# 'The end of history': Is American exceptionalism justified? Is democracy the 'best way'?



## FA 855 (Feb 23, 2019)

Hello all, I thought I'd start off this thread by saying a couple of things to make my question clearer and trying to get to the meat of what I'm saying.
Do you think that America triumphing is the 'win scenario' and the end of conflict? Are dictatorships in the world destined to fail?
Or do you think that the Chinese might have a point or two, do you think dictatorship can be a better form of governing than democracy?
Is grand ideology in general, communism or fascism, no longer needed?


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## Red Hood (Feb 23, 2019)

Democracy is non-negotiable.


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## ProgKing of the North (Feb 23, 2019)

Democracy is the worst system of government except for all of the other ones


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## A Useless Fish (Feb 23, 2019)

Francis Fukuyama is a piece of shit.


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## deodorant (Feb 23, 2019)

America is very much styled after the Roman Civilization, and it's destined for the same path.

Our republic will become more and more degenerate and nonfunctional until a dictator comes along and cleans everything up.

That dictator will usher in a few generations of progress, before eventually the dictatorship becomes corrupt and useless, and the empire collapses.


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## Nacho Man Randy Salsa (Feb 23, 2019)

America is superior because Americans are the superior race.


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## Lord of the Large Pants (Feb 23, 2019)

I think America is pretty dang good as countries go, but I just don't buy the idea that there's some form of government/culture that will ever be acknowledged as The One True Path. History is a crapshoot and I don't believe the world is inevitably evolving toward... well, any particular thing.


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## Black Waltz (Feb 23, 2019)

I probably said this before, but a brutal dictatorship would only be ok if I'm the brutal dictator


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## Hellbound Hellhound (Feb 23, 2019)

Communism and fascism had their roots in 19th century thought, and they both effectively died out in practice by the end of the 20th century. I don't foresee them being meaningfully resurrected. If there is a worthy challenger to liberal democracy, then I have not yet seen it, and I can think of no reason to believe that democracy will collapse anytime soon.

As for the United States, I think that it will probably decline in power and influence relative to the rest of the world (as the rest of the world advances and catches up), but I don't foresee it declining overall, much less collapsing. I think that we are probably heading for a more integrated world where individual nation states play an increasingly minor role in global affairs, but the extent to which the US will have left it's mark on that world is difficult to say. I think it will largely depend upon the competence of America's future leadership.


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## Clop (Feb 23, 2019)

There's never going to be a winning form of government. Either you govern in a way that lets people take advantage of you, or you govern in a way that takes advantage of everyone else and trying to balance it without letting it slip into the extreme where the whole thing falls over is like holding an egg on top of a sharpened pencil. It's the nature of humanity that even as we keep tearing each other to shreds we tell ourselves "I am doing the right thing."

Any direction for policy you take you can never roll back without bloodshed, and they all end in bloodshed eventually.


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## DN 420 (Feb 23, 2019)

You ask a lot of questions that require a lot of consideration, so I will only try to answer one: _Is American exceptionalism justified?
_
To answer this, we must first determine what exactly causes America to specifically hold so much exceptionalism. One answer to that is the healthcare system. 

Unlike other developed nations, due to foundational values (both in regards to religion and social justice) America is particularly anti-abortion. America also has the technology and medicine required to keep exceptional children (that would have otherwise been aborted) alive and the infrastructure in place to take care of these people for the rest of their lives, resulting in a far higher population of exceptional individuals when comparing to other nations. 

There are many other factors that are in play as well, that is just one example. However, this doesn't answer if such exceptionalism is justifiable. That is a far more difficult question and ultimately boils down to whether you believe all human life has inherent value, or whether society should not have to deal with the burden of exceptional individuals and the stress they put on the rest of the population. 

If you were to take the progressive, ideal stance on human life, then you would say that this exceptionalism is justifiable.


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## Dissociation (Feb 23, 2019)

Enough indoctrination and inexperience will convince a citizen of anything, even if objective measurements can show they are worse off.
When confronted with the argument that America is by virtue of objective economic and social measurement a second class post industrial power pretending to be significant for any reason aide from military posturing it's not likely they could assert such claims.


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## Dissociation (Feb 23, 2019)

balcolm said:


> You ask a lot of questions that require a lot of consideration, so I will only try to answer one: _Is American exceptionalism justified?_
> Unlike other developed nations, due to foundational values (both in regards to religion and social justice) America is particularly anti-abortion. America also has the technology and medicine required to keep exceptional children (that would have otherwise been aborted) alive and the infrastructure in place to take care of these people for the rest of their lives, resulting in a far higher population of exceptional individuals when comparing to other nations.


You could argue that exceptionalism is the motivation that keeps the citizens restrained to belief in such values that constrain their growth as a society.


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## KimCoppolaAficionado (Feb 23, 2019)

Dissociation said:


> Enough indoctrination and inexperience will convince a citizen of anything, even if objective measurements can show they are worse off.
> When confronted with the argument that America is by virtue of objective economic and social measurement a second class post industrial power pretending to be significant for any reason aide from military posturing it's not likely they could assert such claims.


Citation needed.


