And the Democratic Peace is the closest thing to a fact in IR. Maybe Wilsonian ideas are flawed (and flawed they are), but Classic Realism isn't always correct as well. In fact all theories have some flaws. Perhaps the closest to reality is Power Transition, but that would be increadibly hard to model in the game. It would be impossible to see if the rising nation was satisfied in its position, etc.

colossus: why just the most powerful military states? base it on civ score! after all, that's how the computer traditionally decides who to hate

quote: Originally posted by CivNation on 03-04-2000 01:47 PM Imran, The fact is that you are simply wrong. The democratic peace is no where near fact. There are numerous examples prior to the 20th Century where democracies went to war against each other. In fact the "dp theororists" are very vague with their definitions, defining democracy and war very narrowly in their definitions. In fact, many would argue that this "democratic peace" is nothing more than hegemonic stability theory. The evidence simply is not there, and to call it fact Imran is very presumptuous and unscholarly. [This message has been edited by CivNation (edited March 04, 2000).]

Really? Presumptuous and unscholarly? Well let's see. I hope this little exercise might teach you something and perhaps some manners.

quote: In fact the "dp theororists" are very vague with their definitions, defining democracy and war very narrowly in their definitions.

Vague and narrow? Well, I wonder how that can be? It has to be one no?

Let's see these definitions.

War: 1000 battle deaths

Democracy:
1)fair, regular, multiparty elections
2)voting francise for substantial amount of the population
3)vote for executive or have strong parliament
4)peaceful transfer of power
5)stability and longevity (at least 3 years).

Under these definition, which I think are very fair, there are few democracies before the 20th Century. I can only think of Athens, US, and Britain (after 1850). So the exeptions that are stated (War of 1812, US Civil War) don't fit the criteria. In The War of 1812, the King has too much power for the UK to be considered a democracy, and in the US Civil War, was there even an election?

quote: There are numerous examples prior to the 20th Century where democracies went to war against each other.

Interesting seeing above. The number of democracies before 1900 was VERY few. Perhaps you have examples?

quote: In fact, many would argue that this "democratic peace" is nothing more than hegemonic stability theory.

Well, I've never heard this. Back in ancient Rome, barbarians (the Goths, etc.) fought many times with the hegemon. Spain in the 1500s had many wars in Europe, same with Britain. In fact, most of the time before WW1, Balance of Power was the accepted international goal, which is totally at odds with hegemonic stability. Whenever anyone got too strong, the others joined against it, so how could the Hegemonic Stability Theory account for this?

I don't see Russia and China paying much attention to the so-called hegemonic stability theory! In fact, I think it is overstated and that Power Transition is much more apt.

The fact is that most political scientists believe in Democratic Peace. In the 70s, A political scientist named Babst showed that democracies haven't fought from 1789-1941.

I do have more facts, but I've run out of time it seems. I hope that you can give me some examples and be less rude when you have little backing you up.

Once again your entire post is presumptuous and unscholarly. You seem like the kind of person who basically used Russett's SINGLE book about the democratic peace, including his definition of conflict and democracy, and made it into an historical fact. Whether you like to hear it or not it is VERY presumptuous. Russett is essentially the only individual that I know of who has produced an entire book on this subject, and boy you ate it up like a little disciple without examining the full weight of the evidence? Do you think I'm some kind of ignoramous who doesn't know where you received your information? Did you even care to think that your definition of war and democracy is so ABSOLUTELY NARROW that no scholar outside of Russett has been able to take his claims seriously? Lets see wars must be over 1000 men, do you know how many conflicts between democracies this excludes?
As for a modern day example to refute your hypothesis, all we have to do is look at Norway in WWII as the last clearcut example that refutes the ridiculous thesis.
Your definition of democracy only characterizes nations from the past 30 years and LESS, even only since the end of the Cold War! HARDLY TIME to start making these kinds of exhorbitant theories that the VERY SPECIFIC type of democracy you mentioned will always make peace. How much more narrow does your definition of democracy have to become for your theory to work even within the past 50 years? How many scholars refute your thesis? Lets see...
McDougall... pulitzer prize winning historian and scholar at the University of Pennsylvania
Trachtenburg... another big name who refutes the theory with soundness in many of his works

If you have never heard of Hegemonic Stability theory as a sound, much more supported theory than the few proponents of the democratic peace theory... I suggest you start reading political science a bit more. There are many many scholars who have argued that hegemons like Britain and America, when they have taken the global stage, provided for greatly enhanced free trade as well as an era of societal peace. Your mention of the Roman Empire not promoting peace among the barbarians has nothing pertinent to offer as a rebuttal, because the fact is at that point the Roman Empire was a declining Hegemon, precisely the time when things become unstable... just like WWI was to Britain and eventually the end of its great imperalist regime.

