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dogma wrote:

Amaya wrote:I have some great real estate to sell you in Venezuela.

Is there oil underneath it?

Yea but its sour oil. Is that a hydrocracker in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

Oh, so now you acknowledge that there are problems in South America...

Ribon Fox wrote:

corpsesarefun wrote:How can you possibly know this?

Do they have a secret portal to an earth without america to check?

I agree. in this alternitive-verse is the British Empier is still around? It would own a good 60% of the planet.
Would it make a better world policeman?

Pax Brittanica ignores the fact that there were innumerable colonial wars during the 19th century as well as good sized armed clashes between European nations, plus the Mexican-American war (1848) and the Spanish-American War (1898).

None were as destructive (to Europe) as the World Wars or the earlier 30 Years War and Napoleonic Wars.

But...

It was far from an era of sweetness and light, is my basic point.

Amaya wrote:Oh, so now you acknowledge that there are problems in South America...

Never said there wasn't Captain Straw Man. You really like to go off on tangents don't you.

Frazzled wrote:

How about a world dominated by no-one?

Killing, lots and lots of killing (Middle East) or not (South America).

At what point do we reach lots and lots of killing?

Amaya wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

How about a world dominated by no-one?

Killing, lots and lots of killing (Middle East) or not (South America).

At what point do we reach lots and lots of killing?

When we hit the level of a nice European or Middle Eastern bloodbath. We need bombs, and tanks, and great armies clashing, massed flying drop bears, cats and dogs living together, CHAOS UTTER CHAOS!!!

Or one short Corsican. (No Santa Anna doesn't count).

Amaya wrote:I have some great real estate to sell you in Venezuela.

Produce a deed, any relevant surveys, and your real estate attorney and we'll talk.

Frazzled wrote:

Amaya wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

How about a world dominated by no-one?

Killing, lots and lots of killing (Middle East) or not (South America).

At what point do we reach lots and lots of killing?

When we hit the level of a nice European or Middle Eastern bloodbath. We need bombs, and tanks, and great armies clashing, massed flying drop bears, cats and dogs living together, CHAOS UTTER CHAOS!!!

Or one short Corsican. (No Santa Anna doesn't count).

Didn't he get his arse handed to him?

AustonT wrote:
Taken a look in the mirror lately?

To be fair, I think Frazzled is a persistent troll

corpsesarefun wrote:

Polonius wrote:

corpsesarefun wrote:I'm still confused as to how anyone could claim america has "made the world more free", how would you measure the contribution of america towards global freedom? for that matter how would you go about measuring global freedom at all?

it's not exactly something you can measure with a ruler, but there are plenty of metrics. How many people have access to free elections, free speech, religious or economic freedoms, etc.

By nearly any measure, the world is freer now than in 1939.

And how can you accurately measure the impact of america on world freedom?

Well without the United States, Germany would almost certainly have conquered Europe. The help the USA gave to the Soviet Union was huge, and pretty one-sided. The Americans aided the Soviet Union for no other reason than to stop Germany.
And, obviously, that was that huge American army that pretty much curb stomped the Germans. It's not a myth that Europe would be speaking German if it weren't for the Americans. The entire continent would be a German puppet and the Russian people would essentially have been destroyed.
So yeah I think the USA has been a force for good. From a European standpoint, anyway. And remember that the US is, at heart, a European nation.

My point is if america had never existed the world would be completely different, for example the world wars may have never even happened, so claiming "america makes the world more free" is an odd point.

corpsesarefun wrote:My point is if america had never existed the world would be completely different, for example the world wars may have never even happened, so claiming "america makes the world more free" is an odd point.

Really?
Because America was the root cause for both world wars? Go on...

It wasn't the root cause to my knowledge, my point is we can't know what the world would be like without america.

corpsesarefun wrote:My point is if america had never existed the world would be completely different, for example the world wars may have never even happened, so claiming "america makes the world more free" is an odd point.

Except if the US nevere existed, it's likely that the enlightenment ideals behind the revolution would not have been "field tested" as early, and liberal democracy as we know it would have been delayed and/or squashed.

Two of the primary factors in the French Revolution were the influence of American writings and the National debt left from helping in the American Revolution. The French revolution, of course, spurred liberal change (of a sort) throughout Europe.

At least prior to WWII, the US has been one of, if not the, freest country on Earth. Maybe I'm missing something, but taking the influence, example, and sheer existence of a big ass free nation away would probably make the world as a whole less free.

We can't know that though

According to chaos theory the tiniest changes can have a huge impact over time, huge changes such as removing america and it's population from history would render the world completely unknowable.

corpsesarefun wrote:It wasn't the root cause to my knowledge, my point is we can't know what the world would be like without america.

