United Nations and the Democratic Peace?? Inaccurate Modeling

[The Mad Viking]

quote: Originally posted by CivNation on 03-20-2000 12:08 PM The insinuation that Christianity and rational thought do not coincide is nothing more than antichristian propoganda from people who claim neutrality in the religious sphere. Of course any true christian knows that those who are not for Christ are against Him. Considering that I go to an Ivy League University and am triple majoring, I think its safe to say my rational thought capabilities are quite intact thank you very much.

quote: Christ does not want us, and never wanted us, to cowtow to unbelievers. Christ wants us to treat them with love and respect, as we should any neighbor. That is done by preaching the gospel first and foremost. It is NOT done by lying to the heathen and telling them that their point of view is just as good as the Christian point of view, and it also is not done by keeping Christianity out of conversation and making it only a "private" affair.

Please, please preach the gospel in your next "triple majoring" paper at your "Ivy League University" (pride=1/7 deadly sin)

BTW, the title of this thread is "United Nations and the Democratic Peace?? Inaccurate Modeling". One of you, the one who blindly regurgitates the pap your professors feed you, wrote that. I was talking to God last night and even he agrees that your last week's worth of spam is OT to the thread.

&BTW, not Jesus Christ but Judas Iscariot made the ultimate sacrifice. Christ is worshipped and adored by millions, and he couldn't have done it without JI, who is defiled by millions simply for doing the Lord's will. It is Judas Iscariot that you should worship.

[Sirotnikov]

Harel: I'm knida disappointed of Yosi Sarid lately. Not doing enough to keep us from jewish religious fanatics.
To all interested my UIN is 18345800.
Just mention who are you in the authorization request.

And a note to CivNation: I believe in freedom of speech and the freedom to express one's opinions but your posts regarding christianity sound to much like a preach. I think that in this amount it becomes OT. It has little to do with Civ3 and more to do with personal belief. I think this subject can be signed by saying that each person should carefully choose his beliefs and be proud of them (though not too much, as wiser people mentioned it is a sin which is heavily punished by christ, and especially his dad. )

OT: this thread is now very long. maybe some one should start a new one with the same subject? I have to wait 2 minutes for the pages to load (the horors of 33.6 modems laydies and gentlemen).

[CivNation]

Pride is not 1/7 of the deadly sins. Thats a roman catholic invention. By the way, the reason why I mention "Ivy League University" is to provide an example that counteracts your pride. Frankly being at an Ivy League University is not much to be proud of these days, and they have become quite godless. The reason I was referring to it was to make it clear of the pride I was seeing on the opposing end, especially the godless pride that mocks Christianity as ignorant when they have no understanding it is that very religion they mock which has given them civilization.

[CivNation]

Now that I have dealt with the hypocrites in this forum, ie all militant antichristian propogandists (I love how they like to call christians hypocrites, but never realize that the real hypocrites are themselves). Indeed who has brought civilization but Judeo Christian values.

As for those who accuse this discussion of being offtopic, you still aren't seeing clearly. You see, the entire point of this is to demonstrate one thing to you: proponents of democratic peace have once again fallen for a false utopian concept that will yield no fruits in the long run. There is NO UTOPIA that can be invented by mankind. It has tried time and time again throughout history, from communism to Athens. Every civilization has fallen from grace and power. I still find it incredible that some actually believe mankind can built a utopia on its own. Mankind is inherently lost in sin and corruption, and there will be no utopia until the kingdom of God is fully manifested. Therefore out with this ridiculous democratic peace theory. Whether people want to admit it or not, the old school realists are absolutely positively right. Balance of power will always be the prevalent situation between kingdoms. Commerce and empire do not fully mix as has been demonstrated time and time again, and the bottom line is that the only reason why the world has been peaceful lately is because the hegemon of the United States has so overpowered the weaker nations of Europe that of course there is not going to be a great war like we saw 60 years ago! Yet the democratic peace therorists, relying on their antiGod utopian dreams, scream that they have found the solution to humanity, just make a few nations democratic! GIBBERISH AND RUBBISH! Wake up! When the United States declines in power, the democracies will be at each others throats again. No manmade system can deliver the goods of utopia. Let history be your guide in that.