the top two nations in term of civ score are considered the backbone of power blocks...and all of the other civs will try to either sign a treaty with one or the other or try to stay neutral, these two superpowers both get a wider range of diplomatic options

I've Never read Russell, in fact I don't know who the Hell he is. Way to go for being presumptous! Actually, I'd say just about all of the faculty of my university (Rutgers, one of the best Political Science schools in the nation) believe in the democratic peace. In fact one of the faculty, Jack Levy came up with the famously quoted, "Democratic Peace is the closest thing to an empirical law in International Relations".

Just because you've started to learn IR and have read this Russell guy and your teacher disagrees with him doesn't mean that YOU ARE IN THE MAJORITY! Most poly scientists are FOR the Democratic Peace. I recommend you go to a International Relations conference at some time.

And let's see.. Norway (under Nazi German rule) against democratic Britain.

quote: There are many many scholars who have argued that hegemons like Britain and America, when they have taken the global stage, provided for greatly enhanced free trade as well as an era of societal peace.

So now free-trade leads to peace? Sorry, the Manchester Liberal have been proven wrong. More trade does not lead to peace! Example: France and Germany in 1914 were the other's greatest trading partner.

Imram, I was agreeing with you, until you defined democracy.

Athens had numerous wars. But obviously, there wasn't any other democrat nation to fight with, as I can understand from your post.

We don't have many means to discuss this, as only in the last few years the number of "democratic" nations became relevant and the probability of having a war between democracies is greater. In this short period though, wasn't the WWII a good example? Wasn't Hitler elected by the people, had strong political support and longevity?

You named the example of the Falkland's. Why don't you mention the example of the Paraguaian War? It happened after the British democracy was consolidated, according to you. In that case, the British only used words to incite a war. If you haven't studied it yet, I strongly advice you to do so. But I don't think you'll be able to read (because no books contain that) the bottom lines. If so, please email me, I'll be glad.

Imram is also wrong when he says it would be difficult to program. You don't actually need new diplomatic options, but they would only make sense on powerful nations. For example, who gives a shit if Cuba declares economical santions over the US?

Imran first of all you don't know a thing about the Manchester school of economics and how their theories have advanced since the early part of the century.

Secondly, Norway was NOT under Nazi rule but AS A DEMOCRACY declared war on the Western Powers.

I'm a junior at Rutgers University, which probably (I'm sure) has a better political science department than UPenn does.

And Hell, I'm the not the one that said someone was presumptuous and unscholarly. I didn't say someone was SIMPLY WRONG. I have every right to curse and be less than civil with arrogant sons of *****es who think they are always right. I never assumed anything about the other person now did I? Who's uncivil now?

quote: Wasn't Hitler elected by the people, had strong political support and longevity?

Ah, but Hitler banned all parties. So there weren't any fair, multiparty elections. Also there really wasn't any vote for the executive after Hitler took over. But it is a good point and I thank you for your reply.

And lets see... Norway joined the Nazis and almost immediatly began to be a tool of Hitler. They ceised to be a democracy after the Nazi's turned around the nation.

And what have I read? Rhodes, Morganthau, Allison, and these fellas have influenced be enough that I am a Realist in IR. However, I also know that no structural theory (ie. one that states that the international system is in a fixed structure) can be always true. However, I do think that Power Transition by Organsky holds weight as does Balance of Power (which rememeber was not to prevent war, but to protect soveriegnty).

quote: Lets see wars must be over 1000 men, do you know how many conflicts between democracies this excludes?

So wars can be under 1000 people? HA! I guess the US has been in a Civil War for years! Imagine that!

NoviceCEO, I never heard about the Paraguayan War, but I shall look it up. All that I know is that Hegemonic Stability is shaky at best. The Hegemon is never that power to enforce its norms and wills. This has been validated by history.

I do think that it might be difficult to program. Maybe only given to the major nations, it could work; however, I don't know about picking among the major nations. However, I like your idea about only making sense on powerful nations.

As for democratic peace theory... it requires a lot more years of analysis before it can be proven correct, as well as longer historical example. It is my conviction it will not stand up to the test.

quote: I NEVER claimed that democratic peace theory was simply wrong. I said your claim that it is proven is simply wrong.

quote: The fact is that you are simply wrong. The democratic peace is no where near fact. There are numerous examples prior to the 20th Century where democracies went to war against each other.

