Ain't Democracy ironic

[SlowwHand]

quote:
Originally posted by Zkribbler
Freedom includes the freedom to make mistakes.


Let me rephrase a little.
Freedom gives us the opportunity to make mistakes, or succeed.

[Timexwatch]

So are you going to tar and feather the U.S. if we prop-up America/Western friendly regimes? That certainly worked out well with the Shah....can you say Khomeini? Those brown folk don't know the Western man's burden!

[germanos]

Originally posted by ajbera
I read that liberalism (as in personal freedoms, rule of law, economic liberty, etc.) should be advocated and instituted rather than democracy in troubled regions.

[Flip McWho]

I agree with the above.

Though getting a liberal dictatorship is well nigh on impossible.

Though maybe instead of importing western democracies we could import western dictators. Because we all know that all westerners are liberal.

[Cort Haus]

Liberal Dictatorship

Vee have vays of making you tolerant! [/Blair]

[Cort Haus]

Re: Re: Ain't Democracy a Bi+ch?

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Oh - and cute location field. It's nice to know I have my own groupie.

Maybe if he is asked nicely, the OP will put a sig-link to the (very eloquent) post in Lancer's thread which one suspects may have inspired this honour. Foot in mouth and head up etc. Vivid and memorable.

[Sikander]

Re: Ain't Democracy a Bi+ch?

Originally posted by MOBIUS
The Palestinians just voted in Hamas with an overwhelming majority...

Hamas wasn't voted in with an overwhelming majority. In fact if the Fatah hadn't run multiple candidates for some of the same seats they might have won the election outright.

[Spiffor]

Re: Re: Ain't Democracy a Bi+ch?

Originally posted by Sikander
Hamas wasn't voted in with an overwhelming majority. In fact if the Fatah hadn't run multiple candidates for some of the same seats they might have won the election outright.

70% of the seats in the Parliament is a pretty clear case of democratic victory though.

[Blaupanzer]

Originally posted by ajbera
I read that liberalism (as in personal freedoms, rule of law, economic liberty, etc.) should be advocated and instituted rather than democracy in troubled regions. With democracy, the people can still elect thugs and troublemakers. The West would be better off dealing with liberal dictatorships than democratically elected terrorists and rabble-rousers.

This thought borders on being nonsense. One cannot be liberal and a dictator.

I did wonder what the Bushies would do when one of their advocated "democracies" (actually republics) voted in someone opposed to the US. They reacted right on cue by being outraged. This pattern is true for Venezuela as well. Apparently democratic elections are the best thing that ever happened UNLESS we don't like the politics of the winner. Of course, the Bushies also advocate limited tolerance and free trade, neither of which actually do "naturally follow" the open election of representatives of the people.

Yet another case of "Be careful what you wish for, as you just might get it."

[atawa]

@Blaupanzer

Think S-Korea and Taiwan, these countries had some form of "Liberal dictatorship" and were able to grow into full democracies.

[Arrian]

South Korea's dictatorship wasn't liberal. It was pro-business, perhaps, but it certainly wasn't liberal. It was quite authoritarian, AFAIK, as all dictatorships are. It wasn't until the 1980s that the ROK loosened up and took steps forward politically.

The benevolent dictator is a mythical beast.

-Arrian

[atawa]

Originally posted by Arrian
South Korea's dictatorship wasn't liberal. It was pro-business, perhaps, but it certainly wasn't liberal. It was quite authoritarian, AFAIK, as all dictatorships are. It wasn't until the 1980s that the ROK loosened up and took steps forward politically.

-Arrian

compared to the north I always thought it to be quite liberal

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer


This thought borders on being nonsense. One cannot be liberal and a dictator.

Sure you can. You could act like a "enlightened monarch". If that's a realistic option today is another question.

[Caligastia]

Conservation Of Parody

Bush, Rice, Twerps, And Children In Power




August, 7, 2005


I’m wondering. Help me wonder. Either Georgie Bush is the minor, depressing, witless ferret I think he is, or I am. It has to be one or the other. If things don’t start looking up pretty soon internationally, I’m going to be pretty sure which.

As best as I can tell, what the Maximum Cipher lacks, among an inexhaustible list of other things, is a hop-toad’s understanding of how people work. Here we have the explanation of just about everything he does. He’s dealing with a world full of people, but has no idea what people are. He probably couldn’t recognize one. So he doesn’t take their predictable behavior into account.