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## Dissociation (Feb 23, 2019)

Senior Lexmechanic said:


> Citation needed.


https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22533


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## KimCoppolaAficionado (Feb 23, 2019)

Dissociation said:


> https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22533


This would be the same Un Council on Human Rights that is headed by Saudi Arabia, and coincidentally has no real problem with Saudi Arabia's abuses of human rights laws, yes?


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## Dissociation (Feb 23, 2019)

Senior Lexmechanic said:


> This would be the same Un Council on Human Rights that is headed by Saudi Arabia, and coincidentally has no real problem with Saudi Arabia's abuses of human rights laws, yes?


The United Nations Human Rights Council is one of the largest groups in the UN,  so even America can take comfort that it can work to improve its position alongside its partners and peers in such poor behavior, the United Kingdom, and Australia.


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## KimCoppolaAficionado (Feb 23, 2019)

Dissociation said:


> The United Nations Human Rights Council is one of the largest groups in the UN,  so even America can take comfort that it can work to improve its position alongside its partners and peers in such poor behavior, the United Kingdom, and Australia.


So, just to make this clear here, arresting people for naughty words and demanding the government be allowed to see literally everything you do online at any moment isn't a human rights violation, but being sucky compared to the rest of the OECD, allegedly, is?


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## Dissociation (Feb 23, 2019)

Senior Lexmechanic said:


> So, just to make this clear here, arresting people for naughty words and demanding the government be allowed to see literally everything you do online at any moment isn't a human rights violation, but being sucky compared to the rest of the OECD, allegedly, is?


You forgot the fact that Australia has migrant camps with UN observers and the UK detains asylum seekers indefinitely.
The difference is that while Australia and the UK try to care for their citizens, the myth of American Exceptionalism demands everyone struggle for themselves or they're freeloading leeches taking your taxes, which is a sentiment so frequently uttered by those who can do it that you would think taxes are a vital organ inside the body and you have wounded them.


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## KimCoppolaAficionado (Feb 23, 2019)

Dissociation said:


> You forgot the fact that Australia has migrant camps with UN observers and the UK detains asylum seekers indefinitely.
> The difference is that while Australia and the UK try to care for their citizens, the myth of American Exceptionalism demands everyone struggle for themselves or they're freeloading leeches taking your taxes, which is a sentiment so frequently uttered by those who can do it that you would think taxes are a vital organ inside the body and you have wounded them.


Are you an American?  Because what you're describing is very different from what I've actually seen on the ground.


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## Unog (Feb 24, 2019)

RedRightHand said:


> Do you think that America triumphing is the 'win scenario' and the end of conflict?



Conflict between humans organized through varying degrees of societal, religious, and personal groups as well as reasons will never, ever cease. I wholeheartedly believe that's the real reason we've never been or ever will be visited by spacefaring aliens.

Not to mention that I would never want less than at least four or five competing nations, even if they were entire continents. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and all of that, so no, having a one world government doesn't sound too great to me.

If you meant culturally then yeah that'd be pretty great if all societies on earth went by the constitution's amendments and the bill of rights but that's just not going to work for reasons too numerous to list in a single post.



RedRightHand said:


> Are dictatorships in the world destined to fail?



Eventually, yes. New ones, however, will take their place.



RedRightHand said:


> Or do you think that the Chinese might have a point or two, do you think dictatorship can be a better form of governing than democracy?



I saw a really great post on here somewhere (I think it was in A&H?) and iirc the guest in the stream that @Null did on China agreed that it's less of a dictatorship and more like a weird NatSoc/Communism hybrid. Not to mention that the people there are acutely aware that there are many, many more of them than there are people in their military, and sort of shove the govt around when something inconveniences them enough to complain in the _tens if not hundreds of thousands_ on their social media to their government.

It's complicated and as a guy with a passing interest I don't really fully understand it, but at the broad part of your question, I can say that yeah, China has an interesting system and it's currently functioning in a way that works for them. Though you have to take into account that China has been under more-or-less despotic rule since the B.C.'s when their first emperor ended up in power, also that to get to the modern day they had to go through the "Great Leap Forward" which needs no introduction as far as how fucking terrible it was.



RedRightHand said:


> Is grand ideology in general, communism or fascism, no longer needed?



Don't really get what you mean here, but if you're asking if large, sweeping ideologies are no longer needed I'd say it depends on the ideology. America as a capitalistic constitutional republic seems to be working out okay for now, contrast it with socialist democracy in Venezuela.


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## Lemmingwise (Feb 25, 2019)

RedRightHand said:


> Is grand ideology in general, communism or fascism, no longer needed?



There can't be grand ideology anymore. We're past madmen time where people's media diet was so centralised that you could have three flavors of I SCREAM. Nowadays, we make sure you can get all the flavors you like. Some people might go with the old and trusty liberal democracy, others like more daring flavors of nazbol. Some larp as nazi's because if that's what globalists hate, there must be something good in that. Others like to multiclass into prestige classes of the specific type of communism that has never been tried before and will result in having equal sized hats for everyone.

Of course the clamps are going down on all this internet divergent thinking, because people thinking and sharing information makes them harder to control. When that one guy starts to shout that the emperor isn't wearing any clothes, well somebody better shadowban him so that this guy's speech is as fictional as the clothes. But like napster, the cat is out of the bag, and it will just move the exciting place to be beyond the reaches of censorship.

