[quirkafleeg]

> I'm sorry I don't understand your comment. Not that important for what? The British tradition (which tradition?) had a bigger impact on what?

The American revolution, Constitution and Bill of Rights are all inspired and influenced by, among other things, the Magna Carta, the English revolution and English Bill of Rights.

Let's ignore the unexplained impact you claim the American Revolution has had on "Western Democracy" and examine the impact it had on democracy merely within the United States:

    In 1776 the only people who were entitled
    to vote were white men who owned property.

    100 years and a civil war later, the 15th 
    Amendment was passed in an attempt to give
    black men the vote.

    Another half century after that women were
    given the vote.

    Almost another half century after that -
    200 years after the American Revolution -
    the Voting Rights Act had to be passed, to
    finally, properly give black people the vote.

To put it another way, New Zealand had universal suffrage when Queen Victoria was on the throne; the USA didn't even fully have it for black people when Barack Obama was born.

[redial]

If we follow your example then no one really has a true democracy yet, after all in most countries people under 18 (or 21 or whatever age they use) are not allowed to vote. This might be considered barbaric in the future.

You are confusing your ideal of democracy with what was actually a change in the way to look at government: it was a complete rejection of the monarchy and its god mandated right to rule unlike anything that came before.

And sure, everything is influenced by what came earlier, after all Thomas Paine, considered by many the intelectual father of both the French and American Revolutions was actually British. What started in 1776 was the beginning of modern democracy, and it inspired many western colonies to break from their colonizers with their own democratic revolutions (not all successful), but it was not perfect, it has evolved a lot since then, and it will continue to do so.

I will also argue your point about New Zealand. If your democratic process can be subverted by the whims of a single person using the power of his/her inherited authority on the assumption of being divine, then you don't really have a democracy, no matter how many people are allowed to vote.

But again, that is not the point I was making in my response to op. I was just merely pointing out that not all revolutions end in failure.

[quirkafleeg]

> If we follow your example then no one really has a true democracy yet, after all in most countries people under 18 (or 21 or whatever age they use) are not allowed to vote.

They're allowed to vote when they reach the age of 18 or 21. How do people excluded from voting due to their race or gender become eligible to vote?

> You are confusing your ideal of democracy with what was actually a change in the way to look at government: it was a complete rejection of the monarchy and its god mandated right to rule unlike anything that came before.

I've already given examples where monarchical rule was rejected and curtailed - events which inspired and influenced the American revolution - so why are you still pretending the first people to come up with such concepts were American revolutionaries?

> I will also argue your point about New Zealand. If your democratic process can be subverted by the whims of a single person using the power of his/her inherited authority on the assumption of being divine, then you don't really have a democracy, no matter how many people are allowed to vote.

Key word: "If".