is something along the lines of “I alone can solve all your problems, and your problems are because of those people”, where “those people” are usually some minority ehtnic, national, or religious group.
Obviously not all of the problems in the world are due to these people. Therefore autocracies are heavily invested in obfuscating the truth, gaslighting populations with propaganda, takeovers of national media, and jailing or execution of dissidents. After all, you can’t have people going around saying the autocrat is not the solution to everything and “those” people aren’t the one and only problem. People might start to get ideas.
Thus the downward spiral begins. This is why autocracies are unstable. They require an ever shifting narrative about why things are so bad. The real reason things go to shit under autocracies is because no one in charge is invested in solving real problems. The problems that autocracies aim to solve are made up to incite people and to appease egos. They aren’t evidence based because following the evidence would reveal shockingly that the autocrat doesn’t have all the solutions.
In Brazil, dictatorship created problems by lack of planning with fast urbanization for 21 years. During the rule, they kidnapped and killed dissenters. When social and economic problems were about to explode, they handed the government and the country entered a democratic period. To this day there are people who blame democracy for the problems that exploded after the dictatorship ended and spread lies about the dictatorship being a better time. Elections of 2018 was partly a result of this thought.
My best counter argument is: "Are there more democracies among developed or underdeveloped countries? Are there more dictatorships among poor or rich countries? We can see that dictatorships are more related to empoverishment and democracies are more related to development."
The source for this analysis comes from V-Dem project. Specifically related to India, the V-Dem results are highly questionable. Their results have been rebutted point-by-point in this (paywalled) piece [1].
I will highlight one aspect of the questionable results from the analysis about India. There's a "Clean elections index" in the V-Dem project which is about absence of registration fraud, irregularities, election violence etc. Interestingly India's clean elections index score keeps sliding downward after 1998. Note that India was under officially declared emergency from 1975-77 and an election was held in 1977. The V-Dem clean election index doesn't reflect this phenomenon.
India adopted the electronic voting machines (EVM) sometime between 1998-2001. Before using EVM, paper ballots would be used for elections. It is well documented [2] that EVMs have helped ensuring freer and fairer elections. Anecdotally I would remember so many incidents of booth-capturing (described in [2]) and re-elections due to irregularities, prior to the EVM era.
A right-wing website that's extremely sympathetic to the current right-wing government in India is how you rebut V-Dem's classification of India as an electoral autocracy.
According to the graph, Brazil is a democracy since 1987. Actually, after the 1964 coup, our first civil president was appointed in 1985 but first general direct elections only occurred in 1989.
Brazil being Brazil, it's very hard to pick a number.
We can argue endlessly about what a mess the process was, and if the results did reflect the electors wishes. But the people did elect delegates, that met and decided on a president. Formally, that is a perfectly valid election (that started by 82, and only really ended in 87 - that's an entire mandate duration with the delegates not really deciding on it).
As a country that strips away voting rights from felons, it's arguable that we still don't have a democracy until all citizens are guaranteed the right to vote.
The USA is the oldest democracy in the world, and only has been that way for ~250 years (And even then, having survived one of the worst Civil Wars in history). Most European democracies have only been so for a few decades. I think some of the bias comes from the fact that people have a a short-term memory. We've had it so good in the last century that we forget that we are the exception, not the rule.
The English can make an equally strong claim there and it's older. Parliamentary supremacy was quite established by the 1700s. While Parliament had a restricted franchise (as did the USA until the 20th century) it was an elected body with full powers.
Indeed, one of the major points of discontent was lack of parliamentary representation for the Americans despite nominally being equals -- kind of like the situation of Puerto Rico today.
> While Parliament had a restricted franchise (as did the USA until the 20th century) it was an elected body with full powers.
Indeed—one of the key factors for the US war for independence was that rich Americans wanted to expand the franchise to all rich men, not just rich men who happened to be born to the correct parents. They wanted to do this only in the colonies, but that likely would have emboldened reformers in Britain proper, too ("why should those colonists get more of a say in government than we do?"). This would have threatened the power of the British nobility, so of course war and (ultimately) losing the 13 colonies was chosen instead.
I'm curious what the article's source is for this claim. Naturally, democracy can be defined differently, but there are reputable sources that disagree with this [1], and even if considering limited suffrage to preclude democracy, Australia and particularly Switzerland perform poorly as well.
According to the study we're talking about, America became a real democracy in the early 1900s once it let women vote. Before that, only a minority was allowed to vote so was it actually a representative democracy?
Don't most of us work in environments that are basically a variation of a dictatorship?
As a species we're quite accustomed to a having an alpha male\female\etc make the calls.
