[syshum]

It is not a stretch at all, The fact that "There were many restrictions" has no bearing on the conversation.

You are simply grasping at straws to defend the "golden standard" for Authoritarian Government... democracy. where all unethical actions can be justified as long as the "majority" agrees

As you can tell I am no fan of democracy, and believe people that refuse to acknowledge massive ethical problems with democracy treat it almost like a religion, replacing the traditional Omnipotent God with "will of the majority"

[dang]

Please stop using HN for ideological battle. It's not what this site is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[foldr]

It's a stretch to define a country as a democray when far less than 50% of the adult population could vote.

[justin66]

I suggest you look up the etymology of "democracy" and open a few history books - any that have been written in the English language, at any time - if you think that's a stretch.

Universal suffrage is a separate concept, and it's not necessary that a government have it in order to be considered a democracy. It's certainly how we all (one hopes) think a democracy ought to work, but that's a separate issue.

[foldr]

I'm just going by the definition of democracy that you can find in a dictionary. The modern usage of the word has little to do with the ancient Athenian system of government (which also excluded large swathes of the population).

[justin66]

> I'm just going by the definition of democracy that you can find in a dictionary.

No, you're not, unless dictionaries have started specifying what percentage of the population should have the right to vote in order to qualify as a "democracy." Though if you use the right dictionary you can look at the etymology and note that the word "democracy" existed well before the concept you are talking about, universal suffrage, existed.

> The modern usage of the word has little to do with

Government, and other human institutions, evolve. It's important to know their history, if for no other reason so you can avoid having boring conversations like this one.

Also, note how ridiculous your use of the term "modern usage" is here. The United States has had women's suffrage less than a hundred years. Narrowing your definition of democracy to the extent that you do in the name of "modern usage" requires us to regard 1919 as not modern... so that's another word that you will have to redefine.

> Athenian system of government (which also excluded large swathes of the population).

Or as people often call it, Athenian democracy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy

[foldr]

>No, you're not, unless dictionaries have started specifying what percentage of the population should have the right to vote in order to qualify as a "democracy."

Everyone agrees that there's some requirement. A country of 1 million where 1 person has the vote isn't a democracy. You're right that a dictionary isn't the place to look to find out where to draw the line, but the line certainly has to be drawn somewhere. I'd say most people would agree that a society where people are systematically disenfranchised based on race, property and gender is not democratic.

>It's important to know their history, if for no other reason so you can avoid having boring conversations like this one.

I do know the history, despite your suggestions to the contrary -- which to be honest are a bit patronizing.

>Also, note how ridiculous your use of the term "modern usage" is here.

I mean the usage of the word today, which is what's relevant. Perhaps I should have said 'present usage'. (I have to say though, I think it is quite common to contrast the 'modern' usage of a word with its differing usage decades earlier, even if this isn't strictly consistent with a historian's usage of the word 'modern'.)

[justin66]

> I do know the history, despite your suggestions to the contrary -- which to be honest are a bit patronizing.

What's funny is that the response you saw was edited for politeness.

> You're right that a dictionary isn't the place to look to find out where to draw the line, but the line certainly has to be drawn somewhere. I'd say most people would agree that a society where people are systematically disenfranchised based on race, property and gender is not democratic.

I think I see what's going on here. There are two different issues, the meaning of the word "democracy" and the norms of democracy at any given time.

I think the accurate thing to say with regard to both of these, and hopefully you'll agree, is that the word, its meaning, and the ideal it defines have been pretty constant over time and the degree to which democracies adhere to the ideal of democracy has changed.

(it seems to me a more interesting question is whether America in 1900 would qualify as an "illiberal democracy" under today's emerging definition)

> A country of 1 million where 1 person has the vote isn't a democracy.

More useful examples abound, with all the countries that did not achieve universal suffrage until the 20th century. I think you're staking out a very strange linguistic position if you think those countries, which self-identified as democracies both before and after the change, and which everyone referred to as democracies both before and after the change, could only correctly be referred to as "democracies" after they enacted universal suffrage. It seems a lot more useful to say that those democracies were functioning closer to the ideal of democracy than they had been previously.

A tangent: there's a satirical Asimov story called Franchise about a country where only one guy has the vote. I don't remember much about it except that it was great, like most Asimov stories.