On Sat, 2003-02-15 at 20:31, Nathan E Norman wrote: > On Sun, Feb 16, 2003 at 01:31:01PM +1300, Haralambos Geortgilakis wrote: > > > > "Mr Powell said he was representing "the newest country and the oldest > > democracy","-Apparently Mr Powell is not aware of the Hellenic/Greek > > Democray, dated around 300 BCE; when "we" coined the term. His grasp of > > history, is as poor as his American argument for a war, against Iraq. --GG > > I recently heard a term for this kind of political attack: "drive-by > political commentary". > > I think it's fairly obvious that Mr. Powell meant the United States is > the world's oldest _active_ democracy as it's been in existence since > 1787 or 1789 depending on whether you consider the current government > to begin with the signing of the Constitution or the first election of > a president. Your argument is rather like claiming that the Guiness > Book of World records is incorrect when it names the "oldest living > human" since the Bible says Methuselah lived to the age of 969. Of > course, if you have evidence that Greece has been under a democratic > government since 300 BC, I'm sure many historians would be ecstatic to > hear your evidence. > > Have a nice day. > > -- > Nathan Norman - Incanus Networking mailto:nnorman@incanus.net > Profanity is the one language all programmers know best. While this is not the place for such a discussion, the Icelandic Althing (Parliament) dates back, with a temporary suspension in the 19th century, to 870. England's Parliament traces back to the Magna Carta, and has had substantive control over the administration of the nation since the English Civil War. The franchise (right to vote) was of moderately comparable grounds to that of the United States at the time of secession, but was expanded under organised acts of reform that voting rights prior to the American Civil War were quite broad relative to significant areas of the 1859 United States. That said, the issue is a pissing match that is inappropriate for here and that we should all be above. For those that feel it difficult to be above that, there are alt.* discussion groups on Usenet where such pissing is appropriate. -- Mark L. Kahnt, FLMI/M, ALHC, HIA, AIAA, ACS, MHP ML Kahnt New Markets Consulting Tel: (613) 531-8684 / (613) 539-0935 Email: kahnt@hosehead.dyndns.org
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