Democratic Peace Theory

[12th Doctor]

Indeed, I would add that some of the most gutless acts that resulted in the loss of liberty for millions of people were perpetrated by democratic governments (read "Western Betrayal").

[Gustaf]

I believe the Democratic Peace Theory to be mostly correct, at least as far as observational data goes.

[opebo]

The theory's basically got it assbackwards. Any army powerful enough, and thus dangerous enough, to lead a country into a war dangerous enough to seriously endanger it will also have made its power, and its willingness to slaughter its country's citizens, felt in other ways before that. That's why democracies don't go to war against their neighbors.

That's all true, and well and good, but here is my question for you:

In the case of 'democratic' aggressors, such as for example the United States, does your analysis imply that they only attack when the victim is weak enough that the conflict would not constitute 'a war dangerous enough to seriously endanger it', or are we to understand that you consider such ostensible democracies as largely controlled by their military?

I consider both to be very reasonable positions, and of course there is enormous gray area available in between.. just curious where you stand.

[Silent Hunter]

The Democratic Piece Theory, opebo, is that democracies don't fight other democracies, not that democracies don't fight non-democracies.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Part II:

My point is that Germany was no more at fault that any of the other countries that were involved in the war...

This is clearly not true; there would have been no war on the Western Front but for (pre-planned) German aggression.

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The principle reason given to the public here at the time was a mixture of "Brave Little Belgium" and crude jingoism. Variations on this theme dominated everywhere o/c.

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Yes. More or less. But just because everyone is to blame doesn't mean that one person (or government in this case) isn't more to blame than the rest.

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Isn't that obvious? But even so, that comment doesn't apply to the situation in Germany in the early 1930's.

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You've missed my main points here. To recap:

1. Democracy in Germany had already been abolished by the time Hitler came to power (via Brüning). Chancellor's were no longer accountable to the Reichstag, meaning that they were no longer accountable to the people. A government not accountable to the people is not a democracy by definition.
2. I've never denied that Hitler came to power by constitutional means. But constitutional means and democratic means are sometimes totally different; as they were in this case.

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Had they? Elections in Weimar Germany are notable for the lack of "decision". That was part of the problem.

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In the last free elections in Germany until 1949, the NSDAP polled 33% of the vote. A very high figure, but not a majority and not close to one.

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I disagree; how many cases are there of a democracy being destroyed by the fact that it's a democracy? Weimar was killed off by horrific economic crises and undemocratic elements in the   constitution and in the State.

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People meaning "the military", yes?

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Must you?

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Does it? What is "liberty" anyway?

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Because there is a fundamental difference (more than one actually) between what we now call "democracy" and mob rule.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

When I minority is discriminated against with the approval of the majority, then it is perfectly democratic, in the strictest sense.

Depends what is meant by democracy, doesn't it? In any case these things were imposed by an unaccountable state, not by "the people".

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Don't think so.

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This is only true if you claim that Germany was the only state at fault.

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I would change this to say that in order to have a democracy, full stop, you need to have more than legislatures and elections.

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"You?"

At the time of the American Revolution my ancestors, the British ones at least, lived in rural poverty, generally in very remote areas. Had they known of events in North America (and obviously I've no way of knowing that) they would almost certainly have supported the Americans as they were largely on the radical side of the religious (and thus political) spectrum.
Even the Establishment was divided over that war, with most Whigs supporting (and often openly) the Americans.

But that's moving off-topic a wee bit. Anyways, my main objection to that film being quoted is because it's historically inaccurate to an almost comic degree.

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But I'm talking about democracy

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Would a crowd of demonstrators count as a mob? Because the state here had no problem with butchering them:

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Certainly an element of truth to that.

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True. But not as different as many here would like to (and do) believe.

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That's not really Nobbling, but it's still bad. How come it's legal?

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Up to a certain point, of course.

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If Mr. Personality-cult wins 80% of the vote, I would say that there's at least an 80% chance that the election was not fair.

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I would agree here.

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A government never grants personal liberties anyway. Think why.

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I've never suggested that.

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Not at all. Ordinary citizens never have much power and never really expect much. In modern societies, all power is in the State (writ large).

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Almost there, but not quite. What do you think I mean by "healthy"?

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Not really; the main difference between our positions here seems to be defining "democracy" and "democratic government".

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This a theoretical thing? Can't think of many cases of "oppression by the masses". Modern oppression is almost always by the State (writ large), which is why there can be none of this liberty thing without democracy.

[Silent Hunter]

Electing a government does not make a state a democracy. It also requires freedom and human rights.

