In the Handmaid's Tale TV show, the US has turned into a repressive religious state horrifyingly cruel to women, and people will occasionally try to cross the border into Canada to safety.
As a Canadian, this is increasingly becoming my best case scenario. Hopefully we can maintain our independence, and many of the freedoms and judicial process the US is currently destroying, although there are some exceptions our govt drastically needs to address *
* the biggest example I expect Americans to bring up is gun control. Canada absolutely needs to revert to a logic and data based restriction approach rather than an emotional appeal over looks or otherwise. Unfortunately while 85% of the country supports some form of gun control, only one party is actively implementing it and doing it in the stupidest way possible. That being said, I expect Americans never to agree with gun control in any form, and that's OK and another reason of the many Canadians do not want to be part of the US.
* Canada has mirrored the US in restricting protests and collective bargaining in some cases, and needs to step back and seriously strengthen the laws protecting its people. At the same time, some protestors also need to understand the difference between protesting and terrorizing neighbourhoods...
and what would data tell why guns have to be restricted?
Some questions:
- what the fraction of gun crimes are commited by law-abiding citizens, which would be actually subject of restrictions?
- is number of casualties high compared to casualties from knife fights, over-doze, obesity, and car accidents because of speeding
Is there data for this question which would back restricting populations from having tools of self defense against tyrannic government(could happen in Canada too one day) and make it high priority for society compared to other problems?
No crime is ever committed by law abiding citizen, by definition. That being said, lawfully acquired guns are routinelly used in crimes.
Plus, they make gun owning men (specifically) much more successful at killing themselves.
Plus they cause accidents.
Guns are waay more likely to be used by tyrants supporters then by anybody else. Case in point, republicans support president dismantling democracy and own more guns.
The best take of the current US situation is still "NRA fails to live up to its only reason for existing and doesn't stand up to the tyrannical government"
It was clear they were full of shit when they didn't stand up for Kenneth Walker, which was the exact fucking night time home defense scenario they're always fantasizing about.
I mean its been obvious to many they're full of shit for decades, but that was the 'If anyone still thinks they aren't full of shit after this" line...
> lawfully acquired guns are routinelly used in crimes.
They are literally almost never used in crime. So “routinely” is false. In fact, I would guess that 99.9% of lawfully acquired guns in America are only ever used in lawful ways.
> Case in point, republicans support president dismantling democracy
Democracy is not being dismantled. If you’re an American citizen, you still have the right to vote however you want. You can still say what you want and publish what you want. You can protest if you are doing so in legal ways.
If anything, the end of massive censorship in social media, like was seen in the last 10-15 years, is helping democracy. Now you can actually share ideas freely and not get your content or account banned. And the elimination of wasteful spending of taxpayer money on political nonprofits is also helping democracy by not having the government bias politics through this loophole.
Plus the worry now is executive actively harming companies and opposition. Retaliating against companies, against law enforcement, breaking laws while doing both, attacking press and stomping on people's rights. Not some kind of flimsy complaint your account was banned after you harassed several people.
It absolutely depends on the type of crime. Domestic murders most often happen with 'legal' guns north and south of the border.
Other crimes, specifically 'aggravated' crimes that involve a weapon however lean the other way where guns are mostly 'illegal' in some way (stolen, smuggled, person doesn't have the right to have due to criminal record or otherwise depending on state/country).
Both domestic and aggravated crimes happen enough that you can justify the use of 'routinely' in both cases. Its ALSO completely true that most legally acquired guns are only ever used legally.
>Democracy is not being dismantled.
- Legal visa holders being deported for criticizing the government
- Foreign nationals invited to conferences in the US denied at the border for criticizing the government
- Government officials stating they will go against legal/judicial orders
- Executive over-reach specifically to remove checks and balances and ensure what remains of government agencies and its staff are loyal to the person, not the president or the country.
- Violating multiple laws, overstepping the bounds of the executive office specifically designed to protect democracy and assuming powers of the legislative and judicial branches
- Attacking Judges for implementing the law/doing their jobs as part of the above
- Professionally and personally threatening members of the legislative branch, state governors and others if they oppose the acts of the President.
Democracy and what democratic protections you have is absolutely being dismantled right in front of you.
>If anything, the end of massive censorship in social media, like was seen in the last 10-15 years, is helping democracy.
