Re: [HIST??] Culture shock

--- "K.H.Ranitzsch" <KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de> wrote:

> Unfortunately, the link between firearms and
> democracy is not quite that

It's a simplification.

> close. Germans and Russsians had firearms as early
> as anybody. We needed the
> end of WWII to get a solid democracy and the Russian
> are only now getting
> one (let's hope).

The Russians are a complicated issue--terror can hold
off any social change, the question is how long?

The German question is also not very clear-cut.  Most
of the 19th century was spent trying to actually
create a German state rather than a collection of
culturally simillar entities in an area generally
referred to as "Germany".  

The situation was not conducive to creating liberal
democracy.

John

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