I dunno, if Skuf's European, we sometimes get narked off when people suggest that the US was a democracy before, say, England. Besides, neither was a democracy- the US is a federal republic, and England was a republic for about a decade whilst Cromwell was in power. Before then, it was constitutional monarchy.
It's not so much American-baiting as a general wish that people would stop assuming that America is the only/first/best democracy. Besides, the issue wasn't so much with uneducated farmers- after all, a good proportion of the Founding Fathers were highly educated, massively rich farmers, whilst yeoman farmers in England had been voting for years. The problem was often more that it was one of the first times that an English-speaking colony broke away, helped by another colonial empire (the French), in an act of rebellion shortly after the debauchery of the French Revolution.
Oh hell. I've waffled badly. Forgive me. Two years of highly enthusiastic politics teachers does that to a boy.
Re: This playful banter, yeah? Just checking :o)
It's not so much American-baiting as a general wish that people would stop assuming that America is the only/first/best democracy. Besides, the issue wasn't so much with uneducated farmers- after all, a good proportion of the Founding Fathers were highly educated, massively rich farmers, whilst yeoman farmers in England had been voting for years. The problem was often more that it was one of the first times that an English-speaking colony broke away, helped by another colonial empire (the French), in an act of rebellion shortly after the debauchery of the French Revolution.
Oh hell. I've waffled badly. Forgive me. Two years of highly enthusiastic politics teachers does that to a boy.