Don't seem to match, eh?

Well, I received this in my email today (thanks to Co_Sinus):

quote: *This e-mail was sent to CIVNet, but I thought maybe you could find interest in it too* Hello. Pardon my English, since it’s not my native language. I was just reading your post on Apolyton Net, where you stated the following: “Norway was NOT under Nazi rule but AS A DEMOCRACY declared war on the Western Powers.” Since this is somewhat different from my education (I’m Norwegian by the way), I’d like to tell you what we learn in school. 8. April: Norway was a monarchy under king Haakon 7. The king had chosen a Prime Minister (I dont remember his name), witch had support in Stortinget (The Norwegian parliament). In this way you could say that Norway was democratic. 9. April: Nazi-Germany attacks Norway. In the morning the nazi ship “Blücher” is sunk. Onboard Blücher, there were Nazi special forces, who should secure the royal family and the cabinet. However as the ship was sunk. An emissary from the Nazi-Germany negotiates about surrender with the foreign minister. He declines after a consultation with the rest of the cabinet. The royal family, the cabinet and the parliament escapes to Elverum by train. On the same morning (9. April) Vidkun Quisling declared himself Prime Minister over the radio. Quisling was the ledader of NS (Nasjonal Samling) a small fascistic party, who supported Nazi-Germany. 10. April: In Elverum there is new negotiations. One of the demands is that the king should acknowledge Quisling as Prime Minister, but the king declines. On Elverum, the parliament gave up its right to the cabinet*. Later the king and the cabinet escapes to England (A Western Power). *Some of the formalities was wrong, however all of the members in the parliament agreed to this. NOTE: History is not my best subject, so the details might be somewhat inaccurate. You could of course say that the illegal Prime Minister Quisling (With support from about 25 000 people) ruled as democracy. You could say that even through Norway was occupied by Nazi-Germany it was not under Nazi rule. You might be right and almost every Norwegian citizen wrong. About the democratic peace vs hegemony thingy, I don't have clue. Yours sincerely Co_Sinus

That hopefully proves my point on Norway.

I'll say right out that I'm a junior in college majoring in Physics (if anyone wants to start a physics fight, bring it on) so I don't pretend to know much in this field. When you guys are discussing theories like Democratic Peace, Hegemonic Stability, and Balance of Power, what's the point? Sorry for the apparent irreverence, but they can't all be right (and they could very easily all be wrong). Physics has a hard enough time agreeing that some theory is sufficiently sound to be called a Scientific Law, and that's after years of carefully controlled laboratory experiments. You guys are dealing with HISTORY, a bunch of recorded and relatively indisputable facts, and still have trouble coming up with a theory for how nations relate to each other. It seems to me that either arguing about it or waiting for more data isn't going to help (both have been done enough already), and if there _is_ a single, over-arching theory of international relations, then someone probably would have come up with it by now and it would be plainly obvious (due to lack of counter-example) that it was right.

So my suggestion is, come to an agreement on the things that are absolutely NOT possible, and let Civ III do whatever's left. The remaining possibilities could be weighted to reflect history, or we can go under the assumption that history was just a random sequence of stuff, or find a happy place somewhere in between.

Incidentally, I don't see how the Norway thing could be considered a war between democracies either, thanks mostly to the quote from Co_Sinus.

I hope that made sence .

quote: Triple Alliance, War of the 1865–70, fought between Paraguay on one side and an alliance of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay on the other. Brazil's military reprisals for injuries to Brazilian subjects in Uruguay's civil war brought a declaration of war against Brazil from Francisco Solano López, Paraguayan dictator, who favored the Blanco regime in Uruguay. Imprudently, he also declared war on Argentina after Bartolomé Mitre refused to allow Paraguayan troops to cross Argentine territory. A secret alliance, made by Brazil and Argentina with Gen. Venancio Flores of the Colorado faction (traditional enemies of the Blancos), brought Uruguay into the war. The heroic defense of Paraguay against powerful invaders lasted five years until the final stand at Cerro Corá, where the entire populous rallied around López. By the end of the war Paraguay was devastated and a considerable part of its male population killed. The war was the brutal consequence of López's provocations as well as of the abusive aggressiveness of the larger powers. It nevertheless opened the way for a development of constitutional government in Paraguay. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition Copyright ©1993, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Inso Corporation. All rights reserved.