Though grand ideology is also not really going away, it's just not as visible. There are always going to be people with disproportionate power and whatever they decide to do is in some sense a grand ideology being applied to the world. Now whether that ideology is america first, israel first, china first or globalism depends on what power faction you're looking at. But you can bet that each try to wage their propaganda and fund whatever pokemon flavour of larp the citizens of the other are most eager to catch to destabilize each other.


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## ICametoLurk (Feb 25, 2019)




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## Lydia of Whiterun (Feb 25, 2019)

Dissociation said:


> You could argue that exceptionalism is the motivation that keeps the citizens restrained to belief in such values that constrain their growth as a society.




Oh trust me America, and by extension its citizens, is exceptional.  You have a nation full of people who can't control their emotions, let alone how often a fork hits their lips, are willfully under-educated regardless of political affiliation (the obnoxiously vocal on both "sides" love to accuse the other of this), are primed for nothing more than consumption, and *constantly *need to feel good about ourselves.  

Watch how butt-hurt Americans get with even the softest critique wrapped in the most delicate of kid gloves. Like any good little narcissist, the injury is absolute and retribution will be swift and laced with whatever jingoistic nonsense will self soothe in the moment, all while the collective delusion continues to aid in perpetuating a stagnation, and in some ways outright regression, that has made America slip down OECD indexes like dicks down some thot's throat. (But hey, corporations are the people who matter and they're doing fine.)

It's all pretty sad but like funny sad. Okay...just funny.


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## MediocreMilt (Feb 25, 2019)

Isn't American autism just something you're born with? No need to justify it, just someone who can work with special needs kids.


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## KimCoppolaAficionado (Feb 25, 2019)

Lydia of Whiterun said:


> Oh trust me America, and by extension its citizens, is exceptional.  You have a nation full of people who can't control their emotions, let alone how often a fork hits their lips, are willfully under-educated regardless of political affiliation (the obnoxiously vocal on both "sides" love to accuse the other of this), are primed for nothing more than consumption, and *constantly *need to feel good about ourselves.
> 
> Watch how butt-hurt Americans get with even the softest critique wrapped in the most delicate of kid gloves. Like any good little narcissist, the injury is absolute and retribution will be swift and laced with whatever jingoistic nonsense will self soothe in the moment, all while the collective delusion continues to aid in perpetuating a stagnation, and in some ways outright regression, that has made America slip down OECD indexes like dicks down some thot's throat. (But hey, corporations are the people who matter and they're doing fine.)
> 
> It's all pretty sad but like funny sad. Okay...just funny.


2/10 bait, got me to respond.


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## Lemmingwise (Feb 26, 2019)

ICametoLurk said:


>



It's interesting that despite that, these countries are still democracies. I'm not sure how the rest of that percentage breaks down, but it would be interesting to see if a country remains democratic even when majority of people don't want it to be anymore.


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## Corbin Dallas Multipass (Feb 26, 2019)

Hah, China would immediately collapse if there weren't legitimate economies for it to steal from.

Is american exceptionalism justified? I dunno, is Europe currently under Nazi German rule?  

Democracy is the worst form of government, except all the other ones.  

The reason you see all these people less concerned about living in a democracy is because they've always lived in a democracy.  The people from the 30s knew what the alternatives actually looked like.  

American Exceptionalism is necessary (to people interested in western democracy) because Chinese Exceptionalism and Russian Exceptionalism are significantly worse alternatives.  German Exceptionalism is looking authoritarian and terrifying as usual.


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## Freddy Freaker (Feb 26, 2019)

RedRightHand said:


> Exceptionalism


/thread


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## Cool kitties club (Feb 26, 2019)

We often forget how long history really is like Rome was in collapse (just the end of its life span) for longer then America has existed. Who knows what the future will hold but I think American democracy with end in Caesarism where people willing elect a charming dictator in order to counter the decay of civilization which will, rather then saving society, bring about the final stages of decline after the "Caesar's" death. Or maybe that wont happen and everything will be okay.


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## ConfederateIrishman (Feb 27, 2019)

To answer your question OP, no we are not at the end of history and morons who believed this in the 1990s are responsible for our current decline; We wasted all the opportunities we had after the soviet union fell to swing our dick around and our foreign policy has only gotten stupider since then.
Keep in mind it has only been 80 years since WW2 started, creating our modern world: In the overall scale of history, that is a blink of the eye. I don't know exactly what will happen, but expecting the status quo seems optimistic.

So I agree with the other people in this thread, Caesarism seems like the likely fate of America, but who knows?


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## mindlessobserver (Feb 27, 2019)

I came here to say that fukuyama is an irredeemable globalist cuck who had no idea how humans behave outside the academy. In his little ivory tower he saw people of all races and nationalities working together for common purposes and projected that image through rose tinted glasses onto the entire scope of world history to proclaim that at last everything will be better, under a new international order lead by wise mandarins such as himself. 

He was of course completely wrong and his wildly optimistic theory has been used to over the decades since to justify the ever increasing power of international institutions at the cost of the nation state most people not stuck in an ivory tower view as the primary authority in their lives. The end result being increasing unrest across Europe, the bitter culture wars in America and so on. Its not entirely his fault, but he certainly laid quite a few bricks of good intentions on the road to hell.


