You can fool some of the people, all of the time

Re:You can fool some of the people, all of the time by Retric on Thursday November 07, 2019 @08:53AM (#21473136)

Historically, monarchy’s seem to be more stable and result in less open warfare (civil wars). The US did not even last 90 years before the first civil war. A rather large number of democracies have fallen and been replaced with dictatorship.

Democracies have other benefits, but stability does not seem to be one of them.

PS: I am ignoring assassinations and power struggles as we have lost 4 sitting US presidents without it being considered a civil war.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:You can fool some of the people, all of the time by pnutjam on Thursday November 07, 2019 @09:55AM (#21473685)

You could make a good argument that the South was not a democracy and the civil war was an overthrow of their aristocracy; not a war between two Democracies.

Just look at the Constitutions of pre-civil war Southern states. https://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/suppressedbooka0...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:You can fool some of the people, all of the time by Retric on Thursday November 07, 2019 @01:05PM (#21475601)

Interesting perspective. Some people arguable if the US is currently a democracy with for example the 4+ million people in DC and the territories effectively lacking the vote.

IMO, what defines a democracy is large segments of the population having a meaningful vote rather than requiring some ideal implementation.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:You can fool some of the people, all of the time by nfg on Thursday November 07, 2019 @09:18AM (#21473355)

> Historically, monarchy’s seem to be more stable and result in less open warfare.

How did you come to that conclusion? It seems like ahistorical nonsense to me.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:You can fool some of the people, all of the time by patentatt on Thursday November 07, 2019 @09:35AM (#21473513)

Well the history of democracy is very short compared to monarchy. Let’s check back in on this in a few thousand years to see how both fare.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:You can fool some of the people, all of the time by Retric on Thursday November 07, 2019 @10:15AM (#21473877)

Plenty of research supports this, for example this trying to find why so many new democracies result in civil wars:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/20752195?seq=1#page_scan_tab_co...

By comparison England lasted from 886 to 1642 without open civil war. At the extreme Harappan civilization seems to have lasted 2,000 years without an open civil war or really any major wars.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:You can fool some of the people, all of the time by gamblor956 on Thursday November 07, 2019 @11:09AM (#21474436)

Except for the Hundred Year War, the War of the Roses, and the many other smaller English civil wars.

But yes, if you exclude all the civil wars then England had no civil wars during that time period.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:You can fool some of the people, all of the time by Retric on Thursday November 07, 2019 @12:20PM (#21475095)

It’s a common terminology: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_succession#Terminolog...

Hundred Year War is hardly a civil war existing as it did between multiple countries.

Smaller conflicts like Buckingham's rebellion are excluded much the same ways as I ignored most of these: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rebellions_in_the_Un.... Along with a host of unmentioned smaller slave revolts.

The War of the Roses was is arguable if it’s a civil war. I and many others disagree (see above Wikipedia link).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:You can fool some of the people, all of the time by paulryanrogers on Thursday November 07, 2019 @08:57AM (#21473179)

Many suffer silently under monarchy's. And democracies require an educated and relatively honest, or homogenous society to function. If people can't agree on fundamentals--even to disagree peacefully--then there's no hope.

[ Parent | on HN ]