So, the Paraguayan leader was a dictator it seems. Man, I tell ya, I love the internet!

you are completely right, in civ it is much too easy to conquer the world. the AI is completely inadequate in handling military operations, and in multiplayer conquest is even more important.

how exactly does the senate work in civ2? it has been years since i have played civ2 and i never really figured it out when i used to play it. i know how things work in SMAC but i am rusty on civ2...

It did. And what right exactly did the US had to try to take over cuba? and what is the reason? It was a threat to close to home.

So we see the hegemonic powers (in present: USA, UK, China and Russia is slowly losing it's status) do use their political power and army to force their terms. And i quote from a quote in a war guide for civ 2 called "fire" : war is an extension of diplomacy (or something like that).

You are being highly irresponsible. You are imposing your views as fact on people who are ignorant of the specifics. Folks don't fall for it. Democratic peace theory is NO WHERE NEAR PROVEN, and whole universities are oppossed to the theory. Based upon paltry evidence over a 30 year time period, when many democracies are finally actually in the world (and even then the definition of democracy is vague) they go and spout off these ridiculous propositions that democracies NEVER fight each other. Its ludicrous and completely unproven. Before the 20th Century democracies, depending on how you define the term, fought each other often. Most scholars would see the current era of peace not the result of many democracies (heck only 15 years ago half the world was communist!) but of a hegemonic power known as the United States providing a single defense umbrella thereby fostering open economic and peaceful relations.

You have not said a SINGLE case of democracy fighting against democracy! Not ONE! Where is your proof? I have proof! Political scientists have proven it. Hell, in my political theory class, the teacher said "it is the closest thing to a law in international relations". And she's right! Be a naysayer if you wish. You are just obstructing the facts.

Every example you gave has been slammed back down into your face. The Democratic Peace is highly respect and as close to being a law as you'll find in ALL of the political science.

That couldn't introduce me better to talk about the Paraguayan War. Imran, I'm surprised. Your encyclopedia did had a mention on this War and it did it ok, but forgot some very important aspects:

1-Paraguay had an impressive growth those days and it was just about to become a superpower. The percentage of people who couldn't read was smaller than Brazilian's current. Paraguay had became a country that didn't need external help, that had its own industry.

2-The "official" reason for the War was the tensions for the control over Rio del Plata ("Silver River", literally translating, it's a river that enabled Paraguay to have a "sea-contact", it is, through the river they could reach the sea.)

3-Brazil was a monarchy I believe and was the country that actually fought against Paraguay, Argentina and Paraguay had only a small part on it. After the war, Brazilian's economy was devastated.

4-We Brazilians get ashamed of our past everytime we hear about this War.

You're probably wondering "What the heck this got to do with democracy?". Well you said that UK was a democracy by those days.

The hidden part of this war is that UK was in full strength ahead in the Industrial Revolution. The British wanted to sell their new products. But read again topic 1. Paraguay wasn't buying anything and the British were getting worried with the growing power of them.

So they had to find a way to slow down Paraguayan's progress, and that way was Brazil. Financed by the British money who we used to buy British war equipment. With superior weapon's and British support, we found a reason to declare war on Paraguay and killed not only nearly all of the men in that country, but children, women and old people, with no mercy.

The result: of over 1million inhabitants, only about 200 hundred Paraguayans survived the war, mostly women and children. Brazil ruined its economy and received as a prize the task to pay back the money we had borrowed from England.

CivNation-
I'm afraid I'm going to have to second Imran's appeal for proof that democracies have ever fought each other. The few examples I've seen seem to have been pretty well invalidated, so although I agree that any instance of such a war would immediately disprove the Democratic Peace theory, it seems only fair to say that this hasn't happened yet. Please provide an example, or at least conceed that the Democratic Peace theory is _not proven_.

CivNation and/or Imran Siddiqui-
As I said I'm a Physics student, and I'm guessing that Physics has somewhat different requirements for "proof" than does International Relations. Could either or both of you explain what you think it takes to "prove" a theory such as these? I only ask because I have trouble believing that no examples of a war between two democracies is proof that such a war can't and/or won't ever occur. If we can agree on what it takes to prove/disprove something, that might be a good start to settling what has become a rather heated and unreasonable debate.

i just read that a minute ago, and i thought it was relevant enough to post. granted "those who really know" is a group that can't really exist in this case, unless there are some omniscient beings who play civ and are going to show up and correct me .

While I am also a physics student I would like to have my say.

