Boy, they could use your strawman abilities in Gävle.

This is what you said

this u?

Are you saying Prussia isn't a Germanic-derived state?

All seven were born and raised in the Americas.

They were culturally still european, otherwise, your enlightenment point wouldn't make sense, either.

lol, things in Prussia, ok. ^^

Are you claiming the founding fathers weren't european?

Yes, goodness me, how silly thinking that Germanic institutions might have influence on Central and Western Europe, which were filled with Germanic-derived states.

Wait a second... are you suggesting that prussia could be considered a "germanic" country back then? Do you think they had things in saxony? Lol ^^

What.

Our notion that democracy was spear-headed in athens is highly romanticized.

Why would it? Ethnographic studies of Native Americans were not of considerable interest to European philosophers at the time. And certainly not accurate ones.

Ahem... "Philosophy is when you are uninterested in the biggest anthropological discovery of the last two centuries. The less interest you have, the more philosophic it is.".

But unless you're going to argue that the rationalist, social-contract style thinking of the Enlightenment was replicated amongst Native American tribes, I don't really know how much similarity there is in the thinking beyond the commonality of all democratic polities, in Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

Foreign culture is filtered through your own cultural lenses. Ever seen japanese media based on Goethe's Faust?

Yes, I am well aware that the Founding Fathers knew about Native Americans and their forms of governance;

What? I thought it was...

[...] an absolutely bizarre idea.

Even if I'm a bit skeptical how "democratic" some of these were (since the prevalent ideology pre enlightenment in europe was that the demos wasn't actually capable of conducting policy) and how much e.g. germanic things of all things would have influenced central and western european thought that much (especially rince enlightenment philosophers usually referenced ancient greece - which actually didn't really favour our notion of democracy). I give you that democratic structures did partially exist in Europe.

I'm still a bit baffled that you would consider it ridiculous that native American thought didn't have any input on the enlightenment over 100 years after europe has discovered

• that there are whole human civilizations across the atlantic who have never even heard of Jesus.
• these people in that new continent had quite remarkably similar thoughts on liberty and equality as the enlightenment had.

Also: the native Americans were right there, the founding fathers knew of their great law of peace and the US congress has even passed a resolution on how that great law of peace had influenced the US constitution.

Which contemporary democratic european societies do you mean, exactly? Which ones existed before the enlightenment?

Seriously, read the first few chapters of the dawn of everything. It's worth it.

Who doesn't in this age? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Are you suggesting that the native american tribes couldn't have had democratic societies? Why no[t?

I guess, you have some reading to do](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_democracy#Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas)

I also suggest David Graeber's and David Wengrow's "The dawn of everything", if you're interested in the likely roots of US democracy.

I don't get why it's funnier. Care to explain why?

I kind of get your point. However, the state, as we knou it today is a relatively new invention. And the original idea of the post was that the US was founded on "enlightenment ideas", like democracy and such. This framing is very cynical, since the european upper class probably got those concepts from the native Americans which the US displaced/genocided.

Also: I'm an anarchist, so I'll guess you'll forgive that I'm not too fond of states. ;)

I don't think that being/having a state is necessary for a democratich governance. I don't know why you added that conditional.

Not really that liberal, compared to what the people they colonized were doing, before the europeans arrived.

Edit: Here's some notes on that claim