[Christopher]

I study political science, but I don't start picking on a computer game just because it isnt "historically or theoretically correct".

Is the story behind Railroad Tycoon an accurate version of the railroad history or is F16Falcon an accurate description of the relations we had with Sovjet in the -70/80's?

Who cares? I just play, am I all that weird?


Christopher

[OrangeSfwr]

I think your entire argument can be shut down with the realization that no Civ to date is a true democracy. Ancient Greece was closest because every MAN voted...however women and slaves did not. The US is a poor example of Democracy (techincally speaking a democracy must have every person vote once on every issue with direct majority vote deciding the outcome of a decision) All countries claiming to be democratic are actually Republics. True democracy and true communism are two forms of government that just do not exist. The only way they can exist is with a minute number of people. So if you think about it, your theory on democratic peace can not be proven OR disproven to date. Philisophically, a TRUE democracy could easily declare war on another TRUE democracy if they both hated each other - as long as the two nations had a direct vote with a majority deciding to declare war. Hopefully this whole argument will come to a close...as Korn put it in other words...It's only a game

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~~~I am who I am, who I am - but who am I?~~~

[OrangeSfwr]

on another note, the theory you are battling about may never be proven now that the Nuclear weapon is around. You have to take into account that more than one variable is present in diplomacy. Not only government type, but also the state of the world, and the level of destruction possible. A war between 1970 (30 years ago, I heard that has been a popular figure in this thread) and now and even into the future has been affected by the advent of Nuclear weapons. This has undoubtedly affected the democratic peace theory. But I still stand firm on my previous post. Democracy is defined in Political Science as direct vote by all citizens with majority rule. True democracies do not need any branches of government...no leader...no courts...and no legislative body. Just a way to tally the votes of the masses and let the majority rule. It simply doesn't exist

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~~~I am who I am, who I am - but who am I?~~~

[Sirotnikov]

Ok, I admit, I forgot all about the nukes. silly me. the did affect the world. and they made the democratic peace appear more true than it is.

Also, if a true democracy is where everybody vote directly for a prez, than I can be proud that Israel is a democracy.

It's true though that in earlier times a democracy would vote for every decision. it kinda sucks. no one would work. everybody will just vote themselves to death.

am I being too gloomy?

btw the pride sin exists long before the catholic church. starting with the tower of babilon. also almost all other religions contain a pride sin. the pride sin is "common knowledge".

[Bubba]

Dear Imran Siddiqui,

The academic debate (as opposed to the invective) has been very interesting. I just two questions for you. The Economist recently did an article on democratic peace theory that questioned if the theory was not overdone somewhat. The two counter-examples they gave were the Boer War (UK - Boer Republics) and the U.S. civil war. Why do these not cast some doubt upon the theory?

The second question is as following: If you define "democracy" too restrictively, don't you run the risk of undercutting the explanative power of the theory altogether, i.e. you get to the point where no country, even today, can be said to be a "true" democracy. If this has some merit, then the theory is neither true nor untrue, as it is unable to be tested at the present time

[tniem]

First I guess I would like to say that I am kind of disgusted by this post. I wanted to comment on the first couple posts but then I had to read through all the name calling and well religious intolerance (on both sides). I guess than before I can post I have to give a type of disclaimer: first I am not a political science major and while I found all that interesting, most of it was over my head, second I am a Christian but find the forced religion that CivNation was talking about garbage. It is like the crusades or Muslims who forced nations at sword point to become Islamic.