1. I think that Imran has succeded in proving that the DP theory has not been proven false.

2. I think that CN is right in that 30 years of democracy is not near enough time to declare DP fact, when comparing that with how long human civilization has lasted. Any previous years can be declared unusable since most countries were not democratic and so democratic nations not fighting each other would be statistical.

3. CN, your initial statements against Imran were too harsh. Imran your replies got to harsh.

4. I think democracies are government by the people. And if the people want war with a nation it will not matter if it is democratic or not. Most wars WW2 and previous were fought over resources, it has only been since then that the advanced nations have solved their resource shortfalls and wants by trade and not war. Thus wars fought by these nations since WW2 have been idealogical. Democracies have no idealogical reason to fight eachother. If there was a resource shortfall that could not be solved by trade or other methods we would start seeing a demand for war, even in democracies. Of course if there was a nonsolvable resource shortfall the democracies might fall into dictarorships anyways.

5. Question, were not some Indian tribes democracies?

Now, to answer whether Indians were democratic, we must first look at the definition (which I think is a good one).

quote: Democracy: 1)fair, regular, multiparty elections 2)voting francise for substantial amount of the population 3)vote for executive or have strong parliament 4)peaceful transfer of power 5)stability and longevity (at least 3 years).

I don't remember a parliament or much voting for that matter. I could be wrong, correct me if I am.

Your point #4 is true, but there seems to be agreement that democratic nations resort to diplomacy first. They usually don't go pell-mell into wars, because of the attacks the opposition could launch.

You're falling for Imran's propoganda. I did NOT SAY that the democratic peace theory was wholly invalid, but I DID SAY IT WAS FAR FROM PROVEN. When is your "evidence" that democracies don't declare war on each other? Only in the last 30 years, when the world has actually even had democracies. This is hardly enough time to prove such a silly theory, especially in light of the hegemonic stability theory and the superpower of the United States providing a single defense umbrella throughout the world... and of course we all know the pax Romana.

Put simply, Imran is spewing out gibberish.

And if I dare say so, the only way you're ever going to get peace in the world is not thorugh some silly human devised system, but by the blessings of Jesus Christ upon those nations that choose to follow Him: they will prosper and be peaceful. Those nations that reject Him will face incredible wrath, prolonged disasters, and anguish for resisting the true God.

Anyway, Stefu, Are you not sure that Finland didn't fall under the same example as Norway? Perhaps the Nazi's actually controlled the nation as they did in Norway. I'll have to take a look. Although the Democratic Peace Project hasn't said anything about this.

Criticizing the LORD Jesus Christ and His belief won't get you far period.

All of these arguments of yours are deplorably weak. You have absolutely no evidence to support your case. There were practically no democracies ante WWII and those after WWII formed in the last 30 years, during the period of the most powerful country the world has ever known, and at its hegemonic pinnacle. Its no wonder all the nations are bowing peacefully to the 600 pound gorilla of the United States. The democratic peace simply doesn't stand up.

Everyone,
Does anyone here know someone from Finland? Getting the first-person perspective might be helpful for this most recent challenge to the democratic peace theory. Still, it seems the most important part is what we chose to define as a democracy. I'm not touching that one.

CivNation,
Please read the following with an open mind. I don't think you're helping yourself with the religious references. Criticizing you for "spewing Christian belief" is not the same as "criticizing the LORD Jesus Christ and His belief." You're dealing with people from a wide range of backgrounds, and such comments could be interpretted as offensive. Not that it's always wrong to offend people, but I see no reason for it at this particular time. We're trying to have a productive discussion, and you seem to have some valuable experience in this field which would be very helpful to the rest of us. All I ask is that you remember Matthew 5:9, "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God."

Well, I believe that suspending elections would not make you a democracy. I mean if Yetsin instead of handing of to Putin, decided to declare emergency and postponed elections indefinetly, I don't think that we'd call Russia a democracy anymore (I don't know if we would have before for that matter ).

Congratulations on not falling for CivNation's religious baiting. CivNation probably assumed you weren't Christian by your name and tried to go after you that way.

Religious bigotry seems to be on the march again here in the USA. It's very sad and disturbing.

"In fact, all of the ideas of civilization your learn in your school were most likely begun in a Protestant Christian nation." - CivNation

You don't really believe this do you, CivNation? Your're just trying to offend people with this stuff, right?

quote: Now it depends on whether you believe Finland stopped being a democracy because of the lack of elections after the attacks by the USSR and alling with Germany. What can be asserted that there were no elections during the war..