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## BR55 (Feb 27, 2019)

ConfederateIrishman said:


> To answer your question OP, no we are not at the end of history and morons who believed this in the 1990s are responsible for our current decline; We wasted all the opportunities we had after the soviet union fell to swing our dick around and our foreign policy has only gotten stupider since then.
> Keep in mind it has only been 80 years since WW2 started, creating our modern world: In the overall scale of history, that is a blink of the eye. I don't know exactly what will happen, but expecting the status quo seems optimistic.
> 
> So I agree with the other people in this thread, Caesarism seems like the likely fate of America, but who knows?


^This and


mindlessobserver said:


> I came here to say that fukuyama is an irredeemable globalist cuck who had no idea how humans behave outside the academy. In his little ivory tower he saw people of all races and nationalities working together for common purposes and projected that image through rose tinted glasses onto the entire scope of world history to proclaim that at last everything will be better, under a new international order lead by wise mandarins such as himself.
> 
> He was of course completely wrong and his wildly optimistic theory has been used to over the decades since to justify the ever increasing power of international institutions at the cost of the nation state most people not stuck in an ivory tower view as the primary authority in their lives. The end result being increasing unrest across Europe, the bitter culture wars in America and so on. Its not entirely his fault, but he certainly laid quite a few bricks of good intentions on the road to hell.


 ^this.
More to the point I believe that Liberal Democracy is, by lack of any better alternatives, the best form of Government/Society..._But_ "The End of History" and the various attempts to follow through on it have been nothing short of disastrous.
Neoliberalism has given us a corrupt and detached Elite who only care about what happens in their little bubble of gated Yuppie communities. Not to the mention the fucked SJW morality that Neolibs also gave us.
Neoconservatives on the other hand got us involved in Quixotic attempts to turn Third World shithole's like Iraq and Afghanistan into functioning Democracies at the cost of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars. Kickstarting the various refugee crisis's is just an added bonus.
As for what the fate of the West/America is...I can only hope we find our way out of this hole we're in right now because I don't fancy being brought down to the level of the Middle East and Africa.
Far from being "The End of History" or the eternal norm Liberal Democracy is an _aberration_, a _mistake_, a _fluke_. That's what makes it so precious and worth preserving.
Again I just hope we do end up preserving it.


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## mindlessobserver (Feb 27, 2019)

BR55 said:


> ^This and
> 
> ^this.
> More to the point I believe that Liberal Democracy is, by lack of any better alternatives, the best form of Government/Society..._But_ "The End of History" and the various attempts to follow through on it have been nothing short of disastrous.
> ...



Its not going to be preserved. The nitwits in charge of preserving it do not understand the value of it, nor do they understand the price that needs to be paid for it. The only hope any sort of demcoracy has for surviving the 21st century is for a new generation to come along that does understand the value of it and is willing to pay the price for it. And if its not obvious yet, the price is blood. Whole oceans of it. America bought its freedom with blood, and the European democracies saved themselves in the 20th century with more blood then the human brain can conceive. Anyone who tells you our happy and prosperous societies can be paid for by anything other then blood, sweat and tears is lying to you. Fukuyama lied to an entire generation of credulous idiots.


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## Hellbound Hellhound (Feb 27, 2019)

mindlessobserver said:


> Its not going to be preserved. The nitwits in charge of preserving it do not understand the value of it, nor do they understand the price that needs to be paid for it. The only hope any sort of demcoracy has for surviving the 21st century is for a new generation to come along that does understand the value of it and is willing to pay the price for it. And if its not obvious yet, the price is blood. Whole oceans of it. America bought its freedom with blood, and the European democracies saved themselves in the 20th century with more blood then the human brain can conceive. Anyone who tells you our happy and prosperous societies can be paid for by anything other then blood, sweat and tears is lying to you. Fukuyama lied to an entire generation of credulous idiots.



That's a pretty pessimistic outlook. Liberal democracy has proven capable of generating widespread peace and prosperity, and the only areas of the world where it appears to be credibly under threat are the areas where it wasn't that strong to begin with. The political elite in the West certainly don't want to overthrow democracy, they benefit too much from it.


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## Corbin Dallas Multipass (Feb 27, 2019)

mindlessobserver said:


> Its not going to be preserved. The nitwits in charge of preserving it do not understand the value of it, nor do they understand the price that needs to be paid for it. The only hope any sort of demcoracy has for surviving the 21st century is for a new generation to come along that does understand the value of it and is willing to pay the price for it. And if its not obvious yet, the price is blood. Whole oceans of it. America bought its freedom with blood, and the European democracies saved themselves in the 20th century with more blood then the human brain can conceive. Anyone who tells you our happy and prosperous societies can be paid for by anything other then blood, sweat and tears is lying to you. Fukuyama lied to an entire generation of credulous idiots.


Uhh... whose blood? And why?


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## mindlessobserver (Feb 27, 2019)

Hellbound Hellhound said:


> That's a pretty pessimistic outlook. Liberal democracy has proven capable of generating widespread peace and prosperity, and the only areas of the world where it appears to be credibly under threat are the areas where it wasn't that strong to begin with. The political elite in the West certainly don't want to overthrow democracy, they benefit too much from it.



