Freeper Friday "If you are a democracy, you are less likely to start a war

..."

Thus spake the Freeper on what he called "the greatest thing going on in the world"--the Iraqi election.

We're a democracy and we started a war.

Freeper logic. An oxymoran.

thinks it's a shame that the NYT didn't have an editorial on the iRqaui electin. Noted that he was the 3rd caller to raise this objection. Hopes that the NYT will change some of its publishing.

The "I'm a Democrat" thing from callers has been used for a few years now. These people have been using this tactic for awhile, and some of us still fall for it.

We have been continuously involved i wars right from the beginning.

to start a war with another democracy. Democratic nations do not fight each other. They never have. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that Democracies do not start wars. In some cases we don't, because we have institutions that make leaders accountable for making certain decisions. That's what the ballot box is for. So in the light of public opinion leaders of democratic countries are less likely to go to war, unless they feel it will help them politically, I suppose.

They have them in Baghdad. Maybe they'll sell us some. :)

:)

Technically, we are more inclined to believe in institutions and more likely to solve our problems in a voting booth then on a battlefield. Western Democracies treat each other in that same manner. Yet when it comes to protecting certain interests or outright imperialistic ideas, us democracies don't mind screwing over the Nicaraguas and Guatemalas of the world. That's for sure. This current administration takes that concept to blatant and shameless levels.

they have to recognize the other state as a democracy also. Two democratic (small D) states will fight a war if they have differing levels of freedom and one doesn't recognize the other as a "real" democracy. Democratic states are quite willing to go to war against non-democratic states, or those they perceive as non-democratic.


FYI: there are a number of interesting books on this idea, including those that challenge it. One of the best (in my opinion) is Liberal Peace, Liberal War: American Politics and International Security (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs) by John M. Owen (2000). Here is the summary from Amazon..

Book Description
Liberal democracies very rarely fight wars against each other, even though they go to war just as often as other types of states do. (emphasis added} John M. Owen IV attributes this peculiar restraint to a synergy between liberal ideology and the institutions that exist within these states. Liberal elites identify their interests with those of their counterparts in foreign states, Owen contends. Free discussion and regular competitive elections allow the agitations of the elites in liberal democracies to shape foreign policy, especially during crises, by influencing governmental decision makers. Several previous analysts have offered theories to explain liberal peace, but they have not examined the state. This book explores the chain of events linking peace with democracies. Owen emphasizes that peace is constructed by democratic ideas, and should be understood as a strong tendency built upon historically contingent perceptions and institutions. He tests his theory against ten cases drawn from over a century of U.S. diplomatic history, beginning with the Jay Treaty in 1794 and ending with the Spanish-American War in 1898. A world full of liberal democracies would not necessarily be peaceful. Were illiberal states to disappear, Owen asserts, liberal states would have difficulty identifying one another, and would have less reason to remain at peace.--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

couldn't have said it better myself. Thanks for the book info.

It's also related, I think, to the "end of history" concept. The idea that the West has won the all-time ideological battle and that free-market capitalism and Democracy are the best ways to go. So no other ideals vie for the hearts and minds of the people of the world, other than Western Liberalism. Some states are currently "still in history" but it's just a matter of time until they get worked into the fold. The "end of history" brings the same idea of peace that the democratic-peace theorists say exists. The concept of the end of history comes from a German idealist philosopher named G.W.F. Hegel. (no relation to Chuck, I suppose :) ) He actually thought the end of history was coming when Napoleon was conquering most of Europe and thus, supposedly demonstrating the virtues of liberty and equality that stemmed from the French Revolution. However, the way the "end of history" is used now and with regards to the West, specifically the U.S., the idea is heavily associated with Francis Fukayama.

that 'democracies don't fight each other'. It is pretty meaningless.

It is not as if dictatorships just happen, without outside interference from 'democracies'. The USA has created and supported many dictatorships that have gone to war - Argentina and Iraq to name but two. It has also supported proxy wars by 'democracies' like Israel (against Lebanon - also a limited democracy)and South Africa against Mozambique and Angola, countries emerging from colonialism. Western countries are one of the main reasons that democracy is still such an threatened creature worldwide - support for democracy is always contingent on the bottom line not being threatened.

Also many democracies are undermined by other 'democracies': Nicaragua's democratic government was undermined by Raegan (a supposed democrat) and the same situation is being played out today in Venezuela by the 'democratic' USA.

