The Intellectual Dark Web

[Speaker to Animals]

America literally is a rebellion against a democracy. It wasn't King George who authored the Stamp Act; it was Parliament. We rebelled against Parliament, no matter what excuses Jefferson wrote down in the Declaration of Independence.

Then, in the 1860s, thirteen southern states rebelled because they didn't like the outcome of an election. Democracy didn't preempt a rebellion there.

After the 2016 election, democracy has not stopped California from a quasi-rebellion with respect to immigration enforcement and even electoral laws.

Rebellions are a fact of life. No governmental system is immune from them. Appealing to rebellions, in light of our own God damned history no less, really does not constitute a convincing argument for democracy. I mean.. come on.

We literally had the Whiskey Rebellion not two years into the Constitution being ratified.

[Martin Hash]

Your supposition is that there would have been the same or fewer rebellions with an aristocracy. Well, with enough mass jailings and executions, maybe? I’d be dead that’s for sure. Probably you too, but hey, The Rich will survive.

[Speaker to Animals]

Goddamnit. The entire fucking thing was a rebellion against a democracy. Then there were rebellions within rebellions. American history is jam-packed with fucking rebellion.


Democracy does fuck all to preempt rebellions, dude.

[DBTrek]

Thus the ever widening scope of participants in a democracy. The American rebellion wasn’t against democracy, it was against “Taxation without representation” -aka, we aren’t enfranchised in the democracy that taxes us.

Score one more point for my theory of democracy having an inherent inertia toward “all or nothing” inclusion.

[C-Mag]

Dave Ramsey should be considered part of the Intellectual Dark Web. He's constantly hitting snowflakes with inconvenient truths like.

In the US you have 97% chance of avoiding poverty by not having kids before you are married, graduating high school, and having a job.

That's all it takes.

[BjornP]

America literally is a rebellion against a democracy. It wasn't King George who authored the Stamp Act; it was Parliament. We rebelled against Parliament, no matter what excuses Jefferson wrote down in the Declaration of Independence.

So, you claim 1770's England was a democracy? Because apparantly parliament = democracy?

[Okeefenokee]

America literally is a rebellion against a democracy. It wasn't King George who authored the Stamp Act; it was Parliament. We rebelled against Parliament, no matter what excuses Jefferson wrote down in the Declaration of Independence.

So, you claim 1770's England was a democracy? Because apparantly parliament = democracy?

The power of the monarchy had been reduced much more than what would be expected from the way we are taught about the era. For one reason or another, parliament's role in the period is almost completely ignored.

[BjornP]

Sure, compared to mainland Europe, English monarchs had less power and the English nobility's power was also more consolidated in law. I can't speak to what you are taught or not, but when I think democracy I don’t think rule by nobility.

No doubt that what we today call democracy, owes more to England than Greece (in terms of representative vs direct government), but rule by nobles isn’t democracy. Rome was more democratic than that.

[Okeefenokee]

Sure, compared to mainland Europe, English monarchs had less power and the English nobility's power was also more consolidated in law. I can't speak to what you are taught or not, but when I think democracy I don’t think rule by nobility.

No doubt that what we today call democracy, owes more to England than Greece (in terms of representative vs direct government), but rule by nobles isn’t democracy. Rome was more democratic than that.

You take land owning nobles, remove titles and hereditary inheritance, and you're left with a land owning electorate. That's what the original electorate was in America. Other than the hereditary titles of the aristocracy, who was allowed to vote in the democracy was very similar.

Mention of the democratic role of parliament in the creation of the grievances that lead to the American revolution is virtually non-existent in American public schools. Even in our declaration the role of parliament is almost ignored, and everything is laid at the feet of the king.

It's something that stood out to me when I was going through the evolution in England and then Britain from the absolute monarchy through the growth in power of parliament. It is mentioned that this evolution happened, but we aren't given specifics, and it is never mentioned that by 1776 this process had been under way for a long time, and that the primary actor at the time of the revolution was not the king, but parliament.

There's too much obfuscation and omission in all of it for me to think it's accidental. You have a figurehead king that gets scapegoated to hell and back for the actions of a parliament that escapes virtually all blame.

[TheReal_ND]

America literally is a rebellion against a democracy. It wasn't King George who authored the Stamp Act; it was Parliament. We rebelled against Parliament, no matter what excuses Jefferson wrote down in the Declaration of Independence.

So, you claim 1770's England was a democracy? Because apparantly parliament = democracy?

The power of the monarchy had been reduced much more than what would be expected from the way we are taught about the era. For one reason or another, parliament's role in the period is almost completely ignored.

Daneslaw had a huge influence on the shaping of the parliamentary process in England during the evolution of their government. The old Germanic ways of swearing fealty to the warlord and having some degree of autonomy from the King had never left the popular conscience. It's like I've been telling anyone that would listen, this form of government that we have now is a direct descendant of thousands of years of evolution. You can not just reproduce it somewhere where it is not.