I think we can virtually guarantee that the Austrio-Hungrian Empire would remain unchanged and the path to WWI remains clear. So unless you are prepared to say that without America the Allies would have lost WWI the path to WWII remains clear as well. Unless you can hypothesize some sort of different outcome perhaps in France in the late 18th century, which probably would have happened anyway. America hasn't really affected Europe so much to change the course of European history until the post war era...which is pretty much the time period in which the US became a superpower and relates to the thread title.

Polonius wrote:

corpsesarefun wrote:My point is if america had never existed the world would be completely different, for example the world wars may have never even happened, so claiming "america makes the world more free" is an odd point.

Except if the US nevere existed, it's likely that the enlightenment ideals behind the revolution would not have been "field tested" as early, and liberal democracy as we know it would have been delayed and/or squashed.

Two of the primary factors in the French Revolution were the influence of American writings and the National debt left from helping in the American Revolution. The French revolution, of course, spurred liberal change (of a sort) throughout Europe.

At least prior to WWII, the US has been one of, if not the, freest country on Earth. Maybe I'm missing something, but taking the influence, example, and sheer existence of a big ass free nation away would probably make the world as a whole less free.

The presence of a powerful liberal democracy, yes. For the record the USA is not a beacon of democracy, at least not in Europe. Victorian England looked down on the Americans because of the continuation of slavery, for example. And in the latter half of the century all eyes were on Germany anyway.
Anyway, modern liberal democracy arose in France, the UK and Scandinavia, not the USA.

AustonT wrote:

corpsesarefun wrote:It wasn't the root cause to my knowledge, my point is we can't know what the world would be like without america.

I think we can virtually guarantee that the Austrio-Hungrian Empire would remain unchanged and the path to WWI remains clear. So unless you are prepared to say that without America the Allies would have lost WWI the path to WWII remains clear as well. Unless you can hypothesize some sort of different outcome perhaps in France in the late 18th century, which probably would have happened anyway. America hasn't really affected Europe so much to change the course of European history until the post war era...which is pretty much the time period in which the US became a superpower and relates to the thread title.

You can't guarantee that, if you are assuming america never existed you can't gaurantee much at all as it would require an alternate timeline prior to the formation of america as a nation AND then an alternate timeline from the non-formation of america to the present. The world would be too different to make any logical conclusions.

corpsesarefun wrote:

AustonT wrote:

corpsesarefun wrote:It wasn't the root cause to my knowledge, my point is we can't know what the world would be like without america.

I think we can virtually guarantee that the Austrio-Hungrian Empire would remain unchanged and the path to WWI remains clear. So unless you are prepared to say that without America the Allies would have lost WWI the path to WWII remains clear as well. Unless you can hypothesize some sort of different outcome perhaps in France in the late 18th century, which probably would have happened anyway. America hasn't really affected Europe so much to change the course of European history until the post war era...which is pretty much the time period in which the US became a superpower and relates to the thread title.

You can't guarantee that, if you are assuming america never existed you can't gaurantee much at all as it would require an alternate timeline prior to the formation of america as a nation AND then an alternate timeline from the non-formation of america to the present. The world would be too different to make any logical conclusions.

I can posit that the likelihood remains so high that the outcome remains the same. The butterfly effect is all well and good, but the American Revolution didn't change a whole lot in Europe. Certainly the other British Colonies remained unchanged. There was no revolution in Canada,Australia, or the Bahama's in sympathy to the American one. Thomas Payne would have still been writing, the Rothschilds would have still pushed to abolish slavery; in fact the only real difference that America losing the Revolution really would make is who RULED the colonies, not whom it produced.
As Joey rightly points out France and the UK rather than the US are the birthplaces of European democracy. Saying that no America would change the course of European history radically is simply a bridge too far. The truth is that whether Americans would find it palpable or not Europe's course was relatively unchanged by the colonial backwater across the Atlantic.

Joey wrote:[The presence of a powerful liberal democracy, yes. For the record the USA is not a beacon of democracy, at least not in Europe. Victorian England looked down on the Americans because of the continuation of slavery, for example. And in the latter half of the century all eyes were on Germany anyway.
Anyway, modern liberal democracy arose in France, the UK and Scandinavia, not the USA.

I think you're misunderstanding the term "liberal democracy." It has nothing to do with modern liberal thought, but rather the idea that while the people should hold the power, the government must be limited. Basically the concept of the bill of rights.

And Victorian era Britain also looked down on America because it allowed non-land owners to vote. It wasn't until 1867 that working class men got to vote.

Polonius wrote:

Joey wrote:[The presence of a powerful liberal democracy, yes. For the record the USA is not a beacon of democracy, at least not in Europe. Victorian England looked down on the Americans because of the continuation of slavery, for example. And in the latter half of the century all eyes were on Germany anyway.
Anyway, modern liberal democracy arose in France, the UK and Scandinavia, not the USA.

