Liberia started as a country with tremendous hope.

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/images/joseph0.jpg

Joseph Jenkins Roberts (1809-1876), a wealthy Monrovia merchant who had emigrated in 1829 from Petersburg, Virginia, became the first black ACS governor of Liberia in 1841. In 1848, he was elected the first president of an independent Liberia. He achieved international recognition for the new country before leaving the presidency in 1856. After many years as president of Liberia College, Roberts again served as Liberian president from 1872-1876.

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/images/preshous.jpg

In many respects, emigrants to Liberia re-created an American society there. The colonists spoke English and retained American manners, dress, and housing styles. Affluent citizens constructed two-story houses composed of a stone basement and a wood-framed body with a portico on both the front and rear, a style copied from buildings in the southern American states from which most of the emigrants came. Liberia's president lived in a handsome stone mansion that resembled a southern plantation house.

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/images/bassua0.jpg

Fishtown was a settlement in the Grand Bass[u]a area of Liberia, south of Monrovia, near the St. John's River. In June 1835, one of the bloodiest episodes in early Liberian history occurred at the nearby Grand Bass[u]a settlement, where unarmed African-American settlers were massacred by native Africans upset by disruption of the local slave trade. A month later, militiamen from Monrovia attacked the area's African villages. A treaty in November 1835 bound African King Joe Harris to submit future disputes to the colonial authorities at Monrovia and to pay for property destroyed in the massacre.

http://www.cpj.org/Briefings/1999/Self_censor/Liberia.jpg

Like so much of Africa today, it seems like it is a savage nation of merciless warlords especially after the implementation of the Marxist "scientific socialism."

Yeah, post-colonial Africa pretty much is like an echo. Comparing the Ivory Coast to Ghana is interesting, Ghana started left of center, Ivory Coast a rare attempt at capitalism, and what do you know, Ghana gets off the docks as a ****ty country and the Ivory Coast as a promising upstart. And funny enough, the Ivory Coast eventually went left and wah-lah, they're a mess, whereas Ghana, having learned its lessons is better off than it had been.

Good point. It seems to be a pattern that with an increase in socialism, there is an increase in chaos, particularly in Africa which had Soviet influence.

I was hoping this thread would stay in the Politcal Debate Forum since it is a study in the success and failure of politcal systems as well as history. The beauty of the example of Liberia is that the government was modelled directly on the US government. Liberia could not have had a cleaner starting point. But history shows it transformed from a Constitutional Federated Republic like that of the USA and degenerated into a Marxist Scientific Socialist state like that which the USA seems to be heading for.

Did you read the section that the Native Black Africans slaughtered the Americo-Liberians Blacks because the presence of the Americo-Liberians disrupted the Native Black Africans' slave trade? Total madness.

Originally posted by Snouter
Good point. It seems to be a pattern that with an increase in socialism

Indeed
I said it before socialism is noo good.

Also note: Liberia was never a democracy. One of the first actions that the freed slaves took when establishing their nation was to enslave the indigidous people.