But that's the thing though. If they benefit from it at the expense of everyone else the democracy won't be looking so appealing. People need to feel an investment in their government that it is responsive to them. Democracy is not an infallable system. Its a system much like any other. We may have had more success with it then others, but that does not mean success is a given.



Corbin Dallas Multipass said:


> Uhh... whose blood? And why?



Yours, mine, everyone's. That is not to say the bill will ever come due in our lifestimes. We could have decades. maybe even centuries of peace and prosperity that won't require major sacrifices to maintain. But eventually things happen that require investment. Part of what helps maintain all that peace and propserity however, is the awareness of that fact. When you know the cost of something, you value it more.


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## Corbin Dallas Multipass (Feb 27, 2019)

mindlessobserver said:


> Yours, mine, everyone's. That is not to say the bill will ever come due in our lifestimes. We could have decades. maybe even centuries of peace and prosperity that won't require major sacrifices to maintain. But eventually things happen that require investment. Part of what helps maintain all that peace and propserity however, is the awareness of that fact. When you know the cost of something, you value it more.


So... at some time in the future we just have to start slaughtering one another, to preserve democracy? What is that supposed to mean? What are you using as a point of reference, who decided not to pay the "Blood price" and lost their democracy as a result? Don't non-democratic forms of government typically get paid for in blood?


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## mindlessobserver (Feb 27, 2019)

Corbin Dallas Multipass said:


> So... at some time in the future we just have to start slaughtering one another, to preserve democracy? What is that supposed to mean? What are you using as a point of reference, who decided not to pay the "Blood price" and lost their democracy as a result? Don't non-democratic forms of government typically get paid for in blood?



All human societies require the implicit threat of giving and receiving violence to function. Democracy is not an exception to this rule. You don't pay your taxes because you enjoy it and it gives you pleasure. You pay your taxes because they pay for men with guns to keep people from stealing your shit, and also because if you don't those same men with guns will come and collect the taxes the hard way.


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## Corbin Dallas Multipass (Feb 27, 2019)

mindlessobserver said:


> All human societies require the implicit threat of giving and receiving violence to function. Democracy is not an exception to this rule. You don't pay your taxes because you enjoy it and it gives you pleasure. You pay your taxes because they pay for men with guns to keep people from stealing your shit, and also because if you don't those same men with guns will come and collect the taxes the hard way.


Sure.  And in what way does our society need to change then? We have taxes backed with men with guns now.  We have a military now.  You do realize we haven't disbanded the military, right?  

Are you talking about fighting a war in the future? This "Democracy needs to be paid for in blood" is extremely vague, I'm not convinced you even know what you mean by it.


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## BR55 (Feb 27, 2019)

mindlessobserver said:


> Its not going to be preserved. The nitwits in charge of preserving it do not understand the value of it, nor do they understand the price that needs to be paid for it. The only hope any sort of demcoracy has for surviving the 21st century is for a new generation to come along that does understand the value of it and is willing to pay the price for it. And if its not obvious yet, the price is blood. Whole oceans of it. America bought its freedom with blood, and the European democracies saved themselves in the 20th century with more blood then the human brain can conceive. Anyone who tells you our happy and prosperous societies can be paid for by anything other then blood, sweat and tears is lying to you. Fukuyama lied to an entire generation of credulous idiots.





Hellbound Hellhound said:


> That's a pretty pessimistic outlook. Liberal democracy has proven capable of generating widespread peace and prosperity, and the only areas of the world where it appears to be credibly under threat are the areas where it wasn't that strong to begin with. The political elite in the West certainly don't want to overthrow democracy, they benefit too much from it.


I think what he's getting at is that Fukuyama and the rest of his douchebag ivory tower buddies never understood that History isn't a narrative. 
To them the current system isn't the result of thousands of years worth of mistakes and accidents and our forefathers learning from said mistakes and accidents.
To them the current system is just the God given way Man was always meant to live and Govern himself.
But as it turns out assuming that you've reached the Promised Land and now theres nothing left but endless prosperity and progress for all eternity is a pretty good way to get a nice dose of Humble Pie...Assuming you survive the inevitable crackup that is.
To put it another way...Fukuyama truly honestly believes that if you hit the Cosmic Reset Button and every thing went to the year 0 we would invariably end up right back we are right now.
The Truth being that our society is the result of countless Revolutions and Civil Wars. Of endless hours of Debate and Reform. And no small amount of Luck.
Thats what "Not understanding the value of it" and "The price of blood" means.


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## JuniperFalls (Feb 27, 2019)

Corbin Dallas Multipass said:


> Is american exceptionalism justified? I dunno, is Europe currently under Nazi German rule?



The defeat of the Nazis was overwhelmingly due to the Red Army, not the Allied forces (though America did provide enough food to keep the Red Army from starving). As soon as Hitler violated the non-aggression pact he signed with Stalin the Nazis' defeat was thankfully inevitable; the only real question was "So, how much of Europe will the Communists manage to overtake before the Allies show up to stop them?"


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## mindlessobserver (Feb 27, 2019)

Corbin Dallas Multipass said:


> Sure.  And in what way does our society need to change then? We have taxes backed with men with guns now.  We have a military now.  You do realize we haven't disbanded the military, right?
> 
> Are you talking about fighting a war in the future? This "Democracy needs to be paid for in blood" is extremely vague, I'm not convinced you even know what you mean by it.



