Hey Walter,

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>>>It's a little surreal to read that democracy flowed from the U.S. to Europe instead of the other way around. Our system was modeled largely on European governments and ideas -- the English Bill of Rights, the French Enlightenment, etc. Apparently you are referring to our role in WW II. While no one can shortchange that, it's not like we did it alone. The English and French, among others, were fighting the Germans for two years before we showed up. And it's questionable whether the war would have been won without the Russians. It truly was a group victory and it's a little arrogant for one of the allies to claim they did it alone.
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>>Perhaps I didn't explain it well. Then again, whenever I argue with Walter it tends not to be a deep history or philosophy lesson :-)
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>>Here's the whole poop as I see it: The American democracy was based on what the Founders perceived was correct about civil rights in England and the antithesis of what they saw was wrong. There certainly was a strong influence of French philosophers but, at the time, that was all theory in France and not enacted. The French Revolution, which put some of those theories into practice, came at the end of the American Revolution. And yet still at first opportunity they put a dictator as liege, Napoleon, so the lesson wasn't learned quite yet.
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>There is no doubt that the founding fathers did have the opportunity to make a fresh start and did things well even though they did not talk about it as democracy.
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>>It wasn't WW2 I was referring to, it was the cumulative effect of both wars. WW1 beat the monarchists senseless, WW2 killed them dead. In both cases, the rebuilt countries looked to America as an example of how to govern for the people and by the people. What other example was there?
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>You're misinformed. First, there are still a dozen monarchies. Second democracies already where here before those wars. The fact is that it just only takes one nutcase in a powerful country to start a global war accross the continent, despite democratic forces in the majority of them. After the nazies were beaten, democracy was forced upon the aggressor by the allied forces. How great the influence of the american democracy is, I can't tell, but since there is a wide variation of implementation of the democracies, I don't think anyone took the american implementation of democracy as the blueprint to implement in germany.
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>>So I believe that there is a strong case for America being the inspiration for liberal democracy in Europe. And that's why I don't brook criticism on what democracy is from someone who's father professed fealty to Queen Wilhelmina 60 years ago when 200 years ago my ancestors could tell the federal government to go to hell. Feel free to disagree.
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>owww.. First of all, we have a had parlementarian monarchy long beofre Wilhelmina, which essentially means that her power is limited. The responsiblity lies on the shoulders of the minsters. It is not a dictatorship. And even your ancestors had to follow the laws that were forced upon them by your government. You're implying a huge difference between the two while it in fact does not exist.
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>I'd really advise you to deepen yourself into the political history of europe before making the assumptions you make above. Things are very complex, certainly not as straight and simple as you imply. Remember that europe still exists out of many different countries with their own political systems. It is far more complex than that of the US.

I agree with almost everything you said, except I like to believe that I have a decent working knowledge of European political history - heh.

As far as democracy versus republicanism in the early USA, read the Federalist Papers (all online) for more information on what they thought at the time.

There *was* democracy of a sort in Europe prior to both wars but it was very fragile. In countries like Britain, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Greece, Russia, Denmark, etc. if was a "soft" revolution where a parliamentary body with a prime minister gained more and more power from the monarchy, relegating the monarch to a figurehead. In countries like Germany, after WWI, it was imposed (the Weimar republic). A lot of those countries came under dictatorships, becoming failed democracies, during the interwar period. Spain - France. Greece - Metaxas. Italy - Mussolini. Finland - Mannerheim. Germany - Hitler. Russia - Lenin. Romania - Antonescu.

None of these democracies or failed democracies had the slightest political influence on the US. Generally speaking, Americans and the American media during that time held Europe in contempt. Europe was considered "old school" and we were the one's who knew how it should be done....as far as US opinion went.

That's why I say that Europe has been on the receiving end of far more political theory from here than the opposite.