Will Democracy Survive Until 2100?

Travis said:
I'm really trying to think of any rally of Communists and Anarchists that approached the Rally to Restore Honor in size or media coverage.
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The stop-the-war stuff that they did between 2001 and 2003? The Seattle riots? The anti-globalization, IMF, G8, ect stuff where they smash windows and act like tools?
 
Will Democracy Survive Until 2100?

not if the Tea-Baggers and other right-wing extremists have anything to say about it.
 
Cavemonster said:
Because the communists and anarchists in the US have never even approached having political power in this country, while the Tea Party is endorsed by several members of congress and is a major backing force for many more candidates in this election.
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So what? When did the Tea Party call for the dismantling of democracy? Commies and anarchists openly call for violent revolution.
 
Cavemonster said:
I tend to focus on plausible threats. That's just me.
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So when did they call for the dismantlement of democracy? I skimmed the wikipedia page and I can't find anything about overthrowing democracy and replacing it with a dictatorship.
 
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It would be a shame if you were losing sleep over it, manofthesea. But it would be worse if you weren't worried at all.

"But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing." --Andrew Jackson
 
Virus said:
The stop-the-war stuff that they did between 2001 and 2003? The Seattle riots? The anti-globalization, IMF, G8, ect stuff where they smash windows and act like tools?
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The first was not "Communists and Anarchists." I'm sure there were some there, but not a majority.

The others were not rallies, they were riots and other criminal acts. That you cannot see a difference does not surprise me.
 
PhantomWolf said:
Funny thing, I'd have though that the 1960's and 70's were of bigger challenge to the US than the 1930's and 40's.
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No way. The problems facing the US in during the Depression and World War 2 at times threanted the very existence of the US, that never happened no matter how bad things got in the 60's and 70;s.

Of course both the 1930's and the 1960's as a crisis pale between that of the 1856 to 1865.
 
[I am little surprised that so many people are saying the 60's and 70's posed a more serious threat to America then the 30's and 40's. It might be a genrational thing. I was born in 1966 so was raised when the memories of the Depression and WW2 were still fresh. THose born in the 80's..when the "Greatest Generation" was beginning to recede...don't have the same exposure to people who lived through the 30s and 40's.
 
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Ysidro said:
The first was not "Communists and Anarchists." I'm sure there were some there, but not a majority.

The others were not rallies, they were riots and other criminal acts. That you cannot see a difference does not surprise me.
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Hey, the riots of the first decade of the 21st century are pranks compared to the riots of the 1960's.
 
PhantomWolf said:
While I can agree that it was a very tough time, polictially the changes with the the Civil Rights movement, Veitnam, and the whole shift from a conserative and closed stance to a liberal and permission one throughout the late 60's and early 70's changed the landscape of the US far more than did the depression and WW2.
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You might be right, but I still maintain there was never an existential threat to the US in the 60's and 70's the way there was in the Depression and WW2.
In fact, except for the Civil War, I think the US was closer to violent revolution in the early Depression years then it was in any other time in it's history. I also think you might underestimate the changes the New Deal wrought in the US. It made changes that seem to be permanent as far as a Safety Net goes. If the Tea Party tries to abolish the Safety Net, the Tea Party/s demise will be quick.
 
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manofthesea said:
Democracy started around the 1770s right? France, the United States. We've come a long way in the past 200 years or so. Electricity, transportation systems, communications, space flight...
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Are you talking about technology or democracy? Let me fix that for you...

We've come a long way in the past 200 years or so. Suffrage for men who do not own property. Abolition of slavery. Suffrage for racial minorities. Initiative, referendum, and recall. Suffrage for women. Real free speech protections. The right to organize labor unions. Desegregation of public spaces and services. The end of coverture. Single-transferable votes. Marriage equality. To name a few.


manofthesea said:
When the Sierra Club tried to rationally deal with immigration concerns, we fractured like the Christian Church. And then imploded.
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Your comparison is already more apt when describing the Republican Party than it is when applied to the United States as a whole.


manofthesea said:
This is what actually made me think that religious fundamentalism has and is changing America. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129917890&ft=1&f=1003
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I don't want to minimize what has happened to Ms. Norris. But I don't think it should be exaggerated, either. A similar thing happened to Salman Rushdie two decades ago, and yet Britain has become less religious, more secular, and more atheist during that time.

