Aliens and Seditions, Sedition Act of 1918, then more recently we had things such as cointelpro.

So they've happened here before.

Why do you alway exagerate what someone says??? I never said that. Mine was a general statement. But it did referr to the present tendency of our government to leave the constitutrion behind. Check out the last two bills nearly ready for signing. as for the latter portion of my statement about how well we are doing. are you aware that Bagdad has litterally been shut down but the present so-called government??

what about germany and japan ?

kind of confused on that one there

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Hardcore Conservative !

I said Conservative not necessarly Republican or Democrat. Liberals are in both of those parties.

Germany was a democracy even before WW2.
It was in elections how Hitler came into power.

Japan is an intersting case.

Japanese however do have a tendency for submissive behaviour.
Japanese women are quite submissive to their husbands and japanese men are quite submissive to the company they work for and for strict hierarchy between the boss and worker.

So if it works anywhere it is going to be Japan.

So even if a miracle happens once, it would be foolish to expect it to happen every time.

Germany was already a nation with strong European secular institutions that are the root of modern democracy. Hitler himself was voted in. Germany was also a white christian culture and had a capitalist economy.

Japan is a little different, and is certainly more an example of bringing democracy to a nation. Most importantly Japan was a homogeneous culture with a long continuous cultural and geographic history.

Iraq is not a real country. Its borders were formed by British and French colonialists for the purposes of the colonialists. Iraq is also a sectarian society with three very large religious groups with histories that have nothing to do with the country of Iraq. Kurds and Shiites both sit on large oilfields, Sunnis do not. A government controlled by shiites and backed up by america is simply not going to lead to the type of democracy we see in Japan.

Germany being essentially secular,classically liberal, and culturally similar to Europe and NA, i dont consider it all to be an example of bringing democracy to a nation. That was already their way, it was Russia in east germany that was going against the natural grain and was not able to bring totalitarian communism to a nation more predisposed to liberal democracy.

It does seem to have worked in Japan for whatever reason, but Iraq and Japan are two different nation with radically different cultures and radically different histories. Victory in one does not automatically translate into victory for the other. (one glaring difference is that the japanes did not have a long history of being subjugated and stepped on by the west, arabs do)

Besides, the post WWII era in america was not run by sycophants, imbeciles, and infantile intellectuals. Had the post WWII era had the same low quality of leadership america now displays, i have no doubt it would have been a complete disaster.

Andrew

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Ethanol is a fabulous solution to our energy dilemma because it will provide more fuel for us to drive around and look for food.

-- Unknown

Hitler was not voted into office. He (his party) never rechead the majority (50%) at any election. He was appionted by Hindenburg (Reichspräsident) as Reischkanzler after almost every other Majoy politcal Power (except Communists) held the office and failed. At the end (short before his appointment) the Chancelors were only in office for a few weeks before they had to resign or were fired by Hindenburg.

Even after his appointment in the last election he was not able to get 50% although use of the SS and SA to thread voters and members of other Parties.

Okay, sorry, but the main point was that there were elections before WW2, right?

Would you say that Stephen Harper is not the democratically elected leader in Canada because his conservative party only got 36.25% of the vote? Canada does not have a majority government, but everybody in Canada feels that Stephen Harper is our democraticlaly elected leader...


Andrew

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Ethanol is a fabulous solution to our energy dilemma because it will provide more fuel for us to drive around and look for food.

-- Unknown

the difference is that there was not an election that resulted in him being brought into office but he was simply Appointed. At this time the Reichspräsident could appoint any member of the Parlament as the Chancelor no matter how many seats his Party got.

Because of this the last Goverments of the Weimar Republic (before 1933) were not govern through the parlament. All laws and decision were madde through use of of article 49 of the weimar constitution which allows the goverment to bypass both chambers of the parlament in cases of ermegency.

Ah better example (with canada) would be if a Reichpräsident (just using him here as a example since you dont really have something similar) would fire Harper and appoint someone complete Else as Prime Minister. Further this Prime Minister could ignore the Parlament simply Rule by Executive Orders.

@jmo: Yes before its Fall the Weimar Republic was a Democraty (they were just not very got at it)

I see what you are saying. Would it be fair for me to say that Hitler was put in a position to be appointed by the Chancellor via the democratic process?

I guess what i am saying is that Hitler did not just form a rebellion and topple the government and appoint himself as Führer. He was in that position through being elected to lead his party, and through campaigning, through beer hall speeches, and through the electorate, through popular support.

In iraq we had a stalinist authoritarian dictator in a country that had no history with democratic liberalism, and the institution that made it strong. For me this is one of the reasons why post war germany was succesful, and why the same thing will not work in iraq, at least not in the near future, and not as long as they use religion to rule their political lives.

Andrew

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Ethanol is a fabulous solution to our energy dilemma because it will provide more fuel for us to drive around and look for food.

-- Unknown

He used the democratic system to get into a powerful position (there you are right), but was never able to actually grasp power through it. At the time of he was appointed his party was already losing ground in the election (which came almost monthly)

It also true that in Germany after WWII still democratic rootes could be found to base the enw democratie on (there you are right too).

In my opionen it is just a rather big difference between bing voted into office, or being appointed.

(oh and btw: he did form a rebellion and tried to toplle the government but failed badly at munich 23, but i guess you know that already).