Bluer-finger of freedom....

[jms]

But there should have been more blue Sunni fingers...

[KvHagedorn]

Sudden revolutionary change like this rarely works. In the western world, dictators have usually emerged from the mess. Napoleon, Stalin, Franco, Mussolini, Hitler.. all were products of failed attempts to install democratic government very suddenly when the people were just not used to it. The only democracies that have lasted have been those which came about gradually.

What about the US? Well, there was a spirit of individual independence here already, and land ownership was not locked up by the nobility.

[Dr Mordrid]

Uhhh....beg your pardon but you're forgetting your Revolutionary War history lessons. Before the US Revolutionary War the land WAS tied up by nobility: the King of England and his Royalist minions. That and taxes were the whole point.

As for other sucessful conversions I'd point you to Japan, Post WW-II Germany & Italy, Post-Soviet Poland, Hungary and many, many other former Warsaw Pact nations.

Basically where the new democracies and republics are sucessful is where they deliver economically.

In the case of Hitler many forget that he was offered the Chancellorship by Hindenberg in Jan. 1933 as a result of a dealock in the Reichstag, nor do they remember that Hitlers party had won a significant 37% of the seats in the Reichstag (at least significant for a Parlaimentary form).

Many also forget that by this time Germany was already a Presidntial Dictatorship in which said officer could dissolve the Reichstag by decree.

By the time of the March 1933 elections Hitler had all but outlawed campaigning by anyone but the NAZI's and ther Nationalists under this authority, which put the cap on things.

The conditions that brought this about were mainly due to the economic plight of Germany post-WWI. Much of this failure was due to the onerous (and revenge based) conditions imposed on Germany by the Allies....and that was mainly at the insistance of France.

Also a contributing factor was that the Weimar Republic was a Parliamentary form, which is inherently prone to rapid-fire changes in government at the slightest provocation. This is not necessarily a good thing during the transition from royalist/dictatorship forms.

In the US we avoided such instabilities by choosing a form of government known as a constitutionally limited republic, thanks to Mr.'s Jefferson, Hamilton, Jay, Madison and Franklin and the works known as the Federalist Papers.

The vast majority of times there is a distinct winner in our Presidential elections, messy as they can be at times, and the legislature cannot be dissolved just by some whim or pique.

These plus the limitations placed on governmental power by the Bill of Rights and the separation of powers as defined in the Constitution keep us from falling into the instabilities many Parlaimentary forms are prone to at seemingly regular intervals.

Dr. Mordrid

[ALBPM]

Giving Terrorism the Finger....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1331723/posts