The French may not have the first democracy, may not have the best democracy, but they have had to fight harder than most for their democracy.
- paraphrasing from an audio tour by Rick Steves, I think.
Edit: oops, i flipped words in the title
French have been our homes since Day 0. Always got solidarity for our brothers in democracy over there. They got way more spice and fight than we do.
I agreed with you until the last sentence.
I don’t see Americans unionising and making a noise about rising pension ages
Unionization is on the rise and they’ve been more active than at any point in my life. There have been several large strikes in the last couple years alone. What are you talking about?
Let’s be real here: the French have no chill when it comes to the pension, but its nice to see some change in the US.
I dont see Americans burning down Blackrock buildings.
They were marching and burning down police stations four years ago.
If its gonna be a dick measuring contest wake me when Americans pull politicians onto the street and behead them.
The French were fighting and an inspiration for US independence.
Rousseau, for one, spoke of sovereignty residing not in a monarch, but in the people as a group, and of the need to craft laws for the general good. Thomas Jefferson’s rhetoric (including “All men are created equal”) owed much to Rousseau. However, the drafters of the U.S. Constitution may have been most inspired by the Baron de Montesquieu, who argued in his treatise The Spirit of the Laws that avoiding despotism required a government of checks and balances.
Without the ideas of these French philosophers to inspire them in tough times, it’s hard to imagine the revolution succeeding.