I just logged back into facebook after a few years haitus. The majority of what was on there was provably false / fake. Its worse than it ever has been. This is SUCH a benefit to democracy (hint, its not).
While I will agree there has been overreach on censorship, the pendulum swing the other way on top of the enshittification of the internet and the introduction of AI means the average citizen is now less informed and more propagandized than ever. Add in the failings of the US education system and the abysmal literacy rate...
An educated and informed population is bedrock of democracy, checks and balances are its framework. The US foundation has crumbled and its buildings are on fire.
Yes, a tyrant could take over, but the only credible threat Canada has had of that since the second world war has been our most powerful ally 'joking' about annexing us. A well-armed militia wouldn't really help to stop that given the difference in equipment and headcount between the Canadian military, and the US military.
If Canadians decide that Canada needs one, we should implement a method to drive enrollment in the the Canadian Army Reserves, or implement a home defense militia that folks could enroll and participate in with a guarantee that they couldn't be deployed outside of Canada (I was in our armed forces, and would not join a volunteer unit that could be deployed overseas, but would immediately sign up for one that was only legally allowed to be deployed domestically for defense).
As a Canadian, I'd love to see a resurgence of Cadets, Reserves and other methods of training civilians in proper gun use, self defence and methods to integrate with militias/military command in the event we need to domestically defend ourselves.
We are smack in the middle of 2 former enemies, which in their current trajectory will become allies while making us one of their new enemies... We need to have a serious national conversation about that.
I think your link doesn't have actual mass shootings number, my bet is that majority of fire arm homicides are commited by some small caliber hangguns (unlikely to be restricted) in domestic violence setting. Wikipedia says that massshooting casualties are only 0.2% of gun deaths in USA.
My point was really that American style gun rights are not popular in Canada, and the theoretical tyrannical government isn't an adequate justification.
You can argue the merits for or against, but more than 60% of Canadians support outright bans on firearms, and more than 80% support bans on 'assault' weapons.
This is not a hugely controversial topic in Canada; personally I support hunting, and recognize the utility of firearms as someone with a rural upbringing. I also support very strict gun controls and regulation, and I don't agree that there should be a right to bear arms - it's a privilege that should be earned, and well defended through testing and responsible ownership.
Its usually not hugely controversial, but there is that small minority here too...
Some points I feel compelled to make:
About 52% of URBAN voters support outright firearm bans but that number goes down when rural is added. I've always believed regulations for urban and rural environments should be different when it comes to firearms.
The vaguely defined "assault" weapons clarification always draws criticism so i'm going to avoid it. Personally I support banning fully automatic weapons, concealed/shortened shotguns, high capacity drum magazines, bump stocks and other items that exist to increase lethality in ways that cannot be justified for sport or hunting purposes. I also support restricting handguns, restricting magazine sizes, and other regulations. Most people that are against assault weapons I personally talk to agree the looks aren't the problem its the capabilities. Tacticool is fine, any gun being used for a crime will be scary. My point is that there is a lot that can and can't be included in 'assault' weapons, and everyone has their own list of what they do and don't think applies, so that 80% number isn't homogonized on what they are supporting.
We both 100% agree its a privilege that should be earned not a right. Testing and responsible ownership are requirements of keeping that privilege. Steps need to be taken to ensure that volatile domestic or mental health situations that are known to police and communities aren't left to fester with easy access to weapons. We also need to focus on illegal guns crossing our border from the south.
> Is there data for this question which would back restricting populations from having tools of self defense against tyrannic government(could happen in Canada too one day) and make it high priority for society compared to other problems?
The US has these tools and a dictator upending the country and yet these tools are not being utilized.
It’s a third, but also that’s not a criteria for “dictator” – the term refers to unchecked power, and while over time that tends to build resentment it’s not a given. This is especially true when they favor certain religious or ethnic groups where the beneficiaries like the dictator and everyone else does not.
Poll is an actual check, that his actions are aligned with what population wants from him. Laws and institutions are always not perfect, and all governments violated some rules.
>and what would data tell why guns have to be restricted?
