Opinion of Gavrilo Princip

[TNF]

One less royal in the world = FF

[H. Ross Peron]

Vile human scum who indirectly caused virtually all the evils of the 20th Century and a bloodthirsty Serbian ultranationalist like Milosevich to vote.

Ignoring the silly idea that one teenager was actually responsible for the war, much less its aftermath, Princip was a Yugoslav nationalist and one of his co-conspirators was a Bosnian Muslim.

I think World War I had plenty of ultimate causes but that doesn't absolve Princip of starting the war then and there anymore than the fact that slavery was largely a product of economic forces absolved individual slave-owners.

And the fact is that the Young Bosnia was largely controlled by the Black Hand which saw Yugoslavia as a Greater Serbia.

[H. Ross Peron]

One less royal in the world = FF

Even progressive royals such as Franz Ferdinand?

[TNF]

One less royal in the world = FF

Even progressive royals such as Franz Ferdinand?

Royalty is by definition reactionary.

[SWE]

One less royal in the world = FF

[H. Ross Peron]

One less royal in the world = FF

Even progressive royals such as Franz Ferdinand?

Royalty is by definition reactionary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norodom_Sihanouk

[SWE]

The only way for a monarch to be progressive is if they voluntary give up power and abolish the monarchy

[H. Ross Peron]

While I'm a republican by birth and inclination, I see nothing to object to in a ceremonial monarch especially if he serves a useful function such as a symbol of national unity.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Because it's utterly unnecessary and wasteful?

[H. Ross Peron]

Because it's utterly unnecessary and wasteful?

That's a reasonable argument (hence why I said I lean republican) but that's a different argument from saying monarchy is inherently reactionary.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I just happen to be towards the end of a documentary about Ivan the Terrible right now.

A Monarchy can certainly be progressive relative to the situation in which he hinds himself. If you are asserting modern values into a past situation, well then of course not.

King William III surrendered to Parliament cirtical powers regarding the collecting of taxes and the appropriating of money as well as to sign a declaration of rights. He personally hated Parliament, but he was Dutch and all he cared about was defeating France and as long as it kept England in the War adn on his side, he was perfectly willing to sign of on political rights and permentently remove any chance of regression to the days of Absolutism in the country. William was as Conservative as they come (save for the alleged homosexuality), but it is hard not to deem him progressive, at least regarding democracy of gov't, compared to his predecessor.

Tsar Peter the Great was certainly committed to ripping apart the traditions of of Muscovite Russia and dragging the country kicking and screaming into Western technology and customs. 

Tsar Alexander II was on the verge of created a legislature when he was blown up by a bomb, having already freed the serfs twenty years earlier.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Vile human scum who indirectly caused virtually all the evils of the 20th Century and a bloodthirsty Serbian ultranationalist like Milosevich to vote.

rofl

The GREAT MAN 'theory' of history really needs to die.

Yes really.

ANd more to the point why do we blame this random Serbian teenager when we could easily blame the incumbent archduke for itching for an excuse to kill more Serbians, the powder keg of alliances that was set up between the superpowers of Europe in the preceding decade that made such a major war a possibility to begin with, or how about we blame the sandwich maker at the cafe that Princip stopped at before the Archduke and his crew decided to go down the wrong street (Princip's successful assassination was actually possible because of several other botched attempts at the Archduke that happened like literally twenty minutes before he shot the guy and the Archduke decided to go to the hospital to visit the wounded people from the bomb attempt).

Hell, none of this would've been possible if that Idiot King Pekah didn't conspire against the Assyrians.

The problem is that road leads you down another dangerous path in history, that of things being destined to happen the way they did. Often that is not the case and another individual would produce a different result. Would any other Tsar then Peter have modernized the way that he did? Would a General other than Washington have managed to achieve the same success in the Trenton-Princeton campaign? So many events that changed the course of history occured because of the creativity and individual choices of people. I think that, whilst it cannot be the sole factor, it cannot be eliminated entirely.