Corsican Ogre vs. Perfidious Albion TEH POLL

[Razgovory]

Is it fair to call the US a democracy when you don't allow all your citizens the vote?

Ron Paul was just on the news saying that the US is not a democracy.

Was it clear that Ron Paul knew which century he was living in?

[The Brain]

The advance of morality in the decades following World War II is really an amazing thing.  But it's certainly not unfair to judge historical regimes by modern standards.  Those standards may continue to evolve, but if they can't be applied universally then they're not really standards, and more like opinions, aren't they?  And you don't get much of anywhere by having an opinion that slavery and genocide are wrong.

Yes, but you misunderstand me.  I'm not talking about morality.  I'm talking about government.  I'm saying it's unfair to so narrowly define Democracy to only the government we have right now.

Which definition wouldn't be unfair?

[garbon]

Is it fair to call the US a democracy when you don't allow all your citizens the vote?

Ron Paul was just on the news saying that the US is not a democracy.

Was it clear that Ron Paul knew which century he was living in?

I only saw the headline as I was walking through the lobby of my hotel, so no clue.

[Martinus]

The advance of morality in the decades following World War II is really an amazing thing.  But it's certainly not unfair to judge historical regimes by modern standards.  Those standards may continue to evolve, but if they can't be applied universally then they're not really standards, and more like opinions, aren't they?  And you don't get much of anywhere by having an opinion that slavery and genocide are wrong.

Yes, but you misunderstand me.  I'm not talking about morality.  I'm talking about government.  I'm saying it's unfair to so narrowly define Democracy to only the government we have right now.

The thing is, with Democracy, quantity translates into quality. If you call a government where "only some people have a vote" a Democracy, then it becomes rather tricky to justify why the US in 1799 was a Democracy (only the land-owning non-slave non-Indian males could vote) and Poland-Lithuania in 1791 wasn't (only the land-owning non-commoner males could vote - which amounted to app. 10% of the general populace and you could buy a noble title), considering in both cases the majority of the populace did not have a vote.

[Ideologue]

But it's certainly not unfair to judge historical regimes by modern standards. 

Fair or not, it's not remotely useful to do so.

Of course it's useful.  By identifying what is immoral or unwise from history, we can prevent similar mistakes from being made in the future.  Also, there's a nice feeling associated with realizing that you're a better and brighter human being than almost anyone who has ever lived.

Yes, but you misunderstand me.  I'm not talking about morality.  I'm talking about government.  I'm saying it's unfair to so narrowly define Democracy to only the government we have right now.

I did misunderstand a little bit, but like morality, it's not correct to call a system a democracy when, if it existed in the present, we would not recognize as a democracy.  At least, you have to qualify it with something, like calling the US an "emerging" democracy.

If that means that the future ones can find us wanting as well, that's fine with me.  That's their prerogative, just as we can and should look down on past people who don't measure up to our own standards.  Although we have a relatively novel advantage in that we can far more concretely conceive of people from the future judging us harshly, and put ourselves in their place, which makes us less likely to be total assholes.

[Neil]

But all that really means is that we don't have any standards at all, but rather fashions.

[grumbler]

But it's certainly not unfair to judge historical regimes by modern standards. 

Fair or not, it's not remotely useful to do so.

It is probably fair to compare Napoleonic France to its contemporaries, though.

No country of the period was "democratic" in the sense that we mean the term today.  But Britain was arguably less democratic (democracy = "rule by the will of the people") than France at that point.  It most certainly was not a democratic parliamentary system, as only the House of Commons was elected at all, and that by a tiny fraction of the populace (and the Commons had much less power at that point than it would later in the century).

Britain was a more "constitutional" state in that her leadership was more restricted by her constitution than France's was by hers, and one can certainly argue that this was one of the secrets to British success in these wars and later.  But that's not the same thing as "rule by the will of the people."

[Razgovory]

I did misunderstand a little bit, but like morality, it's not correct to call a system a democracy when, if it existed in the present, we would not recognize as a democracy.  At least, you have to qualify it with something, like calling the US an "emerging" democracy.

If that means that the future ones can find us wanting as well, that's fine with me.  That's their prerogative, just as we can and should look down on past people who don't measure up to our own standards.  Although we have a relatively novel advantage in that we can far more concretely conceive of people from the future judging us harshly, and put ourselves in their place, which makes us less likely to be total assholes.

Well the term Democracy was coined to describe forms of government before the modern era, so I'm not sure we get to chose which ones are closer to a Democratic ideal then our forebearers.  (is this a word?  Spell Check doesn't like it.  Bleh).  Still, a qualifier is probably the best solution.  Democracy has described a lot of governments over time.  5th century Athens, 1950's East Germany and 1880's America all claimed to be a Democracy (well, I'm not sure if the Athenians actually called it a Democracy at the time, but it's the term used in modern history for it), but differ wildly in their governments.  Presumably they all believed they had a more perfect form of it.  At least those in a position to write stuff down at least.

As to situation at hand, I'm not sure how Britons and Frenchmen regarded their governments at the time or how free they were.

[Siege]

Can I be Byzantium?

[CountDeMoney]

Pretty funny, all this Brit ass-to-mouth action coming from a Canadian. You don't even realize how insignificant they consider you, do you?

Don't know, don't care.  The bonds that bound the Empire together are disintegrating year by year.  But there are still people out there who remember that the greatest force for good and justice that the world has ever known was the British Empire, and that Canada was second only to England herself in that great assemblage of peoples.

  Wayne Gretsky

[Neil]

Pretty funny, all this Brit ass-to-mouth action coming from a Canadian. You don't even realize how insignificant they consider you, do you?

Don't know, don't care.  The bonds that bound the Empire together are disintegrating year by year.  But there are still people out there who remember that the greatest force for good and justice that the world has ever known was the British Empire, and that Canada was second only to England herself in that great assemblage of peoples.

  Wayne Gretsky

Pump your brakes there.  That man's a national treasure,

[garbon]

Pump your brakes there.  That man's a national treasure,

That's rather ethnic phrasing.

[Martinus]

Well, I'm going to withdraw what I said earlier, since both the Athenian Democracy and the Polish Nobles' Democracy are considered to be form of democracies by scholars, apparently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Liberty

So I think Ide is talking about "liberal democracy" and refusing to call "democracy" every other form of democracy.

[Drakken]

No country of the period was "democratic" in the sense that we mean the term today.  But Britain was arguably less democratic (democracy = "rule by the will of the people") than France at that point. 

How so? The Constitution of the Year VIII allowed people only to choose names to present on a list of notables, from which members of the Assembly and public servants on all three government levels were either nominated by the government or elected by the Senate.

At least the House of Commons was elected directly from the population, even with a limited census, and people had a say on local administrators (mayors, JPs, sheriffs). In France all mayors in towns and communes over 5000 pops were directly nominated by Napoleon.

[Valmy]

Yeah Napoleon was about as democratic as Louis XIV.  At least, according to his nephew (who I have a soft spot for since he actually did do this at the end of his reign), the plan was to eventually make it democratic this was supposed to be a transition phase.  Of course I doubt Napoleon I himself would have allowed that to happen while he was alive.