We have banned, restricted, and unrestricted classifications. There are good arguments for fully automatic weapons, concealable shotguns and handguns being at least restricted, and for fully automatic and concealable weapons to be completely banned. I'm not going to rehash the arguments, because frankly we're likely going to disagree on most of them and neither of us are going to benefit from rehashing the debate. There are many arguments and viewpoints, but the salient fact is 85% of Canadians view the arguments and decide gun control under some logical framework is needed and support it, while Americans largely take the opposite side which can be traced to cultural and other differences between the countries.
That being said, the fact that the majority of non-domestic gun crimes are done with restricted/banned weapons that are being illegally imported from the states demonstrates a few things.
1. restricting access to those weapons is in fact the correct approach
2. internal restrictions need to be accompanied by stricter border enforcement due to the prevalence of guns and gun culture south of the border. Making it difficult to get legally needs to be superseded by making it incredibly difficult to get illegally first/foremost.
If anything good is coming from the current political nonsense, Canada's stepping up border protection has actually made Canada safer from US drugs and guns illegally crossing the border north, while having almost no impact on the traffic south as Canada Border agents don't stop or search traffic moving south without specific requests from US officials (something most Americans seem to misunderstand about border crossings)
>Is there data for this question which would back restricting populations from having tools of self defense against tyrannic government
Is there data comparing the known and predictable harms to a population having open and unrestricted access to weapons (see the impact of US social problems exacerbated by gun culture vs other countries) vs the concept that it would in fact help in 'self defense against a tyrannical govt'?
Frankly the 'standup against a tyrannical govt` argument has held little weight for decades as modern militaries and equipment vastly outclasses what any civilian can and will have even in the US. A proper democracy with checks and balances will serve far better than any number of civilians with military purpose weaponry, in fact the argument more so applies to a strengthened education and judicial system to ensure tyrants can't bloviate their way into power and remove all checks and balances.
>unless military decides to level all cities in the country.
See Gaza, most of eastern Ukraine. The existence of armoured equipment, air support, satellite monitoring and encrypted/EW resistant communications means civilian resistance is all but irrelevant.
Civilians co-operating with an organized, funded and supplied military is one thing, but on their own its a laughable concept at best.
> See Gaza, most of eastern Ukraine. The existence of armoured equipment,... means civilian resistance is all but irrelevant.
I cannot say anything about Gaza.
But I live in Kyiv, Ukraine, and I have lot of talks with civilian resistance, from about 2012 (yes, Euro-2012 significant).
And I could say, map of occupied Ukrainian territory is very close to map of least pro-Ukrainian civilian activity.
I could state exactly - territory where pro-Ukrainian civilian activity (mostly in form of various Non-Government Organizations), was high before war, stay under control of Ukrainian government, but territory where previous power just physically destroyed civilian activity was lost.
Exceptions are Kharkiv and Odessa, where anti-Ukrainian Organizations was very powerful, but they appear very early and pro-Ukrainian forces successfully neutralized them.
What I mean saying about physically destroyed civilian activity, for example The deportation of the Crimean Tatars.
In Ukraine, militia with rifles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_Defence_Forces_(Uk...) dug into the ground and stopped invasion of 1M army with thousands of armored vehicles, absolute superiority in artillery, airforces, tactical missiles and 100B annual budget.
In Gaza, Israel with all tech advantages struggles to efficiently police relatively small urban area for 70 years already.
Yes the Territorial Defence forces in Ukraine, an example of government backed reserves/semi-trained forces with equipment far beyond the oversimplification of "rifles".
Actual untrained civilian forces with nothing but rifles on their own made little impact to the speed of russian advances however, which after multiple defeats and setbacks led to the formation of that defence force.
Gaza is a whole can of worms in many ways, but its a shining example of a civilian group with access to arms being completely unable to stop a superior local force from driving over them multiple times when they have the desire and political backing.
Which is exactly the point. A bunch of untrained sport shooters and hunters with more guns than they can personally use at once and no supply lines for ammunition or anything else aren't going to stand for any length of time against an organized military, especially on the military's home soil.
More realistic scenarios in any case are full civil war and the military itself splitting and civilians join sides as reserve forces to back them. in which case civilians having blanket access to arms before hand doesn't have any significant bearing on.
All of this is hypothetical, and ultimately comes down to the argument for unrestricted access to guns being 'so we can stand up to a tyrannical government' falls short. You are welcome to disagree, and that's OK with me. My country is largely in line with my sentiment and sees gun ownership as a privilege not a right, one that comes with restrictions balancing the safety of our society. You do you, we will do us.