[minionofmidas]

The theory's basically got it assbackwards. Any army powerful enough, and thus dangerous enough, to lead a country into a war dangerous enough to seriously endanger it will also have made its power, and its willingness to slaughter its country's citizens, felt in other ways before that. That's why democracies don't go to war against their neighbors.

That's all true, and well and good, but here is my question for you:

In the case of 'democratic' aggressors, such as for example the United States, does your analysis imply that they only attack when the victim is weak enough that the conflict would not constitute 'a war dangerous enough to seriously endanger it', or are we to understand that you consider such ostensible democracies as largely controlled by their military?

I consider both to be very reasonable positions, and of course there is enormous gray area available in between.. just curious where you stand.

In the grey area. Closer to the first position. The media's power (in selling Milosevic as every bit as bad as Saddam and the UCK as goody-goodies, for example, neither of which holds up to close scrutiny. In not asking questions about how dangerous an Iraq invasion was going to be to Americans themselves. Etc.) needs to go in here as well (of course, that leaves the question of who owns the media.)

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My point is that Germany was no more at fault that any of the other countries that were involved in the war... 

That is at least as ridiculous as the Versailles fiction that it was all the Germans' fault alone.

Of course I didn't mean Belgium or what have you, but Germany was no more at fault than the French, British, Russians, etc who had fully participated in fostering the environment which led to the war.

France didn't have to get involved, so why say that German involvement was "the key"?  If Germany had declared war, and France stood out, then Russia would have said "I'm sorry, sir." and that would have ended it.  It didn't end with the Germans.  The French bear and much responsibility for escalating it.

France, according to her own contractual obligations, needed to get involved. And everybody knew that beforehand. If anything, it's Britain you want in that sentence. The Germans and Austrians did have hopes that Britain might sit out, and probably wouldn't have pushed for war as recklessly as they did if Britain's position had been clearer. Which it wasn't, incidentally, largely because the Brits feared that making their position clearer would motivate the French and Russians to be as grotesquely aggressive as the Germans (since they could then have felt reasonably secure of victory and/or Germany buckling in, and Britain's foremost aim was actually to prevent a war.)
Thing is, though - without one side under the control, or at least the massive influence, of nonresponsible childish idiots who want to play with tin soldiers made of flesh and have no grasp of what war is like, no war happens in 1914. (Of course, given the political setup of not only Germany but Russia as well, this looks like merely a matter of time. In a way. But if no war would have happened, historians would today refer the pre-1914 treaty system as the reason why no war happened.) And these individuals, in 1914, were the German minister of war and Austria's senile emperor.
This doesn't mean everybody else bears no responsibility at all, of course (not even France, even though I repeat that of the five countries mentioned theirs is the smallest share. It's all a matter of degrees though.) but it's nonetheless an important distinction.

Electing a government does not make a state a democracy. It also requires freedom and human rights.

So how do you define freedom?
"Freedom is not knowing what you're going to do today. Unfreedom is knowing what you're going to do." ?  ( (c) A.A. Milne. quoted from memory.)

[12th Doctor]

Depends what is meant by democracy, doesn't it? In any case these things were imposed by an unaccountable state, not by "the people".

While I can't claim to have any polling data to look at, I think its pretty clear that the majority of the German people supported it.  I can certainly say that there is polling data to suggest other instances discrimination have been, for time to time, supported by the masses, which is really the point I am making.

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Clearly neither of us are going anywhere with this arguement, so I propose we bury the "who bears the lions share of the burden for the war" line.  You are never going to convince me the German's had any more of a role than the other powers, and clearly I'm not gonna convince you.

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Of course you would say that, because you run off the base assumption that the rule of the people means fairness for all.  I say that unless checks are placed on how the majority can treat the minority, and how fast a people can move forward or back, then what will develop is a revolution/counter-revolution mess of a situation.

All you need to do is look at the French Revolution to see how democracy can go wrong.

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I'm well aware that the American Cause has supporters in England... Burke being one of the biggest.  Which brings me to your misinterpretation of what the American War for Independence was all about.  Burke, the grandfather of conservatism supported it because the crown had effectively erased the rights and institutions under which the American people were accustomed to living.  Had that not been the case, American independence would have had very view supporters either here, or abroad.  The American "Revolution" was not a revolution at all, as that word is understood, but rather it was an effort to regain that which had been promised and lost.

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Yes, and you are talking about the wrong thing.  You are talking about democracy as though it were liberty.

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I can post shocking pictures that have little to do with the context of the argument to, but then I would be using emotionalism to dodge real debate.

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Look what happened to the rest of Europe during that same time period, and the difference is clear.

