Independence Day

Open Heart said:

This was a game changer for history. No one had ever written such a thing before. Always before, rights were something earned, or given out of benevolence by the State. To propose that they came from God, that they were inalienable, meant that no State had the right to take them away. This was the real revolution. It happened without a gun being shot.

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Inaccurate. And how does the American Revolution count as 'without a gun being shot'?!

The American Bill of Rights is largely based on the English one, written nearly a century earlier. Though you did acknowledge yourself it comes from a long English history of limiting power of the state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_Rights_1689

(Yep, it has the right to bear arms, and freedom of speech)

Much of American (and English) conservatism that influenced the Constitution and Bill of Rights, including the philosophy on what human rights actually were, and strongly opposed the types of liberal constitutions the French created (the French version of human rights is basically what we have today from the UN), comes from Edmund Burke (an Englishman).

When the USA became independent, I suppose it might have inspired others to also have revolutions? Otherwise I don't see what gift of democracy or human rights it offered, when everything that was found there could already be found in the ancient laws and liberties in England, especially after the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

It wasn't some great model of democracy anyway, not to the modern democrat anyway.

The US Constitution doesn't actually say all that much about voting, and left it to the individual states. The Founding Fathers themselves were worried about mob rule. In fact, in the beginning, the second chamber of government, the Senate, was unelected, designed to be protected from the 'fury of democracy'.

In the early USA only around 70% of adult males were qualified to vote, and let's not start on women or black people who couldn't vote at all.

There isn't much difference here with the USA and other democracies, like Britain, which abolished slavery much earlier and blacks were able to vote really as long as they were landed, possibly from early as the late 1700s in the case of Cesar Picton.

The USA took a heck of a lot longer to catch up and modernise, and actually care about liberty for all men.

Enough criticism. To the USA's credit, in modern times, they are now a more liberal place than the UK, and by treasuring their Constitution have preserved many liberties that in Britain have been taken for granted and cast aside without much thought.

Back in the old days though, I don't think they were that special in terms of liberties and democracy, much of which they simply inherited from their old rulers. Perhaps the Anglo-American tradition taken together is unique, but America is not exceptional on its own for this.

However, America's rise to global dominance certainly is extraordinary. A former colony surpassing its old master and becoming the dominant economic and military force on the planet is truly the stuff of an epic, and will not be forgotten easily in humanity's history.

The US has been mostly a good in the world. It has quite a few atrocities under its belt, but what human thing does not?
It has been a beacon of freedom that other countries have looked upon, that acted as an examplar for them.
Not only the example, but also the resolve of America is to be envied.

That being said, Sultan of Swing is right that a lot of its ideals are inherited, but this doesn't dimish from them. Many modern democracies derive their forms from the US, others from Britain.

As an aside, I would just point out that democracies do go to war with each other, its just that Europe is in the lull period after a major set of wars. There were few European wars after the Napoleonic wars as well, but this does not mean that reactionary monarchies are less likely to go to war.
There are many historical examples of democracies fighting wars between each other - the 2nd Anglo-Boer war springs readily to my mind as two little republics were crushed by parliamentary Britain, or the War of 1812 or 1st Anglo-Dutch war etc.

Open Heart said:

Can you give me an example? The recent European wars were with countries that were fascist or still monarchial. For example, Franco's fascist regime in Spain didn't come to an end until the new constitution in 1978. Iceland was a monarchy until 1944 when it became a Republic. In WW2 none of the Axis powers were democracies. In WW1 none of the Central Powers were democracies. So what war are you referring to?

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I did in my post. Why are you ignoring them?

Parliamentary Britain invaded and conquered two free democratic Boer republics in 1899-1902 in the 2nd Anglo-Boer war and in fact instituted concentration camps to sequester the women and children, resulting in a massive death toll. Britain in this period already had its full modern Parliamentary apparatus and the Orange Free State for instance was known as the 'model republic' and was seen as a well-run and conscientious little country with a unicameral legislature.
The ZAR was less well-run, but still a democracy.

