Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy and Christianity

Jack said:
So ... we both agree that the Magna Carta was NOT influenced by the Protestant Reformation.


"Magna Carta, English Great Charter, charter of English liberties granted by King John on June 15, 1215, under threat of civil war and reissued, with alterations, in 1216, 1217, and 1225. By declaring the sovereign to be subject to the rule of law and documenting the liberties held by “free men,” the Magna Carta provided the foundation for individual rights in Anglo-American jurisprudence."
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Magna-Carta
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Magna Carta was not an instrument of democracy. It was an instrument of oligarchy and aristocracy, only drafted to protect the privileges of high born nobles -- no one else.

It was not until hundreds of years later that reformers in the shadow of the Protestant Reformation and the Glorious Revolution took the principles in Magna Carta and tried to extend them aspirationally to society more broadly.
 
Jack said:
So ... we both agree that the Magna Carta was NOT influenced by the Protestant Reformation.


"Magna Carta, English Great Charter, charter of English liberties granted by King John on June 15, 1215, under threat of civil war and reissued, with alterations, in 1216, 1217, and 1225. By declaring the sovereign to be subject to the rule of law and documenting the liberties held by “free men,” the Magna Carta provided the foundation for individual rights in Anglo-American jurisprudence."
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Magna-Carta
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For the record, frantically googling Wikipedia and Encyclopedia webpages in a frenetic effort to make points on a message board is not the best way to understand European history. What knowlege I have generally comes from consistent effort in reading and listening to trained historians
 
Cypress said:
For the record, frantically googling Wikipedia and Encyclopedia webpages in a frenetic effort to make points on a message board is not the best way to understand European history. What knowlege I have generally comes from consistent effort in reading and listening to trained historians
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You watch a video for 30 and think you're an expert.
 
BidenPresident said:
Yes. "I am brilliant, You suck." Wow.
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You all began this thread with insults about me being a bible thumper, and the first responses were mediocre trollish attempts to conflate Christianity with Adolph Hitler and the Nazis.

The responses you get from me will always be restrained, but they will be proportional and commensurate with the level of contributions you choose to provide.

I agree with Darth Omar on virtually nothing, but had an intelligent debate with him on angiogenesis because he refrained from pointless insults and incendiary trolling.
 
BidenPresident said:
You watch a video for 30 and think you're an expert.
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I haven't had to frantically google for anything in this thread.
You can't get that kind of knowlege from 30 minutes of study.

I am not going to apologise, diminish, or downplay what I do know.

If you want to start a thread about the stock market or gardening I will keep my mouth shut, because I do not know jack shit about those topics.
 
Cypress said:
Magna Carta was not an instrument of democracy. It was an instrument of oligarchy and aristocracy, only drafted to protect the privileges of high born nobles -- no one else.

It was not until hundreds of years later that reformers in the shadow of the Protestant Reformation and the Glorious Revolution took the principles in Magna Carta and tried to extend them aspirationally to society more broadly.
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"MAGNA CARTA: DAWN OF DEMOCRATIC IDEALS"
https://www.historymuseum.ca/blog/magna-carta-dawn-of-democratic-ideals/

"Echoes of the Magna Carta can be found in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the United States Declaration of Independence, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, amongst other historic documents."
 
Cypress said:
For the record, frantically googling Wikipedia and Encyclopedia webpages in a frenetic effort to make points on a message board is not the best way to understand European history. What knowlege I have generally comes from consistent effort in reading and listening to trained historians
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"The first English Parliament was convened in 1215, with the creation and signing of the Magna Carta, which established the rights of barons (wealthy landowners) to serve as consultants to the king on governmental matters in his Great Council."
https://www.history.com/topics/british-history/british-parliament

"In 1295, Parliament evolved to include nobles and bishops as well as two representatives from each of the counties and towns in England and, since 1282, Wales. This became the model for the composition of all future Parliaments."

Still pushing your 'Christianity' theme?
 
Democracy and the Iroquois Constitution

We are a nation built on the ideals of many, and Native North American contributions to our collective culture and society are immeasurable. The founders who wrote our U.S. Constitution, based on their democratic ideals, were influenced in part by Native American way of government.

