# Obama: "America has never fought a war against a democracy." **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 10, 2009, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-america-has-never-fought-a-war-against-a-democracy/520724 "2009-12-10T14:36:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/22d042/32.png) [@Sandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sandwich)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-america-has-never-fought-a-war-against-a-democracy/520724/41 "2009-12-16T21:51:39Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > If you take “democracy” to infer that the top of the government totem pole is an elected official (thus disqualifying the UK and Kaiser-era Germany)…" I think you are confusing ‘republic’ and ‘democracy’. Anyway, the head of government in the UK is the prime minister, so the UK doesn’t appear to be disqualified by your criteria. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2009, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-america-has-never-fought-a-war-against-a-democracy/520724/42 "2009-12-17T03:04:38Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > The United States did not recognize the CSA as a nation- and in fact **almost no other nation did** ether. It was a civil war, not a war between two nations. Emphasis added. NO other nation extended diplomatic recognition to the CSA, as I recall (despite its ardent courting of the UK and France, especially). ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2009, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-america-has-never-fought-a-war-against-a-democracy/520724/43 "2009-12-17T14:52:21Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > Just to pick nits, mainly because I have a migraine starting and reading the board helps me forget pain. > > did I not just read this correctly? Hitler and Mussolini WERE elected in a proper democratic election? > > The cute bit that they changed the government after that is moot, they were properly elected by a democracy. Therefore technically they were elected to a democratic government.. If you properly support this argument and bring it up only among close friends who already agree, it still falls completely flat. If you ran it down an ice-covered hill onto a flat pane covered with cooking oil, it wouldn’t slide. Neither Hitler himself nor his fans nor Eva Braun ever seriously considered Nazi Germany a democracy – Hitler explicitly argued that democracies were weak and that he offered a better way. This is a strange sort of argument you hear only in two places – internet message boards and first-year college dorms. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2009, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-america-has-never-fought-a-war-against-a-democracy/520724/44 "2009-12-18T03:03:41Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Emphasis added. NO other nation extended diplomatic recognition to the CSA, as I recall (despite its ardent courting of the UK and France, especially). You’re right. I had thought some dinky Euro principality had recognized the CSA, but it turns out that was likely just one dude more or less doing stuff without authority. > **[Confederate States of America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_of_America)** > > The Confederate States of America (CSA), also known as the Confederate States (C.S.), the Confederacy, or the South, was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States from 1861 to 1865. It comprised eleven U.S. states that declared secession: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. These states fought against the United States during the American Civil War. > With Abraham Lincoln's election ... "No country appointed any diplomat officially to the Confederacy, but several \*maintained their consuls in the South whom they had appointed before the outbreak of war. In 1861, Ernst Raven applied for approval as the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha consul, but he held citizenship of Texas and no evidence exists that officials in Saxe-Coburg and Gotha knew of his actions. In 1863, the Confederacy expelled all foreign consuls (all of them British or French diplomats) for advising their subjects to refuse to serve in combat against the U.S. Throughout the war, most European powers adopted a policy of neutrality, meeting informally with Confederate diplomats but withholding diplomatic recognition. None ever sent an ambassador or an official delegation to Richmond. \*" [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-america-has-never-fought-a-war-against-a-democracy/520724.md?page=2)