Hi, Tuesday, November 2, 2004, 6:51:18 PM, Peter wrote:
> As I said, Byzantine. You have to look at it in perspective, the United > States was only the second Republic, (semi-Democratic Federal Republic > at that), to come into existence since the fall of the Roman republic, > (a bit less than 2000 years). The only other Republic, which strangely > enough was a Federation as well, in existence at the time was > Switzerland. There was an English republic - called the Commonwealth - from 1649 to 1660. It wasn't particularly democratic - more of a military dictatorship - but in theory it was run by an elected parliament. In practice there were some very important democratic movements around at the time, such as the Levellers. One famous group, called the Diggers, wanted to abolish private property and hold all land in common, so they were effectively communists. Cromwell's New Model Army was very republican and democratically minded. > For a country built entirely on theory, interpretations of > ancient history and lots of compromise, with only one working example to > look to, it's worked surprisingly well with amazingly few changes and > corrections. It does seem to work quite well, but it was not built entirely on theory. Some of the major influences came from the (continuing) struggle in England for individual rights and liberties, enshrined in Magna Carta, the petition of rights signed by Charles I just before we cut his head off, and the Bill of Rights of 1689 which is still law and established some of the principles that are enshrined so memorably in the US Constitution. -- Cheers, Bob