> Territorial Defence forces in Ukraine, an example of government backed reserves/semi-trained forces with equipment far beyond the oversimplification of "rifles".
I don't think this is true. They were formed at the day of invasion (or few days before) with those who voluntarily enlisted(very many people), they received some old AK with bullets, and then moved to frontline to dig tranches, and that's what stopped advancements, because it is still extremely difficult to clear infantry which dug into the ground.
> A bunch of untrained sport shooters and hunters
A bunch is not, but in US number of gun owners is not "a bunch".
> but its a shining example of a civilian group with access to arms being completely unable to stop a superior local force from driving over them multiple times when they have the desire and political backing.
Sure, superior in tech and numbers force can "run over" aka walk on the streets, while being regularly shot from the windows in urban area, and it was with 5x superiority in population. Now imagine dictator tries with say 100k loyalists establish his rule in country with 350M population?
>I don't think this is true. They were formed at the day of invasion (or few days before) with those who voluntarily enlisted(very many people), they received some old AK with bullets, and then moved to frontline to dig tranches, and that's what stopped advancements, because it is still extremely difficult to clear infantry which dug into the ground.
Read your own wiki link I guess? There was multiple losses before the formation of the reserve defence force. There was also a high element of public participation in training and military force before hand. At no point did a bunch of untrained and unorganized civilians with only rifles significantly hold back the russian advance on their own, however partially trained armed and organized reserve forces did.
>say 100k loyalists establish his rule in country with 350M population?
More like 70 million+ loyalists in the country including the majority of the military which upends the point you are trying to make completely.
> a bunch of untrained and unorganized civilians with only rifles significantly hold back the russian advance on their own
I didn't say anything like that, though many were untrained and with only rifles. I said that in urban environment it is still soldier on foot is deciding factor, and in Ukraine freshly enlisted territorial defense units dug into the ground and stopped invasion.
> More like 70 million+ loyalists
70M is a civil war setting, but we are discussing setting of dictator + loyalists military vs population.
We're talking about the average citizen with a rifle and no training against a dictator/tyrant.
In Ukraines case, that civilian group was not initially effective at stopping the attack, but your example of the defence force is an example of a supported reserve force digging in backed by logistics and support from a military/country.
Those are 2 different things. My contention is that unrestricted access to arms doesn't in any way turn an untrained populace into a reserve force.
You're attempt to frame it as "dictator + small loyalist military" as well as focusing solely on urban settings are a fun hypotheticals, but that's all they are. The reality is that actions like that in a developed nation result in an almost certain war if external or fracturing of countries internally in any real scenario with civilians supporting militaries/militias on the various sides.
There is no reasonable assumption that unrestricted access to arms will stop a tyrant from destroying the country and tossing it into some form of civil war. The accompanying fact those people aren't trained, organized, or supported by logistics is the fundamental reason why they will fail to be effective. (I could also digress into the well organized militia and if we want to get all originalist about the interpretation but this has been unproductive enough)
What we are really discussing is whether gun regulations make sense. Extreme edge cases like your hypotheticals fail to make a convincing argument they are a negative for society, especially when contrasted against the harms lack of regulations has been shown to cause society.
my observation is that they were not reserve. They were patriotic citizens who voluntarily enlisted at the day of invasion. Gun ownership and hence training was much lower in Ukraine compared to US. And wiki says about the same: they were some semi-organized units before invasion, and during invasion 100k people volunteered and joined them, and they were absorbed by army.
> Actual untrained civilian forces with nothing but rifles
This is myth. Ukrainian war began in 2014 and all adequate Ukrainians learned books about war or have some training, and this was very respectful form of pastime.
Plus, many Ukrainians just served in military from 2014 consciously, this was great patriotic boom.
To be honest, I think, if Ukrainian science and education was reformed before war 2022, we would be much better prepared and would not lost additional territories. But unfortunately, we hear from our governments constant "don't critic us, or Putin will attack", and this is hard to broke circle.
My point is untrained, inexperienced and under-equipped civilians have little chance against a military.
Once you start giving them training, organizing and arming them with a logistics arm backing them the discussion completely changes.
