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Assuming you're acting in good faith, I agree that your original comment was extremely generic, and the point of this person's reply was simply to say "this comment could have been uttered at any point in history". Countries and government are always in flux and crtiscisms of a generic nature are almost always applicable. I don't think the comment was so cryptic as to require my explanation, but I hope it's helpful.

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I think more specifically, they were going for "any point since the advent of modern democracy."

And obviously before that, but the assumption of who government was responsible to underwent a massive paradigm shift. "Gee, Charlemagne doesn't seem to have the interests of us serfs in mind" wouldn't have been a very interesting conversation back in the day.

The assumption of who government was responsible to underwent a massive paradigm shift with the issue of the Magna Carta in June 1215.

The case could be made that there was a long slow steady devolution of power in the UK system of Government since 1215 until the present, that was branched, modified and frozen by the US Constitution which has remained in a kind of "little King for four years" stasis since while other countries have continued to evolve government, democracy, elections and representation.

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