18th Century Britain and Democracy

USAF; Well it did

Dutch Lesbian

To be fair, if anything the French Revolution quickened things as people wanted moderate reforms to keep the extremists in line by taking the wind from their sails.

The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.

Bleh... the Parliament was supremely stupid in its handling of the American War for Independence. They could easily have kept the colonies. And the French Revolution was caused because people had no say in government. What kind of thinking tells you it's a good idea, therefore, to not allow more people to have a say in government...?

edited 12th Aug '11 3:42:40 PM by USAF713

I am now known as Flyboy.

The kind of thinking that looks at The Terror and goes Ohmygodohsh*twearegonnadiiiieeee!

edited 12th Aug '11 3:47:18 PM by Bluesqueak

It ain't over 'till the ring hits the lava.

USAF: I know that Parliament was dumb in the Americas but I learnt something interesting. They wanted to raise the level of taxation from 1 shilling a year to 26 which was the Empire average.

Dutch Lesbian

Good point. I always forget how idiotic the French Revolution was...

Personally? Our reasoning for the war was petty. However, our entire argument was "no taxation without representation!"

So just give us Parliament seats...

We couldn't have gotten any kind of real say, and our argument would have been gone. It's not that hard...

edited 12th Aug '11 3:50:52 PM by USAF713

I am now known as Flyboy.

Yeah, but Americans couldn't vote in the British parliament. Yet they were taxed equally.

That there was the beef.

edited 12th Aug '11 3:50:09 PM by GameChainsaw

The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.

Most people in the entire Empire couldnt vote in the British parliament including British subjects (what about Hanoverian subjects?). If the British gave the landed Americans the vote would there have been a war for independence?

Dutch Lesbian

Short answer; Britain should've just extended its rights to people in that social band everywhere.

The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.

Indeed. They really dropped the ball there.

I just realized that this is 18th Century, not 19th Century. I was wondering why all of my points were being contested in such a strange manner...

Let's see, what do I know of 18th Century Britain, outside of its involvement in the Americas...

Um...

I know they had a war over the kingship... or something?

Otherwise, yeah, never mind, democracy in 18th Century Britain was abysmal.

I am now known as Flyboy.

Uh, well, yes? Because apart from the Republic of Corsica (which I'd never heard of until I decided to check The Other Wiki), you folks basically invented the modern form. The Constitutional Convention ring any bells?

Saying that democracy in 18th Century Britain was abysmal is rather like saying that lighting in the Middle Ages was terrible. It was, but they hadn't invented the gas mantle light yet, so what do you expect?

We had pretty good candles in the 18th Century. We also had a Bill of Rights (17th Century, that was) restraining the monarch's power over Parliament. Which we still have as part of our constitution, because we never throw anything away.

Later edit:

Just spotted that; wrong century. The English Civil War and the later Glorious Revolution were both Seventeenth Century, not Eighteenth.

You might be thinking of the Jacobite Rebellions. But they weren't widespread enough to rate 'civil war' status.

edited 12th Aug '11 4:48:17 PM by Bluesqueak

It ain't over 'till the ring hits the lava.

Very occasionally, Americans get credit for something we did.

The problem was that I thought we were talking about Britain of a different century...

I am now known as Flyboy.

Well, we do have rather a lot of centuries...

As one of your ambassadors to us once said: the difference between the British and the Americans is that the British think 100 miles is a long distance and the Americans think 100 years is a long time.

It ain't over 'till the ring hits the lava.

The second time someone has said that, and, honestly, truer than I've realized before...

I am now known as Flyboy.

If you want to know more about 18th century Britain (or at least the good part of it) then here's a place to start.

And let us pray that come it may (As come it will for a' that)

My knowledge of British history flits in and out... most of it is in relation to American history (naturally... I'm a stupid American, right?... although it's more that I just have a fetish for American history, and probably would even if I lived somewhere else)... though I know some things outside of that. The farther from the present we get, the less I know, though...

I am now known as Flyboy.

Probably didn't help that shortly after King George heard about the Samuel Adam's impromptu tea party in Boston he "declared the colonists beyond his protection, outlawed them as rebels without any rights and confiscated any property they might have owned elsewhere in the Empire". The Prohibitory Act kind of killed the moderates in the Constitutional Congress who wanted reconciliation with Great Britain.

It would have been a temporary fix at best due to travel distance. Anyone claiming to represent the colonies would have no idea what was going on there for weeks at a time. Eventually the colonists are going to realize that their interests are not being well presented/ ignored entirely.

San Marino had a pretty modern sense of government, if I remember correctly.

God, I love San Marino. Oldest republic on earth.

edited 12th Aug '11 6:32:29 PM by Pentadragon

Temporary, but what Parliament needed more than anything else was time. Time for both sides to cool off, and time for them to make a plan. The Americans get their coveted democracy, the legs of their argument get knocked out from under them, and the Parliament can think of a way to muzzle them permanently.

Instead, they waived their dicks around and tried to bully us into submission. Didn't work, did it? Also sounds depressingly familiar (*cough*)...

edited 12th Aug '11 6:28:42 PM by USAF713

I am now known as Flyboy.

^ Then the Revolution takes place two decades later, over the issue of home rule and the fact that those representing them in Parliament don't really care about their interests. As a result, Andrew Jackson becomes a George Washington figure leading a resistance in the colonies and nobody wants that. That would just be terrible.

I get your point though. Most of human history is one large dick waving contest. The world would probably be a better place without such actions, but then we wouldn't be very human without it.

edited 12th Aug '11 6:39:46 PM by Pentadragon