Quote Originally Posted by lucy View Post
First of all, why is it important how old a political system is? Does that say anything about its quality? Would like to hear what you think about that.
Okay, so the context of the question. It's not discussion about good or bad. This question typically arises in the context of discussions about how long the US has left to reasonably expect our system to last before it goes completely ass-over-tea-kettle and/or what systems, if any, have shown that they're long-lived enough that we should maybe look at borrowing from them.

In other words: Where are there some good ideas that are already well-proven over time? or: Shit, we're about to collapse under our own weight, so let's pack it in -- hey, what about trying ...?

It typically comes up when our disgust with the current direction we seem to be heading winds up with us musing about what would happen if we actually were able to scrap things and call a new Constitutional Convention.

As to why it's important in general, well, I'd say that the longer-lived a system is without significant upheaval speaks to its stability, which is an element of quality. For instance, say there's an hereditary dictatorship out there that's lasted four hundred years -- pretty stable, which some people like, but with cons that I wouldn't trade for that stability. We look at current systems, rather than historical, because our discussions focus on what works/doesn't-work in modern times.