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I don't know what you mean by "Jury Nobbling" is my point there.  Not only is it legal, but it is assumed to be implied by the notion of a fair trail.  If anyone on the jury knows too much about what might be the details of the case, then one can apply for a mistrial and those who do usually win.

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What if the majority supports silencing a certain group of idea, as is often the case, especially during war time?

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Not necessarily true.  And this goes back to my point about leaders who come to power by mass democratic popularity needing to maintain that popularity to stay in power.  Also, suppose someone really was that popular, would many people care if the election were fair or not.

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My point was that a democratically elected government need not respect any personal liberties if the majority opposed them.

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No implicitly, but not all cultures have the same respect for the individual as Western cultures do.  It's not that they are dictators, or drones, they just think differently than you or I, and to suddenly install a... say... Dutch style government in some places would be inviting disaster and collapse, since said government would be operating outside that culture's norms.

If your view that states must allow a,b,c,d,e and f to be truly democratic, than bringing democracy to those countries is quite simply impossible, no matter how well that government fits parliamentary procedures to the framework of their existing culture.

You are effectively discounting 2/3 of the world from ever participating in the democratic experiment.

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But democracy is the rule of the people, no?  Now, not only are you suggesting that 2/3 of the world can't be democratic, but you are also suggesting that democracy doesn't exist anyway.

Of course, I know this to not be the case, since for the 9th time, no government that depends on popularity from the people can ever stay in power if it loses that popularity by becoming unresponsive to the desires of the people.

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Its your term, not mine.  You seem to mean one that grants every liberty we expect in the west.  I say a democracy is "healthy" when it is sustainable and fits the expectations of the majority of that culture.

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In democracy, by definition, the will of the state is inseparable (at least, on a permanent basis) from the will of the people.  Remember what I said about Truman and ridding the tiger.  If a democratic government (which is not to say any one regime in particular) falls out of step with the desires of the people, then it ceases to be democratic.

Those terms are not at all confused in my mind.

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That's a nice, though.  It's also wrong.  Indeed, "oppression by the masses" is more common in the 20th century as a means of long term, sustained oppression, than oppression by the few.  Nazi Germany, the French Revolution, the Soviet Union (for at least the first 40 years), Communist China, Cambodia... all examples of a popular government that was supported by the masses which oppressed other groups of people.  It's hard to imagine today, but Stalin was insanely popular while he was alive.  Cambodia was an instance of the peasants slaughtering the landed and educated.  The French revolution is obvious, and it collapsed because the people willing handed power over to an insanely popular dictator who would "defend their rights".  Whether Hitler received a majority of the popular vote is insignificant.  The vast majority supported him when he won.

For that matter, what about Oliver Cromwell?

It occurs to me that you probably never read the Federalist Papers?  Even the American Founders had a clear notion of what the dictatorship of the majority looked like.  That's why they constructed the US government the way they did.

[12th Doctor]

You act as though "the State" is just this distant faceless entity that no one "down below" has anything to do with.  "If only the people had their way, there would be no oppression, no war, no intolerance."  Someone cue up John Lennon.

Its simply not true, and hasn't been in most parts of the world since the enlightenment.  No state, no matter how oppressive, can stand without at least the tacit support of the governed and this is especially true in a Democratic government, whatever form that government might.  People moan about the government, the corporation, etc... but they are just a reflection of who we are.  they would have no power but for us.  The government will never again be powerful enough to suppress all the people, in any country, unless they are willing to accept it.

Your notions of the governments relationship to the people is born of the 18th century, not the 21st.

And sure, you can point to Saddam Hussein and the like and say "Well, he stayed in power against the people's will."  But the amount of time the people hated him is dwarfed in comparison by the amount of time he was their hero.  And besides, the people still over-threw him, because they welcomed an outside power to come in and do it.

That brings me to a another point, and that being that in today's world, and really since the 1950's, you always have options in dealing with an unpopular leader.

[jokerman]

First time I've heard of this theory in formality, actually, though it seems a result of common sense anyway.

Perhaps it can be achieved, but I'm more along the lines of a united world democracy, accompanied by globalization fully running its course.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You act as though "the State" is just this distant faceless entity that no one "down below" has anything to do with.

Does it look like that? Damn. I'd explain my views on that issue in detail now, but I have to be on a train in about... er... half an hour... so... trying to explain this quickly might make things more confused, but I'll give it a go anyway. I said the State - writ large, and that's the key here. I mean all institutions (whether open or secret, in the public or private sector...) that follow a certain set of rules and which, collectively, rule/run a country. I don't mean the government, though the different elements of that are obviously at the core of the State.
I don't think that this is good or bad, it's just (in my opinion at least) a fact of modern societies.

More in a few hours.