I think you're misunderstanding the term "liberal democracy." It has nothing to do with modern liberal thought, but rather the idea that while the people should hold the power, the government must be limited. Basically the concept of the bill of rights.

And Victorian era Britain also looked down on America because it allowed non-land owners to vote. It wasn't until 1867 that working class men got to vote.

Right, which is around the same time the slaves got the vote.
I'm not arguing that America is not a liberal democracy, but its democracy is copied from Europe, it is not an American invention.
When the Weimar Republic was formed, it was not inspired by America, nor was any other fledging democracy.

Except... there wasn't really any country with as liberal a democracy as the US had, even in 1792.

HIstory shows a slow progression in the UK towards liberal democracy, but it took nearly 1000 years for the vote to extend from the Lords to the working man.

I'd argue that having a running, functional liberal democracy with wider suffrage was a big influence on Europe. Not in form, clearly, but there's a difference between saying "Free speech can't work" and "free speech can't work here, even though it works in the US."

And slaves are, more or less by definition, not citizens. Free blacks had suffrage sporadically throughout american history.

You're confusing Free Speach with elections. The UK was perfectly free even before the American revolution. Anti-government pamphlets were widespread.

Joey wrote:You're confusing Free Speach with elections. The UK was perfectly free even before the American revolution. Anti-government pamphlets were widespread.

Well, it was just an example.

But even now, British free speech laws are different from US ones, partiularly with regards to libel.

Religious freedom was very different though.

corpsesarefun wrote:It wasn't the root cause to my knowledge, my point is we can't know what the world would be like without america.

Read "A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!" for an image of that benevolent utopia.

That article made me feel good about a lot of things.

Samus_aran115 wrote:That article made me feel good about a lot of things.

There must be some sort of run up to election in the US at the moment?

Don't worry your normal service of TERROR ALERTS! and scaremongering will resume in 5...4...3...2...1

Polonius wrote:Except if the US nevere existed, it's likely that the enlightenment ideals behind the revolution would not have been "field tested" as early, and liberal democracy as we know it would have been delayed and/or squashed.

Or acted as an overflow causing radicals to move to the American colonies rather than tackle reactionaries at home. Effectively preventing change in Europe by a form of radical brain drain. This is not a rebuttal more of an 'also ran' for a hypothetical world.

Polonius wrote:At least prior to WWII, the US has been one of, if not the, freest country on Earth.

That rather depended on what colour you were and where exactly in the US you lived.

George Spiggott wrote:

Polonius wrote:Except if the US nevere existed, it's likely that the enlightenment ideals behind the revolution would not have been "field tested" as early, and liberal democracy as we know it would have been delayed and/or squashed.

Or acted as an overflow causing radicals to move to the American colonies rather than tackle reactionaries at home. Effectively preventing change in Europe by a form of radical brain drain. This is not a rebuttal more of an 'also ran' for a hypothetical world.

Polonius wrote:At least prior to WWII, the US has been one of, if not the, freest country on Earth.

That rather depended on what colour you were and where exactly in the US you lived.

Indeed. An English judge in 1772 degreed:
"The state of slavery is of such a nature, that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political; but only positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasion, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory: it's so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from a decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must be discharged."
Hell even 1569 ".one Cartwright brought a slave from Russia and would scourge him; for which he was questioned; and it was resolved, that England was too pure an air for a slave to breathe in".

George Spiggott wrote:]That rather depended on what colour you were and where exactly in the US you lived.

Joey wrote:Indeed. An English judge in 1772 degreed:
"The state of slavery is of such a nature, that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political; but only positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasion, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory: it's so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from a decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must be discharged."
Hell even 1569 ".one Cartwright brought a slave from Russia and would scourge him; for which he was questioned; and it was resolved, that England was too pure an air for a slave to breathe in".

yeah, the US is always going to bear the stigma of slavery. I hear that. But... let's not pretend that there weren't serious problems in the UK at the same time. Life was worse there for the Irish, non-anglicans, and the working poor.

So, yeah, we had chattel slavery, but in a lot of other areas we were very free.

Joey wrote:Indeed. An English judge in 1772 degreed:
"The state of slavery is of such a nature, that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political; but only positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasion, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory: it's so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from a decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must be discharged."
Hell even 1569 ".one Cartwright brought a slave from Russia and would scourge him; for which he was questioned; and it was resolved, that England was too pure an air for a slave to breathe in".

I was thinking more of segregation in the post slavery to 1960s period since it falls closer to the 'pre WWII' period Polonius specified than slavery does.