The American Revolution was the result of some 40 years of agitating and politiking to change popular opinion, and ended with a ramshackle government where everyone hated one another and was entirely dysfunctional for half a decade, at which point a series of compromises no one was happy with and the only unambiguously popular figure in the nation came together to make the US Constitution, which everyone at the time hated. At which point we struggled for the next 20 years with lingering monarchist and loyalist sentiment, and then for the next 50 with anti-democratic and secessionist sentiment.
The change from a British colony to an independent country was (largely) not guns and fireworks. It was comprised of convincing people on the ground to take a different view than the one they grew up with; a slow, miserable, thankless process. And the part of it that was guns and fireworks was not nearly so glorious and momentous, nor spontaneous, as it is often pretended.
If anything, those sorts of nonrevolutionary improvements, such as with Mandela in SA, are historical aberrations rather than norms.
Under that same logic, democratic governments are historical aberrations rather than norms. So why are you trying to apply a concept of how history ‘normally’ is to historical aberrations?
The current global superpowers of the United States, China, and Russia were all formed by violent revolution.
Formed by violent revolution against non-democratic polities.
Peaceful adherence to norms and consensus may have arguably established the Nordic model of social democracy and high living standards. However, in terms of global power politics, it seems to leave something to be desired.
Or maybe all the Nordic countries combined have less than a third of the population of the UK alone and didn’t even develop into democratic polities until the 20th century?
Nah, it’s gotta be because they didn’t found their prosperity on violence, not that stupid ‘material conditions’ stuff.
Violence has consistently led to a change in conditions, and oftentimes, an improvement in those conditions. If we disagree with that then we disagree with the essence of the United States itself - in which case, voting for neoliberal moderation with the Democrats seems to be missing the point entirely
“The US was founded on violence because of the lack of democracy, therefore, voting in a democratic system instead of using violence is missing the essence of America.”
The American Revolution was the result of some 40 years of agitating and politiking to change popular opinion, and ended with a ramshackle government where everyone hated one another and was entirely dysfunctional for half a decade, at which point a series of compromises no one was happy with and the only unambiguously popular figure in the nation came together to make the US Constitution, which everyone at the time hated. At which point we struggled for the next 20 years with lingering monarchist and loyalist sentiment, and then for the next 50 with anti-democratic and secessionist sentiment.
The change from a British colony to an independent country was (largely) not guns and fireworks. It was comprised of convincing people on the ground to take a different view than the one they grew up with; a slow, miserable, thankless process. And the part of it that was guns and fireworks was not nearly so glorious and momentous, nor spontaneous, as it is often pretended.
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Under that same logic, democratic governments are historical aberrations rather than norms. So why are you trying to apply a concept of how history ‘normally’ is to historical aberrations?
Formed by violent revolution against non-democratic polities.
Or maybe all the Nordic countries combined have less than a third of the population of the UK alone and didn’t even develop into democratic polities until the 20th century?
Nah, it’s gotta be because they didn’t found their prosperity on violence, not that stupid ‘material conditions’ stuff.
“The US was founded on violence because of the lack of democracy, therefore, voting in a democratic system instead of using violence is missing the essence of America.”
Do you even listen to yourself