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ravdin said:
Something that's crossed my mind a few times is that that the biggest existential challenges the USA has faced have been spaced about 80 years apart.
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Look up William Strauss and Neil Howe. They noticed this, too.


Virus said:
So what? When did the Tea Party call for the dismantling of democracy?
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When one of their major political leaders suggested armed insurrection as a response to democracy not giving them the results they demand.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/20...d-amendment-remedies-to-reids-oppression.html
 
ravdin said:
Something that's crossed my mind a few times is that that the biggest existential challenges the USA has faced have been spaced about 80 years apart.

1770s-1780s: War of independence from Britain, creation of the Constitution.
1850s-1860s: The question of slavery comes to a head, culminating in the Civil War.
1930s-1940s: The Great Depression and WWII.
2010s-2020s: ???
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1948-1989: Cold War with the Soviet Union

Kinda throws off your 80 year cycle, don't it?
 
PhantomWolf said:
Athens had it back in 508 BC and other states had it prior to that... it has been around for well over two and a half thousand years.
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You're skipping over a large discontinuity. Greece was conquered by a foreign republic, which became an empire, which was replaced by a series of other things before the modern era of "democracy" began, so "democracy" in any practical sense really is a recent thing, with what happened in ancient Greece not being applicable to the subject.

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To ask the question the way the OP did is almost to suggest that something inherent to "democracy" would either make it self-destruct (which just makes no sense) or make it able to avoid destruction by other forces (which ancient Greece demonstrates it isn't). If it isn't inherently either invulnerable or self-destructive, then the question is just whether the current democratic countries happen to face any threats that are just too big for them, which has nothing to do with how they're governed.

And there are a few possibilities, although "democracy" actually ceasing to exist because of them is not very likely even in the worst case. The current debt crisis in multiple countries, even if it doesn't wipe out their economies back to a pre-industrial level, is still pretty sure to at least lead to one of the worst depressions ever, which would even out some of the economic disparity, and its accompanying military disparity, that the "democratic" countries have been enjoying relative to other countries. And even without an economic crisis to drive it, most "democratic" countries have already been in the process of decreasing their military capacity by choice for years while their enemies have been working to increase theirs.

But I think the bigger issue than aggression from other countries is going to be agricultural productivity. Fresh water shortages will bring it down when the wells start running dry, and erosion and gradual degradation of soil fertility are already in the process of gradually bringing it down. The first countries to really start suffering from these agricultural crises will be the first ones to become weak and vulnerable, both against aggressive outsiders and against its own unhappy citizens, especially those countries that already have high population densities anyway and/or are already net food importers. I do expect the serious trouble from this issue to hit before 2100 (the OP's target year). But I'm not sure which countries will be the first ones to get hit by it.
 
manofthesea said:
Hi everybody. I've been dwelling upon this thought now for some time and it won't go away. I'm not being provocative, just curious.

Democracy started around the 1770s right? France, the United States. We've come a long way in the past 200 years or so. Electricity, transportation systems, communications, space flight...

Am I naive to think that it is possible that the United States could somehow eventually succumb to a national or religious power? By whatever means. I'm sure the UK and Western Europe would immediately succumb also. Socio political and civil unrest could soon become serious problems here in the US. The rise of the Tea Party with its incendiary messages. Even the most "peace loving, good guy to ever grace the earth", that Rauf guy, just yesterday defended the adherance to Sharia Law. That's the same law that the Taliban enforces. It's coming to a neighborhood near you.

Could we be headed to the Really Dark Ages? Begin my enlightenment now. Thanks.
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Democracy might. Freedom might not. Democracy could crush itself under its self-imposed and ever-growing burden of taxation and regulation.


There's more to freedom than just freedom of speech. A nation where everybody can sit around talking about anything, but can't actually do anything because "democracy says so" is hardly free. And trivially broken and unsuccessful.
 
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