Will there ever be another major war between European powers again?

[Ramo]

Yes, so is the UK. It was a constitutional monarchy.

[Kuciwalker]

I thought Spain was much less "constitutional" and much more "monarchy" then...

[Ramo]

No, the monarchy didn't have that much power at the time. The reason why I said "arguably" is that the parties were corrupt with essentially the same policies and they basically handed off power to each other.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Kucinich
Spain was a monarchy, Ramo...

It all comes down to the question what we see as a democracy. Kant, who argued that people in a republic (he wasn't a big fan of a democracy since he understood "democracy" a bit differently from our modern view) would be very reluctant to go to war said the key point for this would be if a system is really representative.

Equally I would ask if a system which is technically democratic is really democratic (in our sense) so that the people (and not only some elites) have real political influence. In case of pre-WWI Germany I think there were still a lot of un-democratic elements (as I posted somewhere above). In case of other Euro countries I do not know the details so well (maybe someone can post more about it), but generally the time of the full integration of the entire people in the democratic systems was not achieved in the 19th century, simply because most political parties were nothing more than debate clubs this time. They simply were not able to reach the majority of the people, and most of them were also not interested to represent all people. Politics was still a matter of elites this time, no matter if they were aristocrates or bourgeouis. This was only changed by big mass parties of the early 20th cent. and finally after WWII.

[lord of the mark]

BTW, this all came up in the Civ3 forum way back when Civ3 wasnt out yet. There was a poli sci student from Slovakia, i think his nick was "roman", who argued the realist position - no impact of demo. My sense is that while the argument that demos NEVER fight each other is not correct, its still significantly less frequent. A lot does depend on definitions both of demo and of conflict. Wrt to Finland in WW2, while western allies declared war on Finland, there was no signicant fighting, if any IIUC. WRT to yugo conflict, theres real question if Yugo under Slobo should be called a democracy - and new born Croatia was hardly a settled democracy. India and Pakistan in '48 would also fall into the category of not really established democracies. Of course if you cut down too much, you dont have an adequate sample for analysis.

[KrazyHorse]

My theory is that sane nations don't fight each other. Sane nations are much more likely to be democracies than insane nations are because insane nations have a fetish for dictators.

Hence, it is much more likely for dictatorships to fight each other than it is for democracies.

[The Andy-Man]

currently, undere 18's don't have the vote, nor criminals and the insane. So I suppose we still don't really have any democracies, so war is likley to break out at any moment ....

[alva]

under 18 should not have a right to vote. *

AFAIK criminals can vote here ( unless your civil rights are taken away which, again AFAIK, only happens on very rare occasions.

Not idea on the insane though.

* we have a party here that is suggesting to give parents an extra vote per child here

[KrazyHorse]

Criminals have the vote in Canada (even the ones currently in prison). And all somebody has to do is to be able to prove that they can understand and answer the question (so even those who are delusional have the right to vote).

[St Leo]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Criminals have the vote in Canada (even the ones currently in prison). And all somebody has to do is to be able to prove that they can understand and answer the question (so even those who are delusional have the right to vote).

BTW, Harper is promising to rob them of their right.

I don't expect him to be able to push that one through even if he does get the minority, but then again the only promise they won't break if they get elected is that of cutting taxes.

They won't be able to cut them as far as their fairyland leprechaun friends tell they can, so I guess they'll break that one too.

[The Andy-Man]

* we have a party here that is suggesting to give parents an extra vote per child here

The UK govt. is going to give the vote to 16 year olds

as a side note, the voting age should be increased to 24 imo. But my post was largley ironic, in that any example anyone puts forward is pooh pooh'd on some pathetic technicality, ie. no democracy in the terms the modern day wester world has understood it in the last 50 years has fought a major war. And if they did it wasn't a proper war, so there

[MrFun]

Originally posted by The Andy-Man


The UK govt. is going to give the vote to 16 year olds

huh?

[The Andy-Man]

Originally posted by MrFun



huh?

The irony is most 16yr olds, to my knowladge, have said it wonm't work and they don't want it

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by St Leo

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Criminals have the vote in Canada (even the ones currently in prison). And all somebody has to do is to be able to prove that they can understand and answer the question (so even those who are delusional have the right to vote).

BTW, Harper is promising to rob them of their right.

I don't expect him to be able to push that one through even if he does get the minority, but then again the only promise they won't break if they get elected is that of cutting taxes.

They won't be able to cut them as far as their fairyland leprechaun friends tell they can, so I guess they'll break that one too.

The Supreme Court has already decided that the government does not have the right to take the vote away from criminals. So Harper can blather all he wants, but unless he's able to amend the Constitution (something no PM has ever managed to do) he has no say on whether or not they vote.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by The Andy-Man



The irony is most 16yr olds, to my knowladge, have said it wonm't work and they don't want it

Man, that is ****ed up.