Wars have nothing to do with the nature of a state but all to do with the need to accumulate capital and corner resources.

it's a fact that democracies don't wage war against each other. Whether that is dumb luck nobody knows exactly. They never have, ever, in history. Not even once. Limited democracies don't count. I mean actual democracies. Now democracies are definitely war-like, as you assert, but what you mention is different. Nicaragua, for example, had their democratic movement undermined because they were leftists during the Cold War, Reagan, couldn't allow a leftist movement to take hold - in his opinion anyway I believe he was wrong- and be successful for fear it would spread to other countries. So he supported the Contras. Now the leftist movement, who were called the Sandanistas, eventually lost power not in a military overthrow, but in 1990 at the ballot box. We are also not at war with Venezuela. You are right in saying democracies are war-like, but what I'm getting at is you have never seen say Canada and the U.S. fight a war against each other or say France or England either. It's a part of history that is known as the so-called Democratic Peace.

of war to the sort we used to have - international incident, diplomatic demands, declaration of war, you are right. But we don't have those sorts of wars any more very much.

You undermine your own point however by mentioning the Sandinistas. You should amend your dictum to the following:

'Democracies never fight each other unless the US finds a democratic government too leftist - then it will unleash an undeclared war of terror and subversion.'

Chile, Iran, Honduras and Nicaragua all fit this description. And as I say there are many undeclared wars going on right now where a supposed democracy, the USA, is undermining other democracies in Latin America and elsewhere. No doubt the US is planning such actions in every country where it feels its interests are threatened - hardly the basis for independent democratic development.

Your dictum, even while strictly accurate, is nonsensical in real terms.

what I am saying is not an opinion. I in no way undermine that by mentioning the Sandanistas. If you don't get it, I guess you just don't get it. Not much I can do about that. When you say that we don't have those kinds of wars very much anymore, that is exactly what I mean, that phenomenom came about at a time when democracies become prevalent after World War Two. There is nothing nonsensical about that. Now whether that has to do with democracy itself, free-markets and other multilateral institutions or a combo of them all or something else, nobody really knows. It may be too early to tell from a historical standpoint. Finding ancillary conflicts here and there does not take away from the central point, which you are dancing around, and that is Western-style democracies have never fought a war against each other. Don't try to outthink yourself, because that is the sole premise behind this type of thinking. It's a historical fact, that has evolved into a world peace type theory. Realists don't necessarily buy it because they believe the world is more anarchical and that it's probably a fluke. Social Constructivists are more likely to believe in the values and morality of it. Liberals, which is a wide foreign policy swath, may think that institutions play a part in the democratic peace. Neo-Conservatives believe in the ideology, at least the true ones do. That's one reason why we are in Iraq, because a guy like Wolfowitz is a true believer. Be wary of trying to pick at a central idea, because you miss the general point. Sure, everything isn't black and white, but ancillary concepts mean nothing in this sense to the overarching idea, which is irrefutable.

I understand what you are trying to say, I simply disagree with it as I've explained - 'democracies' attack and undermine each other all the time, apparently as a matter of course as I've pointed out using historical examples.

If you refuse to accept an undeclared war as war, it's not my problem.

refusing to accept anything. I never said what I believe or don't believe. There is nothing to disagree with really. It's just a theory based on the historical fact that no two democracies have fought a war with each other.

time. We've had nearly continuous bombing campaigns in the name of phony anti-commy or anti-drug or anti-this or anti-that since WWII all over the world.

of course we start wars and are war-like. But when was the last time we attacked Great Britain, Canada or France, for example? Or when was the last time any of those countries attacked another democracy? Has Germany since their democratic transition attacked another democracy? No they haven't. Nor have the democratic countries of Central and South America. Not other democracies anyway. It's not an opinion. It's a historical fact called the Democratic Peace, that's what I'm talking about.

.... how the imbeciles just accept any stupid-ass slogan they are fed - "they hate us for our freedoms" - who could actually believe such a ridiculous, childish, moronic statement?

Apparently, a lot of them do.

People who are stupid really are not smart enough to know they are stupid.

First they want do bomb the "islamofascists" into oblivion, nuke Fallujah, turn the desert into glass, kill those ragheads and steal their oil. Now all of a sudden they are calling the election the greatest thing in the world.
Will they still think democracy is great when the elected Iraqi government does what a majority of their constituents want: kick out the occupying forces?

He seems to be admitting that the U.S. is no longer a democracy.

let's hold a vote:

Who votes that we get our troops out of Iraq? National vote . . . paper ballots . . .

Greek historians noted that Athens, the wealthy democracy, was prone to going to war on the drop of a hat and often for the shallowest, stupidest, and vainest possible reasons once Persia evaporated as a threat after the battle of Plataea. It also used to extort and game its treaty alliance, the Delian League- there was never an unhappier alliance going. Sparta, on the the other hand, the militarist oligarchy, was the power in Greece slowest and most careful and most skeptical about going to war- and the most determined to win, once it did. And it didn't screw its allies over on a whim or out of opportunity (well, other than its hoplite class, that is).

Need I draw out the parallels?

Conservatives are so f-ing ignorant of history and the Bible it's always amazing. You'd think that would be something they know. After a while you realize all they really know is a magnified version of narcissism and a group mythology they subscribe to.

I would love to go over there and post your very simple truth.

But why even give them a hit?