The Iroquois Constitution, also known as the Great Law of Peace, is a great oral narrative that documents the formation of a League of Six Nations: Cayuga, Onondaga, Mohawk, Oneida, Seneca, and later on, the Tuscarora nations. The date of origin is contested, but it was well before the arrival of European settlers to America.

The constitution, also commemorated on Wampum (beads fashioned from the shells of whelks and quahog clams), included more than a few familiar concepts:

A restriction on holding dual offices
Processes to remove leaders within the confederacy
A bicameral legislature with procedures in place for passing laws
A delineation of power to declare war
A creation of a balance of power between the Iroquois Confederacy and individual tribes, according to later transcriptions.

https://www.fieldmuseum.org/blog/democracy-and-iroquois-constitution


There are many influences on American democracy.
 
BidenPresident said:
We are a nation built on the ideals of many, and Native North American contributions to our collective culture and society are immeasurable. The founders who wrote our U.S. Constitution, based on their democratic ideals, were influenced in part by Native American way of government.

The Iroquois Constitution, also known as the Great Law of Peace, is a great oral narrative that documents the formation of a League of Six Nations: Cayuga, Onondaga, Mohawk, Oneida, Seneca, and later on, the Tuscarora nations. The date of origin is contested, but it was well before the arrival of European settlers to America.

The constitution, also commemorated on Wampum (beads fashioned from the shells of whelks and quahog clams), included more than a few familiar concepts:

A restriction on holding dual offices
Processes to remove leaders within the confederacy
A bicameral legislature with procedures in place for passing laws
A delineation of power to declare war
A creation of a balance of power between the Iroquois Confederacy and individual tribes, according to later transcriptions.

https://www.fieldmuseum.org/blog/democracy-and-iroquois-constitution


There are many influences on American democracy.
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If have heard historians say that the idea that the Iroquois Confederacy was a major influence on the framers of the constitution is pretty overrated.

But at least it is in the realm of legitimate historical debate.

I have previously stated there cannot be one single explanation for the unique rise of liberal democracy in the west. This unique historical development occurred because of the confluence of numerous social and cultural contexts unique to western civilization.

This was my list:
https://www.justplainpolitics.com/s...ocracy-and-Christianity&p=4604533#post4604533
 
IROQUOIS CONSTITUTION: A FORERUNNER TO COLONISTS' DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES

In the years that followed, the colonists went from one meeting to another, looking for unions they should study, according to the executive director of the New York State Bicentennial Commission, Stephen L. Schechter.

''They contemplated examples from Europe, examples from Greco-Roman times, examples from the Bible,'' he said. ''And they also looked at Native American examples, particularly the Iroquois Confederacy.''

https://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/28/...unner-to-colonists-democratic-principles.html
 
BidenPresident said:
I never questioned whether you can cite history.
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a shocking conclusion. :rolleyes:

Historical knowlege does not pop into our brains by random quantum fluctuations
.
We acquire it by learning from experts.

Does knowlege just randomly pop into your mind?

Everything I have written in this thead is a synthesis or extrapolation in my own words of knowlege I have acquired by learning from experts.

You suggested I was lying about that and I was consulting Wikipedia as this thread played out.

So your contributions to this thread amounted to calling me a proselytizing bible thumper, a flagrant liar, and you chose as your opening salvo a mediocre trolling attempt conflating Christianity to Adolph Hitler.

I have had more genuine and serious exchanges with Darth Omar, even if I think he is wrong 98 percent of the time.
 
Cypress said:
a shocking conclusion. :rolleyes:

Historical knowlege does not pop into our brains by random quantum fluctuations
.
We acquire it by learning from experts.

Does knowlege just randomly pop into your mind?

Everything I have written in this thead is a synthesis or extrapolation in my own words of knowlege I have acquired by learning from experts.

You suggested I was lying about that and I was consulting Wikipedia as this thread played out.