Hmm, in that way, you could say Finland wasn't a democracy - strictly speaking. However, in practise this didn't cancel the democratic process, and those men elected to parliament knew that there would be another election by people coming. Also, when Britain delcared war to Finland, Finland was a democracy, since by then there had been no postponements, and parliament had been elected in manner it had always been.

quote: there were no hostilities between these countries and Finland.

during all of the Isreali-Arab wars was any of the arab nations ever a democracy? the only ones that might have been are lebanon and egypt...so was lebanon or egypt a democracy when they fought with isreal?

I think Isreal could be labeled a democratic nation under some circumstances even though it doesn't give voting rights to all of it's citizns...if 51% of the eligable voting population the United States doesn't register and vote then is it not a democracy? if 16 and 17 year olds who are mentally able to grasp the election and ideas presented by the candidates then is the US not a democracy because it doesn't extend voting rights to them?

interesting questions...

could you please define what a democracy is according to the democratic peace theory, and exactly what a war is also?

could you also explain to me the mechanisms of why democracies fight wars according to this theory?

i could believe that there has never been a case of two democracies going to war yet...and i could believe that democratic nations might have a very low chance of going to war...but i personally find it reasonable that two democratic nations could and would wage war over a vital issue, but that is just my opinion i have no scientific facts to back it up

quote: Democracy: 1)fair, regular, multiparty elections 2)voting francise for substantial amount of the population 3)vote for executive or have strong parliament 4)peaceful transfer of power 5)stability and longevity (at least 3 years).

I also believe that what Imran (I'm not saying his the only one who does it, but who gave us the concept) considers to be a democracy doesn't leave much space for naming democracies before 30 years ago (30 years seems to be a common sense in this discussion).

2)voting francise for substantial amount of the population

Imran has considered, I believe, Athens to be a democracy. By his own rule, it couldn't, because no women or slaves voted there. Same thing should apply for Roma and U.S before this century, as only this century women were given the right to vote.

It also seems to me that has been a misunderstandind over what's a democracy. It does not opposes itself to Dictatorships. Dictatorships is in the same class of Parliamentary government, Presidencialism and Monarchy. I doubt there was a democracy ruled by a dictator (and I don't have a clear concept of what is a dictator) but it may be truely possible. It is possible on Monarchies (isn't UK an example?). It may also be possible on communist countries and anarchies, but neither one has been sucessfully implanted in any country.

Jon Miller had an excellent post, and I feel I must quote it:

quote: 4. I think democracies are government by the people. And if the people want war with a nation it will not matter if it is democratic or not. Most wars WW2 and previous were fought over resources, it has only been since then that the advanced nations have solved their resource shortfalls and wants by trade and not war. Thus wars fought by these nations since WW2 have been idealogical. Democracies have no idealogical reason to fight eachother. If there was a resource shortfall that could not be solved by trade or other methods we would start seeing a demand for war, even in democracies. Of course if there was a nonsolvable resource shortfall the democracies might fall into dictarorships anyways.

korn also made a good point over Israel, that's something that should be analised.

For last, my conclusion over this thread is that democracies usually tend to think twice before engaging in wars. As Imran said plenty of times, they usually lie on Diplomacy first, but Diplomacy can also be used to cause tensions in another countries (as I tried to prove with the Paraguayan War).

I'm neither a physics student nor a History expert, so I'm expecting to be corrected.

novice

quote: i could believe that there has never been a case of two democracies going to war yet...and i could believe that democratic nations might have a very low chance of going to war...but i personally find it reasonable that two democratic nations could and would wage war over a vital issue, but that is just my opinion i have no scientific facts to back it up

Now, I don't say that two democracies WILL NEVER fight, I just say that it'll be hard to do so, and thus should be represented in Civ3. If you declare war on a democracy, either the Senate should derail it, or if it gets through, then their should be some discord (to bring it back to Civ3 ).

What you call "religious bigotry" is nothing more than your propoganda to despise Jesus Christ and refuse to submit to His rightful rule. America has always been a Christian nation historically, until recently. And if we continue in our pagan methods, it will collapse- that is a guarantee.

Horseman this "bigotry" that is on the rise is nothing other than the exclusive claims of the gospel of Jesus Christ. America has always been "bigoted and exclusive" in this sense, and I'm glad it has been. The false god of tolerance and inclusiveness will lead to the destruction of the nations.

Jesus Christ did not preach that God tolerates people who don't want to respect Jesus. Jesus Christ in fact said that all who do not bow before Him will be slain by the hand of God in the parable of the judgment. Jesus Christ will not tolerate you slandering His Christian religion, His church, or His people.