And I decided to look it up online:

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/demowar.htm

It seems "democracy" is more of a fickle term than most realize. I also found it interesting to note that those who speak out against war in democratic countries when war is sought are either shunned or laws are passed to quiet them up. Much like the sedition laws during World War 2 or, more recently, the Patriot act.

Seriously, why was freedom of speech limited? Because of paranoia?

I often wonder why countries always go on about how great they are, all countries, it seems like a silly thing to do in my honest opinion. Especially when looking at the evidence.

It's true there are certain mechanisms in a democracy to put brakes on a rush to war. This presumes that the people at large value peace, which is true to a certain extent. People know that war is hell, and in a society that has a full-scale democracy (that is, few factors to obstruct liberal democracy), people are going to favor no war over war, up to a certain point.

Your example about WWI does show that democracy can be undermined by war, but remember that the wheels of American democracy turned as hard as they could to prevent a declaration of war with Germany (we gave them every possible excuse to butt out, but they sent persistent signals that they already considered us enemies to a certain degree, including the Zimmermann telegram)

Of course democratic countries would in general not to war as often as two countries with opposing political systems and ideologies but that certainly doesn't mean it hasn't happened.

It's actually the first time I've heard of that rule. Not that I'm particularly interested in history and politics, but I'm pretty sure it hasn't been some major point made at school.

Seems a bit unjust to redefine democracy for the sake of something like that though, the Greeks coined that word for their system and it wouldn't be considered a democracy today :/
Still, as far as a skimmed entry in wikipedia goes, war between democracies is certainly not impossible.

Democracies very very rarely go to war with each other.

I think the only case where war was declared is actually Britain declaring war on Finland during WWII, and that never actually came to blows.

I wonder if actually declaring war matters.

I mean, Russia invaded Georgia just a year or two ago...

and they're both... democracies... kinda.

I mean, Russia has kinda backslid on that granted, and actually is considered very corrupt politically... but still kinda a democracy.  People vote for their leaders and such... in elections that don't appear to be rigged.  Just the government goes out of it's way to slant the votes their way.

No, the excavaters of the Lucitenia found that there had been weapons on that ship and the Zimmerman Telegram has always been questionable.

And I believe people are forgetting the American civil war. The South declared themselves their own independant nation, had a government just like the Union, and could be argued to be more democratic because they encouraged Native Americans to join their cause to fight against the North.

The whole point of them having slaves is irrelevant because America had declared itself a democracy during its foundation in the late 1700s and had slavery as did other nations with democratic qualities.

When it comes to squabbling over definitions of a word, one has to question whether if they should even bother with such a long list. It seems like people make-up anything to deny the idea that a democracy has been at war with another democracy.

THe civil war started in 1861. Slavery was not outlawed until after the war, in 1868.

It has less to do with slavery, and more to do with the souther states not liking the federal government taking over there laws (that suited the north much more then the south).

Now if only there was a way to accomplish what they were trying to do, without war. That would be awesome. Time has proven them right.

Civil War is a whole different field of study than international war.