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Subject: 
Re: To change the tune...
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Mon, 9 Feb 2004 04:05:08 GMT
Viewed: 
524 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks wrote:
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
BTW, name for me 1 war in the history or the world between 2
Democracies....

How literally do you insist on "war" to be defined?  Would you accept that
the Vietnam conflict, for instance, was actually a war?

While we're at it, how literally do you want "democracy" defined? Would you
accept that the US, for instance, is actually a republic, not a democracy?

BTW I don't accept "The Straight Ddope" as a source, since it has been used
against ME in the past :-) but just for reference:

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_328.html

(I couldn't find a better cite in 90 seconds of googling but I've seen a
better(1) refutation than that one, once.)

here's a relatively spirited defence of the idea:
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/PK.APPEN1.1.HTM
basically consisting of pointing out that every counter example was either not a
war (??) or one of the countries participating wasn't a democracy.

Note that this text will seem familiar if you dig around, as other sites seem to
have almost verbatim versions of it, I have no idea who did the original
writing, that's just the highest one on the google returns...

1 - more thorough, not necessarily more accurate. Me, I tend to think this is
one of those homilies that's sort of true but not quite. Democracies and
republics DO tend to be a bit less warmongering than totalitarian states



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: To change the tune...
 
(...) How literally do you insist on "war" to be defined? Would you accept that the Vietnam conflict, for instance, was actually a war? Chris (21 years ago, 9-Feb-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

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