Ukraine is an example of reserve/partially trained and backed forces being able to make a significant difference, but its also an example of how unorganized civilian resistance on its own has little to no impact on a modern military.
Mostly agree. Ukraine lost territories mostly before 2022, because population there was mostly anti-Ukrainian (what interest me, many refugees from Ukrainian east, become more pro-Ukrainian than people in center of country, where nearly not seen occupation).
I would be agree about non-trained people before 2014, but from 2014 we have even experience of self-defense, because in February 2014 government just not paid money to militia (soviet analogue for police), and they just avoid to maintain law.
2014 was not full-scale war in standard understanding, it was more like war against terrorists, but it was very serious, with many cases of terrorists used military weapons and military equipment.
Many people participated in self-defense after 2014 joined military, others participated in trainings, and yes, businesses and civilians supported these trainings, and government don't resisted.
So, on 2022, really many people on territory controlled by government have participated in trainings and even was experienced in real battles.
Mariupol, and other cities now occupied (after 2022), because there was anti-Ukrainian population and they believed will live better under Russia.
Also few border cities occupied (Kherson, Energodar, where Nuclear Power Plant placed), because Ukrainian military avoid to conduct serious city battles, to avoid huge civilian casualties.
And I must admit, Ukrainian military before approx Summer 2023, suffered from shortage of heavy weapons and air support, but now forces are nearly balanced. BTW what also interesting, huge part of Ukrainian weapons used on zero are now FPV drones made in Ukraine.
This is already happening. Canada is starting to accept Americans on refugee status. I have multiple US friends or acquaintances applying for Canadian Visas or Citizenship as either an active plan or as a contingency. A cousin of mine who is a Can/US immigration lawyer is absolutely swamped right now.
I think this idealism/naiveness is why you're now sliding further and further away from democracy. Older countries already had their democracies stress-tested, but seemingly this is the biggest test so far for the "checks and balances" in the US, and I feel like many other countries learned to always live with idea that democracy can slip away really quickly unless you always pay attention.
Americans, and actually young folks worldwide, don't value democracy anymore. There's an episode of Radiolab or This American Life that dives into the results of a worldwide survey.
It's deeply concerning. Essentially, people don't care about democracy because they've grown up in it.
It's one of those "My father rode a camel, I drive a land Rover, my son will drive a land Rover, his son will ride a camel" type stuff.
On top of that, Americans truly believe we are different. We don't have to follow the rules that other nations do because we have manifest destiny. This prevalent all throughout American culture. You'll notice it when you start to look for it. "You can count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they've tried everything else." Americans are stubborn.
Full franchise democracy in the US is arguably younger than living memory. So are a lot of things we take for granted as civil rights (and some of powers that be seem determined to roll those back).
But even assuming the premise, it’s not hard to see how generations who’ve enjoyed a privilege might be more likely to take it for granted than societies that have more recently gained it, and are within living memory of fascism in power (or in neighboring states).
Civil rights is orthogonal to democracy. Creating a democratic country like the U.S. is the real achievement. Most countries never come close to accomplishing that.
Fun fact: The US isn't counted as a "Full Democracy" by that index, so seems it's not as a great of an achievement as you seem to think. I'm looking forward to see how the ranking of the US changes in 2025, seems to be slipping downwards rather than upwards sadly.
> However, the political and structural problems that caused the US to be downgraded to a “flawed democracy” in 2016 (a downgrade that pre-dated the inauguration of Donald Trump as president in January 2017) persist. These include low levels of trust in political institutions and the media; institutional gridlock; excessive influence of lobbyists, interest groups and the mega-rich; sharp economic and social inequalities; and an absence of social consensus on core national values.
Sorry, but why exactly should we care about what some random score that some people invented and named Democracy Index says? It’s not like there is some universal agreement that maximizing the score in these people’s quiz is good or proper.
At least they provide justification and reasoning behind the numbers they assign, they're not throwing darts to see what to score things. Read through the report yourself, then come back if there are specific things you disagree with. Or maybe even better, find some better research and link it here.
Just saying "USA is the most democratic country in the world" feels like worse than at least trying to look at things objectively.
I didn’t say the U.S. was the most democratic country in the world—I wasn’t comparing the U.S. to Norway or Denmark. But the U.S. achieved in the 18th century something that Germany, France, Spain, etc., didn’t achieve until the mid-20th century. That’s an achievement.