The US went to war with Britain in 1812. The US went to war against Republican Mexico in 1848. Both had similar representation to the US in the period.

The US crushed the nascent Philippine republic in the Philippine-American war in 1899.
The US gave support to overthrow democratically elected governments in Peru and Nicaragua during the cold war, although these weren't formal wars, they could have resulted therein.

Further back, the English Commonwealth and Dutch Republic fought the first Anglo-Dutch war.
The Roman Republic crushed free democratic city-states and republics during its rise.
Democratic Athens crushed other free democracies when it formed its Delian league, Naxos and Thasos come to mind.

There are more examples though, if you really want them.

Its true that in the last major wars the enemies weren't democrats, but the lull in war in Europe thereafter is due to the normal lull following cycles of major wars and the Cold War which forced Europe to huddle together and encouraged cooperative institutions.
To suggest that the fact of peace is due to democratic institutions simply does not hold water. Often wars are very popular and democracies can be led into them. I don't think they would be less likely to declare war on account of the enemies institutions being similar. It didn't stop people in the past.

Open Heart said:

England was a Monarchy until the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act, 1927. This was further solidified by the Statute of Westminster, 1931.

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By that narrow definition, the US only became a democracy in 1965 and most of Europe still aren't ones.

Open Heart said:

On what basis do you say this?

This sounds to me like sour grapes.

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Many European states do not formally style themselves democracies although are ones in practice, like the Netherlands and Sweden.

Britain had rule by an elected parliament and a Prime Minister for centuries with most of the modern processes in place by the Hannoverians and definitely by the time of the 1830 Reform Act. I call that democratic governance.

The US only got universal suffrage in 1965 with civil rights legislation, so not even universal male suffrage can be said to exist in practice before this.

Open Heart said:

The US was not a monarchy or i.e. a fascist state or overrun by criminal entities before 1965. "The grapes were sour anyway."

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The US has always been overrunable by criminal entities, from 1492 until this very second. Weather or not one chosen to recognize it is irrelevant.

Open Heart said:

That is NOT what I said.

I made a figurative remark. I said the articulation in the DoI that human rights came from God rather than from the state was a revolution (apart from the American Revolution) that happened without a shot.

You apparently have not thought through the significance of this single thing.

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But that isn't a revolution, it has come from English conservatism.

Open Heart said:

England was a Monarchy until the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act, 1927. This was further solidified by the Statute of Westminster, 1931.

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A constitutional monarchy. For all intents and purposes, just as democratic as the US. I'll also point out that Hitler was elected.

Open Heart said:

Mexico is STILL not a modern democracy. It is a developing nation. Since the Mexican revolution, it has consistently been criminally corrupt, under one-party rule, with radical human rights violations. It is currently run by the Cartels. Outside of Africa, it is the most violent place on the planet.

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Shift those goal posts! I particularly like the idea that a developing nation can't be democratic. That's gold.

Open Heart said:

England was a Monarchy until the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act, 1927. This was further solidified by the Statute of Westminster, 1931.

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As Armoured said, England was just as democratic as the USA.

And as I already said, the US Constitution was never as big on democracy as you make it out to be. The second chamber of the USA was unelected. Being 'democratic' doesn't necessarily mean any better. The Founding Fathers were wary of mob rule.

The USA has a President with a large amount of unilateral power, while the UK has a much more limited Prime Minister who is open to criticism, needs a majority in Parliament to even form government, and gets questioned by Parliament every single week. Yes, the UK's hereditary monarchy isn't specifically as democratic as the USA's elected monarch, but it's a better and more accountable system, where power does not rest in the hands of one person.

Open Heart said:

Developing nations are just that--they are in the process of developing democracies. They are in the in between stages. Give them a break.

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Why does being 'democratic' automatically mean better? The majority of people can vote for some pretty nasty things, we've seen that time and time again throughout history. The Founding Fathers warned of the 'fury of democracy'.