I mean in the context of Fukuyama's "end of history" thesis. That there is no more need to fear global wars, that liberal democracy is so perfect we will know nothing but ever increasing prosperity and peace. It was massively optimistic and IMO greatly understated the sub structure of why Liberal Democracy worked to begin with. It did not understand the value of it, or the cost. And if you don't understand those things you will neglect them. Which we have incidentally, particularly in Europe.



BR55 said:


> The Truth being that our society is the result of countless Revolutions and Civil Wars. Of endless hours of Debate and Reform. And no small amount of Luck.
> Thats what "Not understanding the value of it" and "The price of blood" means.



Also this


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## Hellbound Hellhound (Feb 27, 2019)

mindlessobserver said:


> But that's the thing though. If they benefit from it at the expense of everyone else the democracy won't be looking so appealing. People need to feel an investment in their government that it is responsive to them. Democracy is not an infallable system. Its a system much like any other. We may have had more success with it then others, but that does not mean success is a given.



If they were benefiting at the expense of everyone else, then I would agree that the system would be unsustainable in the long-term, but I'm not entirely convinced that this is the case. The Western political establishment are certainly out of touch with the ordinary person, but for all their faults and hubris, they don't seem to be making decisions which are causing most people's lives to become tangibly worse off. By contrast, I think one could make a much stronger case that the lives of the vast majority of people in Western society are better now than they have perhaps ever been. This doesn't seem like a recipe for the failure of a political system.



BR55 said:


> I think what he's getting at is that Fukuyama and the rest of his douchebag ivory tower buddies never understood that History isn't a narrative.
> To them the current system isn't the result of thousands of years worth of mistakes and accidents and our forefathers learning from said mistakes and accidents.



History isn't a narrative anymore than biology is a narrative, but in both instances, natural selection has clearly favored some forms over others. I don't think it is purely an accident of history that liberal democracy has came out on top as the dominant system. It was clearly the best and most adaptable idea for the post-industrial world, and it doesn't seem likely to me that the trajectory it forged is going to change course anytime soon.


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## Tiana (Feb 27, 2019)

Hellbound Hellhound said:


> Communism and fascism had their roots in 19th century thought, and they both effectively died out in practice by the end of the 20th century. I don't foresee them being meaningfully resurrected. If there is a worthy challenger to liberal democracy, then I have not yet seen it, and I can think of no reason to believe that democracy will collapse anytime soon.
> 
> As for the United States, I think that it will probably decline in power and influence relative to the rest of the world (as the rest of the world advances and catches up), but I don't foresee it declining overall, much less collapsing. I think that we are probably heading for a more integrated world where individual nation states play an increasingly minor role in global affairs, but the extent to which the US will have left it's mark on that world is difficult to say. I think it will largely depend upon the competence of America's future leadership.


Capitalism creates poverty. You don't need to be a communist to think it either.


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## mindlessobserver (Feb 27, 2019)

Tiana said:


> Capitalism creates poverty. You don't need to be a communist to think it either.



Communism creates poverty too.


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## Mysterious Capitalist (Feb 28, 2019)

I was always a staunch advocate for Enlightened Absolutism (no, really). 

I'm honestly tired of democratic governments that do nothing but dismantle what the previous government did and half bake stuff that will be dismantled by the next government, pushing forward in a significant way only lobbies' agendas; or bureaucratic nightmares that are so distant from their citizens and their interests that they might as well be alien in nature _cough_EU_cough_

People are unable and unwilling to put a competent person in power over a charismatic one. Until that paradigm is changed, society will continue to crawl forward at snail pace (if not backwards, as we've seen recently). A centralized, powerful and most importantly *enlightened* monarch (or even oligarchy) would have the means to give society a clear direction and follow it for the amount of time necessary to see actual, positive change. Planting the seeds for a tree whose shade they know they shall never sit, so to speak. And I say this while envisioning myself as a normal citizen as I am now, not as the monarch like some would (justifiably) assume. That's what I think, anyway.


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## neverendingmidi (Feb 28, 2019)

Mysterious Capitalist said:


> I was always a staunch advocate for Enlightened Absolutism (no, really).
> 
> I'm honestly tired of democratic governments that do nothing but dismantle what the previous government did and half bake stuff that will be dismantled by the next government, pushing forward in a significant way only lobbies' agendas; or bureaucratic nightmares that are so distant from their citizens and their interests that they might as well be alien in nature _cough_EU_cough_
> 
> People are unable and unwilling to put a competent person in power over a charismatic one. Until that paradigm is changed, society will continue to crawl forward at snail pace (if not backwards, as we've seen recently). A centralized, powerful and most importantly *enlightened* monarch (or even oligarchy) would have the means to give society a clear direction and follow it for the amount of time necessary to see actual, positive change. Planting the seeds for a tree whose shade they know they shall never sit, so to speak. And I say this while envisioning myself as a normal citizen as I am now, not as the monarch like some would (justifiably) assume. That's what I think, anyway.


This is idiotic, and history has proven it. One person might be intelligent, maybe their heir might be decent too. But eventually you’ll end up with said leadership deciding they are far better than everybody else so they go to inbreeding and you end up with as Charles II of Spain was described- “short, lame, epileptic, senile and completely bald before 35, always on the verge of death but repeatedly baffling Christendom by continuing to live.”