I think all of us are just a few steps in the wrong direction from a dictatorship.
No. Dictatorship means someone else holds absolute power over the basic rights of all subjects including their right to live. There is no equivalence with a corporate org structure. I don't know how the two can even be confused.
This is a response from someone who tries really hard to not understand the point. OP said corporations are * a few steps away * from dictatorships, they did not confuse the two. If you don't understand that a few steps away does not imply it's the same thing, you need to reflect on your skils as a reader.
But they’re nowhere close to even be compared. What you’re saying is like claiming that a dog is like an eagle, there’s only a few ft difference in altitude. The key feature of the dictatorship (bird) - the absolute and total power over your life (flying) - is something the corporation most of use work in (dogs) simply cannot have. If they want to (flap your paws real hard, I guess) just walk away.
I am sorry, but I cannot agree at all because you make no real points why you think there's a large difference between having an all-powerful CEO who makes all decisions alone on a corporation (except he's obviously not allowed to arrest you or use violence, usually) and a regime where the leader gains those missing powers to do whatever the hell he wants. The two things originate from the same desire humans have to "believe" in an all-knowing entity, and their propensity to attribute superpowers to a leader. These are only different by the level of the power the person has at his disposal, which is not nearly as different as you seem to believe... history shows things can escalate extremely quickly without anyone noticing.
You make a silly analogy and seem to actually believe it's representative of what we're discussing, showing a lack of understanding beyond that which would allow a proper discussion to continue. That doesn't show your intelligence and ability to debate, quite the opposite.
That's not the right measure. That's of "running NATO" itself ($2-$3B, for training missions etc), which is pocket change compared to the actual defense budgets.
And the US far, far dominates actual national defense spending, which is what matters for collective defense. It's the $700B the US spends on defense that backs the NATO defense commitment, not the couple billion spent on training missions.
See what happens to all the US non-NATO wars/interventions in the middle East when there are no more NATO-justified bases in Europe (Ramstein) as convenient turnstiles.
That would be a bonus in my eyes. We shouldn't be there fighting endless wars, funneling taxpayer money into defense contractor's and politician's pockets.
We should reduce our presence in Germany speaking of Ramstein, Merkel didn't like that idea though when President Trump pitched it.
Nowadays it'd be more useful to have them in Poland.
Were these supposed to be three answers to three other posts?
>That would be a bonus in my eyes. We shouldn't be there fighting endless wars, funneling taxpayer money into defense contractor's and politician's pockets.
Sure. But that doesn't change that currently the US very much profits from having NATO bases in Europe for its own, non-NATO purposes.
>We should reduce our presence in Germany speaking of Ramstein, Merkel didn't like that idea though when President Trump pitched it.
How did Merkel come into play here as a gotcha? You're the one arguing that the base should be removed. Further, President Trump pitched ~10000 ideas a day, from drinking bleach against COVID to raking forests, to having to flush toilets 10s of times, to applauding Frederick Douglass for becoming more successful, I don't blame any sane person not keeping up with that crap.
>Nowadays it'd be more useful to have them in Poland.
Huh? Where did that 180 come from? So you want bases in Europe after all?
> Were these supposed to be three answers to three other posts?
Rude. If you need clarification to my statements, just ask. No need for snark.
> Sure. But that doesn't change that currently the US very much profits from having NATO bases in Europe for its own, non-NATO purposes.
These are my opinions. I'm saying NATO countries should pay what they agreed to or leave the agreement. I'm saying we shouldn't be in the Middle East.
> How did Merkel come into play here as a gotcha?
It's not a gotcha, it's current events. The Ramstein base was brought up recently. Trump wanted to reduce troops, Merkel didn't like the idea. That's all.
Just because Trump was mentioned you don't have to bring up the propaganda like the bleach lie (he was talking about UV disinfectants). He talked about forest management to prevent wildfires (he's correct), which you simplify to raking forests. Please keep on track and don't diverge into petty stuff like that.
> Huh? Where did that 180 come from? So you want bases in Europe after all?
I'm saying if we do have to have strategic bases in Europe, it would make more sense to have them in Poland to defend against the most likely adversaries, Russia and China.
> Rude. If you need clarification to my statements, just ask. No need for snark.
Fair enough, I apologize.
>These are my opinions. I'm saying NATO countries should pay what they agreed to or leave the agreement. I'm saying we shouldn't be in the Middle East.
Yes, but we're discussing what the US is gaining from the European NATO partners, and not what your personal opinion on wars in the Middle East is.
>It's not a gotcha, it's current events. The Ramstein base was brought up recently. Trump wanted to reduce troops, Merkel didn't like the idea. That's all.
