America - the light of hope (?)

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Jan 22nd 2021, 12:00 pm

#46

civilservant

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Re: America - the light of hope (?)

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldJuddian

I had not realized until recently that America considers itself the worlds oldest democracy. There certainly is an American-centric world-view.

I expect more humility will come once it is not the only world superpower - just as happened to the UK.

As always, it's criteria dependant.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/...st-democracies

Jan 22nd 2021, 3:33 pm

#47

Hiro11

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Re: America - the light of hope (?)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shard

There is certainly a different attitude towards government in the US compared to Europe, but paradoxically a reverence for corporations (particularly if employed by one). At some point the US might need to examine this.

This is highly dependent on the political viewpoint of the specific American you talk to. I'm not sure you can generalize.

Quote:

To some extent it's already being examined in the debate on social media, with services like Twitter holding more real power on freedom of speech than the government itself.

To me, this is a fascinating concept to discuss. I think the recent furor around Twitter, Parler, Facebook and the like is far from settled and brings up some very interesting questions about the role of private corporations in policing speech on their services. For example, is it OK to censor Trump but allow the government of Iran to say whatever they want on Twitter? Who adjudicates what's acceptable vs. what's not acceptable? Do we want private companies doing that? Should web services be terminated for companies like Parler who's users promote conspiracy theories or offensive material?

I don't think this type of discussion is new, but the impact of social media was really added rocket fuel to the debate. These debates are also very complex as they inevitable involve the architecture of the internet, the role of government, the role of corporations, etc. Speaking personally, I think it's important that people get accurate information (for example about the nature of the pandemic) but I'm leery of services like Parler being summarily taken offline by private companies with seemingly no accountability. That seems like a slippery slope and something we should discuss as a country. Parler has (reasonably, in my opinion) sued everyone. I look forward to seeing how this pans out.

Jan 26th 2021, 2:38 pm

#48

robin1234

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Re: America - the light of hope (?)

Quote:

Originally Posted by civilservant

As always, it's criteria dependant.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/...st-democracies

This article doesn’t really answer the questions that arise. It claims that the US has been a democracy since 1800, using the rule of thumb that a majority of adult males had the vote. Did they, in 1800? When I’ve asked myself this question, over the years, comparing the progress to universal suffrage in the UK vs. the US, I’ve found it easy enough to see the various steps in the UK (1832, 1885, 1893 and so forth,) but I’m not sure when all men got the vote in the US. I know in the US it was complicated by slavery, relations with native tribes, not to mention the practical exclusion of classes of people from the vote (black people in certain states.) I mean, in the UK, when a class of people were enfranchised, they were able to register and to vote, while in the US that wasn’t necessarily the case.