And assuming you don’t have inbreeding, which going by any history anywhere of monarchies is being pretty optimistic, you’ll eventually have corruption set in as generations create a bureaucracy that is practically immobile. The Chinese pretty much stagnated which was why the British were able to kick the shit out of them.


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## Mysterious Capitalist (Feb 28, 2019)

neverendingmidi said:


> This is idiotic, and history has proven it. One person might be intelligent, maybe their heir might be decent too. But eventually you’ll end up with said leadership deciding they are far better than everybody else so they go to inbreeding and you end up with as Charles II of Spain was described- “short, lame, epileptic, senile and completely bald before 35, always on the verge of death but repeatedly baffling Christendom by continuing to live.”
> 
> And assuming you don’t have inbreeding, which going by any history anywhere of monarchies is being pretty optimistic, you’ll eventually have corruption set in as generations create a bureaucracy that is practically immobile. The Chinese pretty much stagnated which was why the British were able to kick the shit out of them.



While you're correct in that historically it never lasted long, I feel like a modern twist on it would be able to get the good side of it (the focus on consistently doing the best thing for society as a whole) while getting rid of most of the bad side (like inbreeding and/or nepotism). I fell like most of the latter were more a symptom of the age when these kind of governments took place anyway (and are thusly already irrelevant if you were to try again today), rather than a fault of the system itself.

As a system, you'd need to introduce safety measures to ensure the keeping of enlightened ideals throughout the decades; that would be a really important point. A good start would be to, say, not make the title of Despot(s) hereditary but to award it to the best pupil(s) from some kind of academy with really high standards, both academically and morally (to at least slow down corruption). The list would be long and I'm not a political reformer or a revolutionary, just an idiot on a forum that laughs at autistic people, so I don't fell I'd be qualified to create said list anyway, although I have some general ideas.

Of course, this is all highly hypothetical, but I feel like it never hurts to challenge the status quo once in a while, if only as a mental exercise.


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## neverendingmidi (Feb 28, 2019)

Mysterious Capitalist said:


> While you're correct in that historically it never lasted long, I feel like a modern twist on it would be able to get the good side of it (the focus on consistently doing the best thing for society as a whole) while getting rid of most of the bad side (like inbreeding and/or nepotism). I fell like most of the latter were more a symptom of the age when these kind of governments took place anyway (and are thusly already irrelevant if you were to try again today), rather than a fault of the system itself.
> 
> As a system, you'd need to introduce safety measures to ensure the keeping of enlightened ideals throughout the decades; that would be a really important point. A good start would be to, say, not make the title of Despot(s) hereditary but to award it to the best pupil(s) from some kind of academy with really high standards, both academically and morally (to at least slow down corruption). The list would be long and I'm not a political reformer or a revolutionary, just an idiot on a forum that laughs at autistic people, so I don't fell I'd be qualified to create said list anyway, although I have some general ideas.
> 
> Of course, this is all highly hypothetical, but I feel like it never hurts to challenge the status quo once in a while, if only as a mental exercise.


Except China did have exams to get “the best of the best”. The problem set in because humans are corruptible, so they kept redefining what counted as “high standards” until it included being able to compose poems, play instruments, and board games, because only the rich and already powerful had the free time to focus on learning such fancy shit.

Nowadays that would be like saying that obviously Gender Studies/Art/Music PhDs should be in charge because they are obviously highly educated with their doctorates. The test might start off accesible to a blue collar hard working student, but I’d give it three generations before you have to be born to the upper caste in order to pass it. You’d need an uncorruptible, unhackable AI in charge to control standards, and that’s not going to happen because AIs would need to be built by humans who aren’t perfect.

There’s a reason there’s the old joke “a republic is the worst form of government, other than all of the others.”


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## mindlessobserver (Feb 28, 2019)

The AI running things plan would inevitably lead to a butlerian jihad and the banning of all computers down to the humble calculator. Would not reccomend.


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## Slap47 (Mar 2, 2019)

Mysterious Capitalist said:


> I was always a staunch advocate for Enlightened Absolutism (no, really).
> 
> I'm honestly tired of democratic governments that do nothing but dismantle what the previous government did and half bake stuff that will be dismantled by the next government, pushing forward in a significant way only lobbies' agendas; or bureaucratic nightmares that are so distant from their citizens and their interests that they might as well be alien in nature _cough_EU_cough_
> 
> People are unable and unwilling to put a competent person in power over a charismatic one. Until that paradigm is changed, society will continue to crawl forward at snail pace (if not backwards, as we've seen recently). A centralized, powerful and most importantly *enlightened* monarch (or even oligarchy) would have the means to give society a clear direction and follow it for the amount of time necessary to see actual, positive change. Planting the seeds for a tree whose shade they know they shall never sit, so to speak. And I say this while envisioning myself as a normal citizen as I am now, not as the monarch like some would (justifiably) assume. That's what I think, anyway.



So your solution to an unaccountable bureaucracy is to have more unacceptability? 

People always represent it as "The best government vs the most representative government" but the reality is that the latter is best. The latter forces a society to recognize that the flaws of everything are deeper than who is sitting on the throne. People act in their best interest and reforming their society is not in their interest because they can leave with ease. 

