David Frum: What If the Allies Had Lost World War One?

[Queequeg]

I am infinitely fascinated by and love Imperial Germany

Why? It is just a modern state hamstrung by archaic nonsense.

Uh, basically Germany and Russia around this time produced almost of a plurality of my favorite artists and thinkers from any time, ever, and I'm actually fascinated by the Imperial German government because of the coexistence of "modern state" w "archaic nonsense."

[The Brain]

Oh, it's The Atlantic.

Since when does The Atlantic have bad reputation here?

Yes, why pay attention to what happens on the board? 10 years ago Yi's splooging over The Atlantic made me take out a subscription. I ended up with an article by Bernard-Henri Lévy that sucked ass. "What the hell am I reading?". I concluded that unlike my favorite mag The Economist The Atlantic is a crapshoot with no internal quality assurance. "May contain nuggets." I don't think The Atlantic doesn't contain good stuff, but I certainly think that The Atlantic isn't in itself proof of quality. I bear no ill will towards Yi over this and my occasional comments on The Atlantic are mostly for "fun".

[The Brain]

Imperial Germany.

[Valmy]

Uh, basically Germany and Russia around this time produced almost of a plurality of my favorite artists and thinkers from any time, ever, and I'm actually fascinated by the Imperial German government because of the coexistence of "modern state" w "archaic nonsense."

The fascination part I get. The love part is odd. But maybe I don't know what you get by love. I mean I have a fascination with revolutionary France but I don't want to live there or wish it was still around.

[Habbaku]

Great Britain was not a democracy in August 1914.

wat

[Valmy]

Tim regards any society that does not allow women to vote to be a slave society.

[derspiess]

Also it's a TRUE FACT that Great Britain in 1914 did not allow Puerto Rico to become a state.

[Admiral Yi]

I think that's Frum's statement, not Timorican's.  Didn't the UK have a property requirement in 1914?

[Norgy]

Imperial Germany was a strange concoction. Not only was it the most modern country in the world and had industry that put everyone else's to shame, but it also had the Reichstag. Which had no power.

I think imperial Germany eventually would have reformed and that it was hamstrung by Wilhelm II. By all accounts, he seems like the archetype of a bumbling buffoon.

[derspiess]

Tim and Frum are about on the same level.  Though that's probably an insult to Tim.

[Habbaku]

I think that's Frum's statement, not Timorican's.  Didn't the UK have a property requirement in 1914?

Yeah, that's from Frum.  If you want to compare them to modern-day democracies with universal suffrage, then I suppose you could define them away from being a democracy, but...then what would you define them as?  A halfway-house democracy?

[Duque de Bragança]

Oh, it's The Atlantic.

Since when does The Atlantic have bad reputation here?

Yes, why pay attention to what happens on the board? 10 years ago Yi's splooging over The Atlantic made me take out a subscription. I ended up with an article by Bernard-Henri Lévy that sucked ass. "What the hell am I reading?". I concluded that unlike my favorite mag The Economist The Atlantic is a crapshoot with no internal quality assurance. "May contain nuggets." I don't think The Atlantic doesn't contain good stuff, but I certainly think that The Atlantic isn't in itself proof of quality. I bear no ill will towards Yi over this and my occasional comments on The Atlantic are mostly for "fun".

BHL is the problem I think though if the Atlantic accepts his articles then it's pretty telling as well. BHL has got connections though.

[Valmy]

I think that's Frum's statement, not Timorican's.  Didn't the UK have a property requirement in 1914?

It's complicated.

[Berkut]

I think that's Frum's statement, not Timorican's.  Didn't the UK have a property requirement in 1914?

Yeah, that's from Frum.  If you want to compare them to modern-day democracies with universal suffrage, then I suppose you could define them away from being a democracy, but...then what would you define them as?  A halfway-house democracy?

I think the point he is making is that they weren't by any means perfect examples of democracy, yet they were still a damn site better than the alternative.

I don't really understand the need to pick out singular comments a writer makes and tear them apart outside the context he is making the comment in. Frum's particular point here is perfectly valid. None of these European powers were particularly good democracies, even by the standards of the US at that time, so the idea that the US fought to protect "democracy" in the form of France and the UK is a little bit thin. Russia was not a democracy at all, and both France and the UK compared to the US were not great.

He is saying that the US fought to protect the idea of democracy, moreso than the particular not so democratic states in the Entente. There is much to debate with THAT point, of course.

[Barrister]

Tim and Frum are about on the same level.  Though that's probably an insult to Tim.

I don't always agree with him, but I always like David Frum.