....Interesting comment by Wally. I hadn't thought of that but the French Revolution must have been a lesson for all European governments during the 19th century. Rather than give them a steak, throw then a bone. I don't know, but this could very well have gone into the thinking of Bismark.
Not really, until later; look at the Congress of Vienna... re-establishs legitimacy, establishs a balance of power, gets a handle on liberalism (no one wanted another French Revolution), and putting all your germans in one basket and letting Austria watch the basket (the Geman Confederation). Metternich was the driving force here (trying to make france less the problem and more the solution, getting back into the good graces of the rest of Europe after the Napoleonic Wars.
As there were revolutions afoot around this time he was avoiding one from the bottom by supplying on from the top. Like when Czar Alexander abolished serfdom; give them what they want, on your own terms, before they take it on theirs.
I do agree it sets a precedence for Socialist...I mean socialized health care and other programs, but I kind of look at it as Bismarck trying to improve conditions for the working class. Am I not looking at it correctly?
Making the volk have expectations of the gov't providing will (and did) also increase their willingness to follow whatever line the gov't promoted.Now when our gov't gives us (back our) money on many programs and then forces compliance to their rules because (in bill Clinton's words)... "it isn't their i]our[/i money!"Thanks Otto. Again the ritualistic redistribution of wealth to protect the leadership and their tenure.
“And we are selling weapons to support this slaughter. Until you grab your senators and congressmen by their nutsacks, and cut their ball off, you will continue to a weenine boy.”Makes the assumption they are so equipt... calm down and realize more than outrage is desired to change anything these days. Two (or more) out of the three remaining front runners for the job show tendencies that are less that desirable... I do however agree that much of what goes on is not strictly legal or Constitutional. We won't get a handle on this by online rants but by grassroots political action. Washington was against political parties... we now know why.
Far too late to work on this but I'll give it some thought; my first approximation is that the war was not to surround France but to insure that the catholics were loyal germans and wouldn't back Catholic France.As I remember the Prussian prince wasn't really thrilled about ruling Spanin anyways... 8)
I'm caught again in an over-generalization… you're very correct. This is what I like about this forum… we all are able to contribute and flesh out each others' contributions. 🙂Cheers,Wally
Ski,Consider this; the Founding Fathers were classical liberals... products of the Age of enlightenment (that's us methinks); so then the monarchists were consevatives. Fast forward to the progressive era [need to read Liberal Fascism] and here the change happens. The classical liberals wanted to maintain that type of gov't and the progressives co-opt the title liberal by wanting change (to a socialist / fascist type of gov't.).S. I. Hyakawa (sp?) said it best, "Some people have horse-sense and others are full of something else from horses."Hope this helps,Wally