Anyway, that said. UN Democratic relations should not happen until the UN is built and the majority of the world is democratic. Until then diplomacy should happen as it did in history. You did not have international votes (at least to my knowledge) instead you had one nation trading land, riches, women, etc. for something else. Also dominant nations in military were able to march up to their neighbors and say give me your land or you are toast. Khan and the Mongols were so dominant militarily that nations begged for them to rule over them and protect (at least that is what my history teacher once told me, but she wasn't a good teacher so take what I say with a grain of salt).

[Kautilya]

Imran,
I think both India and Pakistan had democratically elected governments when they fought in 1971 and certainly had elected governments when they fought a couple of years ago. It depends on how you define democracy I suppose.


If there are vicious ethnic or religious rivalries democracy is no gurantee for peace because public opinion itself will be baying for blood at least for a while. For instance I find it quite plausible that if the Arab countries had popularly elected governments the resulting regimes (which would likely be Islamist)would be more not less bellicose towards Israel.

Actually I find the free-trade hypothesis quite plausible because free trade means there will be a powerful business constituency which will try to prevent war. Of course as WW1 shows this isn't a complete guarantee either but I think it pushes countries in the right direction.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Whoa, blast from the past...

Answering some questions:

Boer War involved a British democracy, but I don't think there is any way that the Boers could be called a Democracy!

The Civil War - The South was NOT a democracy. Let's see, they only were in existance for 4 years (so there was no peaceful transfer of power), and the only elections they had was the first one.

India/Pakistan. In 1971, Zia-ul-Haq ruled Pakistan, a dictator. And a war a couple years ago? I don't think so... maybe a minor conflict.

Arab nations would urge more negotiation than war if they were democracies. See the example of Egypt.

Free-trade is bunk. WW1 proves it is wrong, as does WW2 (both times Germany and France were #1 trading partners).

[Kautilya]

"Whoa, blast from the past..."
Hehe.I didn't realize this was a 6 month old thread. Mtg linked it one of the OT threads and I thought it was a current discussion.I forgot that most of the other forums on Apolyton are half-dead anyway.


Anyway Zia came later in the decade. The president at the time of the 1971 war was Yahya Khan who was a military man. However the 71 war was caused by the results of the election a few months before where the Awami League won big in East Pakistan and wanted autonomy in all matters except foreign policy. After the war Bhutto who had won the election in West Pakistan became the leader. Anyway regardless of whether Pakistan was technically a democracy or not it was an election which caused the crisis.

The 99 affair could be considered a minor war ; it's a matter of definition. Anyway what stopped it from becoming a major war wasn't any kind of democratic restraint but the reality of a possible nuclear confrontation and the diplomatic intervention of the US neither of which had anything to do with the two countries having democratically elected governments.


About free trade I think you are confusing it with plain trade. The point isn't just that countries which trade with each other won't ever go to war but more to do with countries which have accepted the free trade philosophy and the necessity and advantages of economic interdependence. Mid-victorian England came pretty close to having this kind of free-trade philosophy but not AFAIK either Germany or France in 1914 or 1939.Two mercantilist countries might go to war with each other even though they trade a lot because they consider trade as a kind of zero-sum game.
[This message has been edited by Kautilya (edited November 06, 2000).]

[Imran Siddiqui]

Ahhh... I see your point... But embracing free trade also (usually) means other liberal arguments, like democracy.

Did MtG like to this to show CivNation's horriblness?

edit: I don't think a full scale war would have developed in 1999 under Democracies, but I think you forget that by that time Musharrif already seized power.
[This message has been edited by Imran Siddiqui (edited November 06, 2000).]

[Kautilya]

"Did MtG like to this to show CivNation's horriblness?"
Yes, exactly.

"but I
think you forget that by that time Musharrif already seized power."
No Musharraf came a few months later. Nawaz Sharif was Prime Minister at the time.

I am not sure the total no. of battle deaths was 1000 but it was probably close if you count both sides. Even without a major war if the fighting had continued at the same level of intensity for a few more weeks the total would easily have gone over 1000.