And the lack of universal suffrage back in the day doesn’t diminish America’s achievement. India and Bangladesh and Iraq and many places have universal suffrage but they’re not as democratic as the U.S. was in 1789. Getting to that point is the 0 to 1 of democracy. Expanding the franchise from there is incremental development.
This index unironically puts countries that practice government censorship in the category of full democracies. Sorry but this isn't a democracy index - it's just a progressive index.
The founding of the US is absolutely a remarkable achievement. A group of colonies successfully broke from global imperial power to successfully establish a society heavily influenced by the best enlightenment thinking and classical civil philosophy. It's really something. Looking at some populist reactionary movements that happened in the early 19th century, one wonders if the outcome could have been as good as the US constitution even 30 years later.
That said:
* it existed in a historic and cultural context of states that had already made significant movements in that direction -- it was a big leap, but it wasn't simple 0-1. More like a 0.4 with a lot of the relevant ideals and institutions (elections, representation, courts, legislative bodies, executive authority, rule of law , etc) fairly well developed and demonstrated in various ways pulled together into a coherent 0.75 and woven in with enlightenment ideals as expressed in documents like the declaration of independence.
* There is at least a partial linear dependence between civil rights and democracy. The franchise relationship is where it's strongest. Democracy is effective, principled, & honored ballot access. Without any effective franchise what you have instead is an opinion poll. And mere fractional access to the franchise walks elections & representation down from "1" -- it is literally the coefficient you have to multiple a "1" democracy by in order to arrive at its effective democratic nature.
That's just the start, though. It's a bit like that old Churchill/Shaw/Twain/whoever story where Clever Guy™ is having a conversation with a woman:
“Would you sleep with a stranger if he paid you £1,000,000?”
“Yes.”
“And if he paid you £5?”
“£5? What do you think I am?”
“We’ve already established that, now we're just haggling over the price.”
Ha-ha! A country without a universal franchise has already established that some people don't get a democratic say, it's just haggling over who those people are. And that means it can haggle over whether you get to be one of those people. And even eventually over whether anyone gets to be one of those people, over whether it is democratic at all.
This generalizes to other rights. In order to have them guaranteed to anyone, they must be guaranteed to everyone. It's why constitutional guarantees tend to be features of constitutional representative democracies since the enlightenment, imperfect leap though the US is.
The big question is if the US (among others) can finish climbing the ladder when the political headwinds seem to be against "guaranteed to everyone."
> A country without a universal franchise has already established that some people don't get a democratic say, it's just haggling over who those people are. And that means it can haggle over whether you get to be one of those people. And even eventually over whether anyone gets to be one of those people, over whether it is democratic at all.
I don't think that inductive reasoning works. Every country excludes lots of people from the franchise. The U.S. has almost 100 million people who aren't eligible to vote, mostly young people and non-citizens. No country has a truly universal franchise. Under your reasoning, that's unstable--if we can take away the franchise from 17 year olds, we can take away the franchise from 18 year olds, etc.
Historically, the big democratic jumps were probably extending the franchise to prominent family heads voting, followed by landowning males.
"Young people" or other age limits are a dramatically distinctive case because the considerations involved are universal, cross-cutting and temporary. Age-based standards can't be used to create systematic outgroups. They bind and protect everyone equally in the ultimate and most practical sense because (a) everyone grows into enfranchisement (b) no one has it until they do. Which gives everyone an equal stake in what the specific age limit is too.
Contrast that with sex, religion, ethnicity, origin, asset ownership etc and the real question is why anyone would accept that they're truly comparable.
Citizenship may be the only truly stickier corner case. Largely because international relations will sometimes produce reasons to limit it more tightly or extend it more freely by broad categories such as national origin. But even here (a) most countries recognize that is often only one of several important judgements in a wise process (b) it's possible to review the equitability of citizenship qualifications: can they be met by anyone by way of objective assessment of investment in society and respect for acceptable participation?
I guess I'd ask you to define "democracy" first, as for me it would at least include that all citizens are allowed and realistically can vote. It took until 1920 for women to be able to vote, and it wasn't until 1965 every citizen realistically could vote. I don't think in that case it would come close to being the "oldest country with a continuously running democracy".
