• fireweed@lemmy.world
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    21 hours ago

    I feel like given what they went through, the Irish deserved an easy road to democracy.

    Although by this logic, Russia deserves Star Trek socialism by now.

  • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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    1 day ago

    The more I look at it, the less I believe any country is truly democratic, since most elections are popularity contests where people with more money have a much higher chance of being elected. Any place where there are “long running families” within politics, it sure feels like just a crappy veneer of “democracy” over aristocracy.

  • texture@lemmy.world
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    15 hours ago

    when in the heck was russia a communist dictatorship? what even is this meme

    • vga@sopuli.xyz
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      9 hours ago

      During Stalin’s time at least: 1922 - 1953. The following premiers might have been less clearly dictators, more like inherited the existing system and mostly kept going with it.

  • HelloThere@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    With this level of knowledge of Irish history, I can only assume that whoever made this is a proud Irish American.

    • Wrufieotnak@feddit.org
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      1 day ago

      I thought so as well at first, but the meme starts at the independence of the irish. Wasn’t it directly going Democratic? And the troubles were between 2 democratic countries. So while the meme doesn’t portray the history of the Irish and their problems, it shows the transition to a democratic system AFTER the independence was rather smooth.

    • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      The way I see it, when Ireland became independent, the proportional representation was already envisioned and embedded into the new Irish constitution when other countries, at the time, were pussyfooting on doing the same thing, because their elites benefit from the two party system. Fianna Fail tried to rid of the PR with a referendum in the 1950s, but failed by a razon thin margin. Imagine if ridding PR was successful and we’d be like the US and UK in having a shitshow of politics.

      That said, many post-colonial countries either struggled or failed with upholding democracy and becoming rich, while Ireland had been relatively smooth in achieving both. The country had been lucky in that regard.

  • ToastedRavioli@midwest.social
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    1 day ago

    Not so fun fact, Switzerland became a “democracy” in 1848, but some parts of the country didnt give women the right to vote until they were forced to in the 1990s. At that point, there were only 9 other countries left in the world where women did not have suffrage

    • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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      18 hours ago

      USSR was arguably more democratic under Lenin (however it’s hard to say that given how they became the leaders) than some parts here but Stalin ruined it.

      The problem for the Bolsheviks that required a revolution was that systems designed by the rich are designed to keep them rich.

      A parallel today would be the US. Student debt relief? Courts strike it down. Massive bailouts for the rich? It’s their right. Running as a communist in the US, what media is going to be behind you?

    • Rothe@piefed.social
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      1 day ago

      Also a “few” bit missing from Denmark. The king didn’t relinquish actual power until much later, and interfered with Danish politics well into the 20th century. In fact Denmark had a dictatorship in the late 19th century which functioned via the power that the king still had.

    • Hamartia@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Most egregiously that bit is a settler colonial statelett carved out of Ireland that is still to be reunited. But also some 700 years of violent, sometimes genocidal repression, long spells of apartite conditions, culture erasure, language erasure, and generally not cool behavior.

  • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    To be fair to Nappy III, he’s surprisingly progressive for the time. He gave plenty of worker’s rights during the time when it had to be fought from the bottom up. He was still an imperialist though.

      • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        He wasn’t really but he was following his uncle’s footsteps of being an “enlightened dictator”. It was kind of about ruling with more executive power to uphold liberal values for the benefit of the people. The view on what liberalism and democracy are, at the time, is different to the modern perception.

  • deegeese@sopuli.xyz
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    2 days ago

    Didn’t Russia have an actual functioning but highly dysfunctional democracy for a few years until the oligarchs chose Putin as the ‘moderate’?