Uh. Ok. Sure. Don't forget the 1000 servings of Spatzle for Afghanistan refugees. That's another fact unrelated to the discussion.
>Just because Trump was mentioned you don't have to bring up the propaganda like the bleach lie (he was talking about UV disinfectants). He talked about forest management to prevent wildfires (he's correct), which you simplify to raking forests. Please keep on track and don't diverge into petty stuff like that.
Check your facts, I saw the clips, that's exactly what he said. [0]
But sure, I'll refer to him as "twice-impeached serial sexual predator, adulterer, who would like to date his own daughter and who can reliably recognize the picture elephant on a test" instead.
> Yes, but we're discussing what the US is gaining from the European NATO partners, and not what your personal opinion on wars in the Middle East is.
When we agreed to it maybe that plus the agreed upon GDP 2%? percentage payment was the motivating factor. The point is those countries aren't paying the agreed upon amount.
Maybe it's still worth it for that simple fact alone and that's why every politician other than Trump was okay with the status quo, because they support the endless wars.
> Check your facts, I saw the clips, that's exactly what he said. [0]
"Raking of forests" is a real practice and in general he was talking about clearing brush to prevent fires.
> But sure, I'll refer to him as "twice-impeached serial sexual predator, adulterer, who would like to date his own daughter and who can reliably recognize the picture elephant on a test" instead.
Acquitted both times because the impeachments were ridiculous. The other stuff you listed is ridiculous as well.
>Every politician other than Trump was okay with the status quo, because they support the endless wars.
Oh, I didn't see him end wars.
>"Raking of forests" is a real practice
Ah, now it's raking of forests again, after you cried out that he never talked about raking but about 'forest management', a phrase I am sure never crossed his lips. But maybe, if you continue your research, you can come up with differences between Finland and California.
> Acquitted both times because the impeachments were ridiculous.
Impeached, period. But yes, now Putin's little puppet is praising the master again.
> The other stuff you listed is ridiculous as well.
Indeed. All on tape and video, for the whole world to hear and see. Never before was the head of a country made fun of by the whole planet. Never in the history of the UN was there another clown like this laughed at on stage, to his face. What an utter embarrassment and failure is that guy, that the whole world turns away from this cringe.
You're being hostile, especially with the name calling, much of what you said is inaccurate but I'm not going to interact with you further, have a good day.
NATO also give you access to bases where you would not, and capacity to deploy your air career where you would not. ( Black Sea for instance )
Or store ICBM where you could not.
It’s convenient.
RE: going back to Europe, for what exactly. If the German act out again?
Russia maybe? We’ll see what actually happen with that one but we can only notice the US is way less trigger happy than it was in says : Iran invasion.
Overall, we figured it out amongst ourself for a while. It will be fine.
NATO allow the US army to have a considerably larger reach. I do agree with recent comment that it’s “brain dead” ( see : Turkey bullying Greece.)
I’m with you, it should be disbanded and Europe should pay for its own army.
But I don’t think the US would actually want that. That would be a blow to it’s reach.
Edit : mandatory comment about USSR bearing most of WW2 war effort. Not the US :)
NATO is the only reason the rest of Eastern Europe at the very minimum isn't also under the threat of invasion. I know a few Russian military guys, they joke often about raping Germany a second time, not in the sense of military but in the sense of their women, with the first being 1945 of course. Sometimes I doubt they are jokes, although perhaps if Germany was under such threat again it would make them realize their current strategy of being passive and try to be neutral will never work out in the long run.
The ICBM argument has long been irrelevant since you can loiter nuclear subs around a country, especially Russia which has large ocean borders.
So why do you care about the cost of NATO? I should care, I pay taxes in the US. And oh wait…
I always forgot since it’s new: I’m actually a US citizen as well.
That does not change my view : US should not be surprised to bear the brunt of the cost. Since it’s their toy.
And my personal wish would be for that alliance to be replaced by something controlled by EU.
Then if the US want to keep their base, they can ask.
Because NATO is beneficial for western led global order which I much prefer to other systems that would be leading if not for it. Anything led by the EU is useless because the EU programs are death by 1000 committee cuts. Nothing ever gets done there because there's too much bureaucracy.
Russia has 6000 nuclear weapons and 100 million people. The US has ~5000 nuclear weapons and 300 million people. It's in the interest of the US to see the Russian nuclear stockpile reduced by strangling its economy. Russia's demographics are already in a nosedive.
Europe has been largely demilitarized with the US providing protection. It would be a strategic blunder for the US to abandon its position in Europe to Russia.