The world has many old countries. Most of the world’s most democratic states are constitutional monarchies, with centuries of history of not being a settler colony like the US.
How do you reconcile your comment with the fact that the US in the democracy index (from The Economist) is a flawed democracy, and considerably less democratic than a whole bunch of monarchies.
I don't think these ideas need to be reconciled, because there's no conflict between something having existed for a long time and it not continuing to exist. The Roman Republic had existed for over 450 years when Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon.
Well we've only been a true "liberal democracy" for the past sixty years or so. Before that we were a de-facto apartheid state. Maybe at a stretch you could say 105 years if you go by the 19th amendment. And frankly i'm still skittish to call America pre-Trump a democracy with my full chest given the electoral college, completely bonkers division of the country into states, the senate, complete lack of a right to vote, our continual human rights abuses in terms of poverty and imprisonment/executions, etc etc.
I'm just saying there's literally dozens and dozens of countries with far more obvious realization of democratic ideals than we've ever managed to figure out, and at this point our age and blind devotion to dead assholes ("founding fathers") are major barriers to any sort of movement forward.
It's history: if a person doesn't grade on a curve, every page of the textbook looks the same (ie: people being jerks).
In order to deny that England, America, and France spearheaded the modern democratic system (albeit inspired by Ancient Greece), a person needs to explain who did?
> In order to deny that England, America, and France spearheaded the modern democratic system
That doesn't mean these governments make any political sense as a democracy today relative to the status quo. Hell, Britain is probably the only government on earth more dysfunctional than America's. At least France refreshed relatively recently; what the hell is Britain's excuse? Even North Korea and Eritrea seem to maintain more dignity internationally than any of the three of us and they barely even attempt to come across as "democratic".
I don't believe any of the founders believed they were creating a "true democracy," or even that it would be desirable. Read Federalist Number 10. The modern fetishism of democracy will lead bad places.
Yes, pretty much all claims of democracy come from the 20th century. I hardly think we were a more functional country at the time, though—it's only through the miracle of rampant exploitation we didn't all just immediately start killing each other. Thank god for the civil war to kick us to continue booting up a democracy.
One day we'll finish the job, I swear. Pinky-promise.
You'd have to do some contortions on the current definition of "democracy" for that to be true. For most of it's history, not everyone could vote, and if that's your bar then democracy in the US is... returning to it's roots.
We're sliding away from democracy because nobody seems to genuinely care about democracy anyone. People want a dictatorship that they agree with. It's not like DOGE was something Trump was hiding. On the left, you don't exactly see anyone applauding the Democrats for not packing the Supreme Court or the relative productivity of the 117th Congress either.
It's pretty wild. I'm someone who thinks that disasters and existential threats are seriously underrated by most people, but even still a decade ago I would have put the odds of a major US collapse in my lifetime at a low very number. Now though? I wouldn't even be surprised.
And in Cyperpunk 2077, the EU rearms and asserts is power, resulting in the euro becoming the world’s currency and the US being broken into multiple competing city-states and regional governments. Also everything is ruled by corporations. We’re not on the fun timeline :(
Phoenix and Las Vegas are already major metropolitan areas. With enough money invested in desalination (expensive, but cheaper than migrating a whole country) it's doubtful that any part of the US will be rendered uninhabitable.
Also Snow Crash, the US consisting of many large, corpo-owned city states (also being discussed in the current news with techbros trying to start up their own self-regulated cities).
Little touches like those names, and General Jim's Defense System, and Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates (featuring Elvis in its pantheon!) help make Stephenson's novels magical
I think "annexing" Canada seems a bit ludicrous still. I have no doubt Trump wants to expand, but I suspect such expansion would be deeply unpopular in a country proud, seemingly for the grace of simply not being the US (as, let's be honest, Canada is far more similar to the US than it is to any other country in north america).
Comments like yours sound eerily similar to Ukraine pre 2014 (and even 2022!). Back then the idea of a full-scale invasion was regarded as ludicrous as well.
Most countries in north america are more similar to each other than they are to the US or Canada, yes. That is precisely what I am saying. Canada is basically the colony that didn't bother.
1. In the Fallout universe, the USA annexes Canada
2. In at least two Neal Stephenson novels (Snowcrash and Termination Shock), the USA has collapsed.
I've never before thought that either of these would have a semi-realistic path to actually happening.