So your contributions to this thread amounted to calling me a proselytizing bible thumper, a flagrant liar, and you chose as your opening salvo a mediocre trolling attempt conflating Christianity to Adolph Hitler.

I have had more genuine and serious exchanges with Darth Omar, even if I think he is wrong 98 percent of the time.
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you are out of your league
 
BidenPresident said:
you are out of your league
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You once called me the stupidest poster on the forum.
Your resentment, or whatever it is, is a psychological issue which is not my concern.

17 pages of comments later, you have not presented a credible alternative for the historical context I articulated, and you spent 90 percent of your time insulting, trolling, and shamelessly lying.

I really did not expect you to up your game, but I had hoped for better.
 
Does America Have a Mixed Constitution?

James Madison wrote scathingly about ancient democracy in the Federalist Papers, and Americans are often taught that we have a classical republic, consisting of elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy.

However, Tocqueville challenges this idea by arguing that there is only one overarching principle at work in America, and that principle is democracy. Of course, Tocqueville acknowledges the work of the authors of our Constitution, and he makes clear that the United States is not a larger and more modern version of Athens.

Nevertheless, despite all of the ways people may qualify the term, America is a democracy. In the 21st century, our nation is, in some obvious ways, more democratic that it was in Tocqueville’s day—consider the abolition of slavery, the expansion of suffrage, and direct election of senators—but it has not evolved into democracy—it has been one from its inception.



Source credit: Professor William R. Cook, State University of New York
 
Cypress said:
You once called me the stupidest poster on the forum.
Your resentment, or whatever it is, is a psychological issue which is not my concern.

17 pages of comments later, you have not presented a credible alternative for the historical context I articulated, and you spent 90 percent of your time insulting, trolling, and shamelessly lying.

I really did not expect you to up your game, but I had hoped for better.
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Some people are bitter and angry. IMO, it's an indicator of something very wrong in their lives such as work stress or health issues.

While I'll challenge such people on their anger, I also understand that their lives suck a lot more than my own. Here's to Schadenfreude. :clink:
 
Cypress said:
Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy and Christianity

Democracies are prone to changing values because of their majoritarian nature. Hence, an important question is: Where is the anchor of democracy to be found? For Tocqueville, the answer is in religion generally and Christianity specifically. Christian values are not subject to the whims of the majority; hence, they are essential for the functioning of American democracy. They also lead adherents beyond their desire for material prosperity and comfort. Tocqueville is convinced that despite its history, Christianity is, in its essence, supportive of democracy and its most essential principle, equality of conditions.

Tocqueville, however, posits that if churches become directly involved in politics, they will be subject to all of the “hardball politics” of other associations; thus, they will lose influence.

Tocqueville also proposes the counterintuitive belief that Catholicism is a better fit with democracy than various forms of Protestantism, including those that were present at the foundation of American society.

Tocqueville believed that, in its essence and despite its corruption in Europe, Christianity was compatible with, and supportive of, democracy, because Christ operated from the premise of the equality of conditions among humans.

Source credit: William Cook, PhD, State University of New York
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Linear thinking is both standard Western thinking and also "Half Thinking" since only half of our brain is linear and the other half holistic. For the anchor question the answer is "there is no anchor" since it's like asking for the anchor block on a pyramid in Egypt or the anchor to technology.

Ergo, not only do I disagree with Tocqueville's assertion that there is an anchor point, but also his Eurocentric view of Catholicism.

If we want to draw points along the line of mankind's move toward democracy, we can, indeed, look at religions and rich aristocrats because they were the only people who 1) knew how to read and 2) had the time to play chess, read books and contemplate the mysteries of the Universe. Everyone else was dying of bubonic plague and working in the fields.

John Locke, a Protestant hehe, was one of the greatest minds to influence modern democracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke
John Locke FRS (/lɒk/; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "Father of Liberalism".[12][13][14] Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Sir Francis Bacon, Locke is equally important to social contract theory. His work greatly affected the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American Revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence.[15] Internationally, Locke’s political-legal principles continue to have a profound influence on the theory and practice of limited representative government and the protection of basic rights and freedoms under the rule of law.[16]
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