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Originally written by Fear Uncertainty and Custer:

I am not ecologically ignorant, merely pragmatist; I know what problems cars pose to the environment, but frankly I do not believe the way you are tackling it will work. Any American political science student will tell you the same. Perhaps the fact we have been democratic for far longer than Europe -- and we are far more respectful of democracy and the instutition thereof -- makes us more politically pragmatist, I dunno.
It doesn't matter how right you are, it matters who knows you're right and who's willing to vote on it. Get used to the framework of democracy for effecting political change, or you're going to keep wasting your time on silly things like this:

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Originally written by Fear Uncertainty and Custer:

Milu: There is a difference between trying to win converts on the street in a non-disruptive way and setting up a roadblock and bantering about like morons. One is constructive and one isn't, and one is disruptive and one isn't.

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Originally written by FatBatMonkey:

Benjamin Disraeli became Prime Minister in 1868.

The first official Prime Minister in England was Sir Robert Walpole, in 1721. He was also a Whig. Though he was only really, in power terms, first lord of the treasury, in a government dominated by James Stanhope and Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland.
Uh, the position of 'Prime Minister' did not become legally standard until Disraeli. Walpole as the first PM is revisionist, he was merely the first to hold what would become the PMship. This would be like calling various pre-revolutionary American governors representatives of the early US.

It was indeed under Pitt the Elder's first time as Prime Minister, that the Monarchal power started to wane with Pitt having nearly complete control over the Fleet and the British army at one point in his service.
Exception, not the rule. At some points, strong ministers did exist -- they did in all countries. Didn't make them democratic, just made it a time of emergency. You'll note I said 'doctrinal', implying that at some point the idea that the monarch is never superior to the parliament came into fashion. I maintain your examples are far too early -- the executive power of the Monarch would not become effectively feckless until Elizabeth II, for God's sake.

It is generally considered that true ministerial independence was gained around the time of the later terms of Gladstone, Disraeli and Salisbury. It was definitively confirmed by the time that Asquith's term had ended.
Again: this is almost a century after the instutition of the Constitution, and ~60 years after Jefferson (first transferral of political power by factional lines).

If you think it occurred between the two world wars, then which minister was it under? Because it sure as hell wasn't under Baldwin, Law or MacDonald.
I meant between the two men themselves, not between them in time. I am sorry if I mislead you here; they are both the first convenient examples of the PM utilizing real power in international affairs in the name of Britain rather than her monarch.

And actually, if you had taken a look at your own constitution recently, you would have seen that by all reasonable rights, the earliest you could argue that America had a true democracy was after the fifteenth amendment. Post-1870. Thank you very much.
At which point Indians and Africans had the vote for nearly a century. Point withdrawn, masterful sir.
This is a pathetic argument -- by the same, America wasn't a true democracy until the 1920s (women's suffrage), and Britain until later still. Switzerland? Not until 1970. Absurd, of course, but that's what you get for trying to revise historical metersticks in favor of your argument.

As for the publicity stunts, they disrupted the status quo. They interrupted the norm. And if you want to be picky, they damn well inconveninced the MPs.
You can interrupt the norm dressed in a pink chicken suit on the sidewalk. It isn't going to disrupt traffic or make people in general angry. And the disrupting Parliament thing? They are not thousands of voters. Again, the power of action in the framework of democracy; I am certain that in an undemocratic government, disrupting the lives of ordinary people might lead to change, but in democracy, change must come from mass movements from below. Pissing people off doesn't usually accomplish that.

ALEC READ WHAT I SAID. IN ALL BUT THE MOST EXTREME OF CASES.

A coup is damn extreme.
My example relied on a coup -- I said that you can cause social change by overthrowing the government violently or peacefully and non-disruptively encouraging change. Your points rely on your own argument, and while it is nice to do that, it is against the protocol of debate and logically absurd anyway.

And d'you know what? I'm good. I'm damn good. Kneel before me Byzantium, for I am holding a rail-gun. Five times dead before you hit the ground. Kthnx.
Clearly there is something about 'undefeatable' that you fail to grasp.

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