Hey Walter,

I think I answered all of this in my last reply. But one point I'd like to add: The rise of tyrants in the interwar period in Europe, like Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, Metaxas, etc. exposed the flaws in European democracy at the time. After the war, a lot of countries in Europe tweaked their laws and structure to be closer to the American (or British) structure. After all, we've never had a dictator and our laws and structure would make it almost impossible to pull off.

>>>I've written a full reply rebulking all of these points as I have done in the past, but I thought that would lead to nowhere. Instead I wan't to ask you the question: What if my answer was written by a Canadian or fellow American???
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>>Good question. I don't know the answer.
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>What do you mean?? I just want to know what you have answered if I was not living in europe, but have given you the same reply. There reason I ask is that you distract from the issue in ranting about europe, while my post is about comparing the US with other western countries (so including Canada, Japan) that are not part of the EU. If you would have answered differently in that case, how would that classify your arguments?
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>> I truly believe that the Western democracies came to be because we set the example for them. Before that there were tyrants and lords in Europe. It'sa that simple. Am I wrong?
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>Quite oversimplified if you ask me. As shown in WWII it only took one tyrant to start a whole world war. Many other countries already had democracies implemented and there implementation process of democracy was not near as simple as you describe here. It was not the US even triggering this or acting as the enlightened example (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy).
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>The turning points indeed were WWI and WWII. but there already were democratic processes before the start of WWI in europe. It was a painfull process not only throughout europe, but all parts of the world as well. In another post you refer to monarchies, but i think you're wrong on that: There are still a dozen monarchies arround here (e.g. England and the netherlands) but they are mostly cerimonial.
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>After two world wars and the devestation of europe the allied forces did decide to install districts and a voting system in Germany to avoid this happening again. Many other countries followed the ongoing process. But there were still dictatorships, of which Spain was a good example. But overall people and governments realised that we should protect eachother for another devestating war on the european continent.
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>Walter,