It's all coming back in reverse. The young generation who don't appreciate having democracy are bulking at democracy and choosing socialism. The vast majority of immigrants from socialist countries do not vote or support socialism because they appreciate their freedom.
Someone who is born with abundance doesn't appreciate his blessings, but one who is born with very little and acquires abundance appreciates it every day.
> The young generation who don't appreciate having democracy are bulking at democracy and choosing socialism.
Contrary to what some people argue, "democracy versus no democracy" and "capitalism versus socialism versus communism" are separate axes. For example, there exist capitalist countries with very little democracy. And there exist socialist countries with relatively robust democratic institutions. And the opposite combinations exist.
(There have not, as far as I know, been very many self-proclaimed communist countries with robust democratic institutions.)
The questions that I care about are, "Can the people of the country make a comfortable living?", "Can they successfully petition the government for a redress of their greivances?", and "Does the country protect minorities of various sorts from the tyranny of the majority?" Achieving all three of these can be a challenge, and different countries may vote for more or less safety net.
I'm not sure if I'm taking a bait here but the young people talking about socialism almost universally mean the Nordic style social democracies, which represent the most free and stable of all democracies. It's a deliberate misunderstanding and derailment of discussion to equate it with some autocratic communist societies like USSR or Venezuela.
Meanwhile, something like 1/3 of the market cap on the Oslo Stock Exchange is state owned, the second largest media group is owned by a public benefit corporation, the largest bank is owned 34% by the government and ~10% by a foundation with a public benefit mandate. At the same time Norway has a more expansive welfare system than most supposedly socialist countries.
It's fair enough that they're not fully socialist by any means, but for a lot of socialists the Nordic model is far closer to what they want than e.g. China.
It’s not the young people who are turning against democracy. It’s the baby boomers who talk ceaselessly about “fake news”, rejecting anything that doesn’t match their cloistered reality.
The word socialist was added to the constitution because of Indira Gandhi, the only dictator to ever hold power in India. So I think you are making my point for me
Are you seriously arguing that India didn't practice socialist policies before that amendment? And continued to do so for decades afterwards? Arguably continues to do so in some respects even today.
Even the link you provided notes the same thing: "Ambedkar's (the original author of the constitution)...objection [to putting "socialist" in the original preamble] was [it was] "purely superfluous" and "unnecessary", as "socialist principles are already embodied in our Constitution" through Fundamental Rights and the Directive Principles of State Policy."
I can't quite express it, but there is something very fundamentally "unfair" or "undemocratic" at the core of socialism and its policies. And it's not that I'm selfish and don't want to help those that are suffering. To me, socialism means I am giving less consent. At least with democracy, that is less apparent and I technically have "more consent" to the things imposed on me.
We had an illegal lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic. Number of people punished 0.
During most of the pandemic it's been back and forth on do this, do that. Things done that flies against all science like masking outside (just lifted) and other silly things like keeping small children masked in school knowing now that there rate of infection has been the same with or without masks.
Other than that we seem to have avoided the authoritarian tendencies of the us, canada, australia, new zeland, germany, austria, france etc.
Compared to those countries we have not had it to bad when it comes to violating our rights.
Now it's time to vote all of them out of office. I don't want a single politician in power who got used to wielding power during a pandemic.
Free moment is guaranteed by the Spanish constitution it can only be set aside for martial law . Government never declared martial law only state of alarm (we have 3 levels of exception) so they did not have the right to restrict movement.
We were all locked in our houses for 6 weeks. So yeah I want people to go to jail.
In my country (not Spain) our government broke many laws (violated the constitution) in the name of covid restrictions. They decided it was ok because of public health. But laws are pointless if they can just be ignored when the government wants to. So in the sense of discussion, I think "illegal" is probably appropriate here, otherwise "in violation of post-enlightenment liberal democratic norms" maybe?
> In my country (not Spain) our government broke many laws (violated the constitution) in the name of covid restrictions. They decided it was ok because of public health. But laws are pointless if they can just be ignored when the government wants to. So in the sense of discussion, I think "illegal" is probably appropriate here, otherwise "in violation of post-enlightenment liberal democratic norms" maybe?
Because elites live under state sponsored anarcho-capitalism.
It's only illegal if you're found out and then only if you find someone to prosecute you(cash only verdicts don't count for obvious reasons).
Am I missing something? By which measure was the US (and possibly another among the first eight in this list) not an electoral democracy for as long as Australia and Switzerland? All three had significant restrictions on suffrage, with Switzerland particularly regressive in this regard in the late 20th century.
EDIT: I was thinking of Iceland as well, which has a very reasonable claim to be the oldest (continuous and current) democracy along with the US and possibly the Isle of Man, depending on how democracy is defined.