Comment by obelix_ | Hacker News Reader

Comment by obelix_ | Hacker News Reader

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Yup Trump, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, the 2008 meltdown, Zuckerberg turning the internet into his private sewage factory etc etc are all shining achievements of western wisdom and deep thought. The poor unimaginative illiterates of the Orient just don't get it. If only they understood what magic freedom can produce.

Btw I suggest you reread your French Revolution history. The aristocracy was very much back in power within a year of the king getting his head chopped off. And then they propped up Napoloen who decided he needed to conquer the world. The next 100 years were spent with the elites of one European country or another colonising and pilaging most of South America, Africa and Asia. So much for freedom and equality and the aristocracy learning any lesson. They are still more of less in power with the same mindless global ambitions unless you haven't seen the inequality numbers and have your head buried deep in the sand.

Within a few decades of the French revolution half of the European governments were overthrown and replaced with constitutional Monarchies. The other half that resisted were forced into increasing totalitarianism and in a few more decades themselves overthrown in year zero revolutions.

The one country to avoid this, Britain, learned the lesson of the French Revolution. They maed enough reforms that there was no constituency for revolution.

> The one country to avoid this, Britain, learned the lesson of the French Revolution. They maed enough reforms that there was no constituency for revolution.

Er, Britain had been a constitutional monarchy for a long time before the French Revolution, and many of the others made reforms rather than being overthrown, and in many cases, like Britain, well before the French Revolution.

Your version of history is badly distorted.

Both of you are somewhat right. The various events of the late seventeenth century helped prevent revolution from popping up around the French Revolution, but their political system at the time prevented most of the country from having a role in politics. This was a wide issue in Europe, and the Revolutions of 1848 were largely about that issue. Britain had addressed that issue with the Reform Acts, allowing their government to stay stable through the period.

Britain had learned these lessons before the French Revolution : i.e. the English Civil war and the Glorious Revolution.

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