Lets use the example of the American progressive era. Corruption was rampant so the post-millennialist evangelicals and socialists went on a crusade to root it out from every level of government and succeeded. The evangelicals were religiously motivated to create a city on the hill and the poor socialists had nowhere else to go. Now compare that with Russia, the society was rotten to the core so they exchanged one autocrat for another. All of the fundamental problems with that society were not addressed and continue to exist today. 

The issue with America is not that it has a government that represents the people but rather that most of the people are not invested in the country. 
A good example would Singapore. Modern fascists point at Singapore as a model for their ideals but it is Democratic. Singaporean success comes from the fact that Singaporeans are directly invested in the country as investors ($$$) so they think long term in the best interest of the country. They're invested in their society for the long game so they root out the evils at every level of society (this can be good and bad). Now we go back to America, the common people are invested in their country but the elites and middle class have no reason to care about the health of the USA as they plan to retire in on some Island. The same could be said of pretty much every autocracy everywhere, from Venezuela to China. 

Tl;dr - Democracy empowers people to take responsibility for their country instead of pointing at their leaders. Modern democracies fail because the leadership isn't attached to health of their country.


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## Emperor Julian (Mar 3, 2019)

We're asking two question here which are the merits of democracy and American exceptionalism, This is a lot to upack on a forum dedicated to making fun of autistic people and morons on twitter.
Firstly it's debatable if America is a true democracy anymore, the obligarchic power structures around the senate,the media and the president effectively push the power dynamic in favour of rich ammoral types, it's bassically the system the Russians have but more humaine, less shameless campaigns of misinformation and they bought of the media rather than killing them.
Democracy is a horrible shit-show, it's often unweildy and a popularity contest where the audience are dumb as hell. Bad leaders get voted in and undermine good idea's from the last guys. The tug of war between the left and right makes it an absolute nightmare to actually explore how viable left vs right idea's are because they're constantly sabataging each other while sabotaging themselves.
Then again theirs the alternatives which are way worse on pretty much every level, unless we construct a new system we havnt considered yet.  The idea of an enlightened monarchy is has a track record  which makes Democracy look like a smash hit.. For every Marcus Aurlius their's a Caligula, an Honorius and two Theodosius' waiting in the wings.

American exceptionalism and exceptionalism in general is so absurd as to be laughable.  I come from a country which dominated world politics for centuries, seemed an unstopable juggernaut and before us their are a thousand broken chosen empires......some of which we personally broke. Now where totally fucked. I'm honestly at a loss how anybody could so utterly naive to think their position as the current big dick daddy is part of some story where they're marked for divine providence. If anything this retarded idea will accelerate an empires doom because it cultivates hubris and complacency.

No but seriously because you did really well in the 2nd world war  and the cold war you're totally bullet proof and immune to entropy.


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## mindlessobserver (Mar 6, 2019)

America does have some things that are historically unique going for it though. For starters in conquered a full third of the third largest planetary land mass. Only Canada and Russia have technically beaten that record, but I don't know if walking into a frozen hellscape and putting your flag on it counts as conquering. Besides, Canada is so far into America's orbit already that they are practically a part of the US already, with their destiny inextricably linked to ours.

The timing that this happened too was providential. There have been bigger Empires, such as the British and Mongolian empires, but those failed primarily because the distances involved and the various people incorporated were just completely unmanageable for a pre-digital age society. Communications were cumberson, it took forever to get agents of the government out to the periphery, and so on. The United States by comparison achieved its furthest territorial extent around the year 1900, just in time for the wireless radio and internal combustion engine. It made integrating its vast territories far easier, and those two things together ended the age of the "wild west" far more effectively then the telegraph and train ever could (though that helped too). Unlike the Mongols and the Brits, Americans also have a unifying grand narrative as a people. Everyone within America subscribes to the core identity that they ARE Americans first. Which incidentally is what makes modern social justice so dangerous as it seeks to break that distinction and turn us into warring tribes, but that is another thread all together.

The point I am getting at here though is the factors that could cause America to "Fall" in the way the Romans, Brits, or Mongols did simply are not present. We are not an Imperial core clinging to far flung possessions that are largely beyond our control outside a line on the map. Every part of America is unified completely with the central authorities in Washington, and if for whatever reason something happened anywhere within its claimed territory has the capability of responding to it within HOURS. Compare that to the British Empire where even at its most unified extent could take Weeks or even Months to respond to a major crisis out in the colonies. With no way for any enemies to truly get at it, and enough natural resources within its borders to be a self contained economy in its own right, the US is positioned much like China was in the middle ages for some major staying power. Obviously nothing is set in stone and we can clearly expect waxing and waning of American power as it goes through the cycle of civilization. Its not hyperbolic to argue however the US was blessed considerable, either by divine providence or shear bloody luck. But it has been, and unlike so many other Empires in history its not outside the realm of possibility to believe America will still be around largely in its current territorial configuration a thousand years from now. Whether its society is recognizably American is another story all together, but modern China would probably baffle the Ming Chinese too.


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## Krokodil Overdose (Mar 6, 2019)

To answer the OP's question:
->Shakes Magic 8-Ball
"Reply hazy, ask again later."


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