Think about it. When he went braying into Iraq like a learning-disabled jackass, he thought people would roll over, throw flowers, and have a democratic revolution. This would start a domino effect that would make all the other Moslem countries want to be democracies too. They would climb over each other to be democracies. They would love us because democracies love each other. He just knew it.

This makes perfect sense if you have no freaking idea how human beings work.

Of course, if you have read any history, which Bush hasn’t, you will have noticed that people do not like being occupied by force. They don’t like having their cities bombed. It galls them. It can, under certain circumstances (such as any circumstances) make them hostile.

If you think in terms of abstractions too simple for Reader’s Digest, you might reflect as follows: “Democracy good. Iraqi people, love’m democracy, so love’m us. Urrrg.” Then you might be real surprised when their gratitude was exiguous after you remorselessly wrecked their cities, killed their army (which consisted of other people’s husbands, brothers, and sons: ever think of that?), groped their women when you didn’t have time to rape them, and left them without water and electricity.

I’m not saying the Iraqis ought to dislike these things, only that pretty reliably they will dislike them. The Afghans too, or either. It’s how people are. Ungrateful.

Bush has no idea how people are.

This crackpot Boyscouterine outlook runs through everything the little man does, or more correctly tries to do. He really believes it, I think: The world is just waiting for us to bring it our favorite abstractions. They hate us for our freedoms, and yearn to be bombed into having them.

People don’t work that way. Bush doesn’t know it.

Remember when he had Kind-of-Twofer Rice publicly offer help to the Syrian opposition so they would overthrow their evil dictator and become wildly democratic? Same problem. Nobody told her, the poor bat-brained thing, that people don’t like being messed with by outsiders. Nor, being Secretary of State, did she know how intensely the United States is detested by most of the world. How would she know? It’s a secret known only to eight billion select people.

Bush wouldn’t have a clue if you gave him another one.

Remember when Baffled Boy wanted all the Moslem countries to have elections and be democracies? And was all surprised when it worked, and he got Hamas and all? Let’s ponder this. The analysis will be difficult, but I have faith in my readers.

What happens when you have elections in a country in which most of the people hate you? We’ll do this by multiple choice, to give everyone an even chance. Answer: they elect a government that (a) loves you, loves Israel, and wants desperately to do everything you tell it to, or (b) hates your guts. If you went for (a), you are a Republican and have no idea how people actually work. And you probably listen to ooom-pa music

Nowadays our Keystone President, ever impervious to reason, experience, or the obvious, leers at Iran like a deviate in a nudie bar. (He probably wears a raincoat when thinking about policy.) He figures that the Iranians too want to be attacked in the name of unasked-for virtue. It didn’t work in Iraq, or in Afghanistan, so it will work in Iran. He wants to encourage Iranian dissidents so that they will overthrow the evil mullahs and set up a…yes…Democracy, and love us, and be our drinking buddies and sit the dog while we go on vacation.

How is he going to cause them to rise up in love for us? By massively bombing several hundred places in Iran, killing many thousands of its people, and humiliating them in the eyes of the world. Why, what could make more sense? Sense anyway if you don’t know enough about people to grasp that nationalism trumps internal divisions. They will of course rally ‘round the flag, because people don’t like being messed with by outsiders.

Bush doesn’t understand this. He doesn’t know about people.

Let us suppose that you don’t like Bush. If the Chinese bombed your home, and killed your sister, would that make you join the Chinese and want a puppet government?

It is not how people work.

As we speak, the Israelis have pretty much destroyed Lebanon. Bush keeps the UN from doing anything to interfere, and sends advanced bombs to the Israelis so they can blow up anything that’s left. He thought—get this—that since Hezbollah is Shiite, the Sunnis would join with (yes! Yes!) Israel to fight them. Was there ever such a fruitcake? (I like to think of a fruitcake in a raincoat.)

He had no idea how people work.

It’s breathtaking. He has occupied and made rubble of two Moslem countries, and heavily supports Israel, hated by all Moslem countries, in turning Lebanon, a third Moslem country into rubble, and is threatening Syria and Iran, two more Moslem countries, with attack, possibly nuclear. By doing this he is going to inspire Moslems with a passion for American democracy, change the Mid-East into Fifth Century Athens, and make them love us.

God Almighty, what a fool. What a bus-station clown. It isn’t how people work.

The same fertile stupidity shows in his relations with Latin America. The first thing to recognize about the world below Laredo is that the countries there deeply, deeply resent American meddling. Whether you think the resentment justified, or the meddling for that matter, is irrelevant. Rule One of diplomacy here is “don’t get into Latin faces unless you really need to.”

So what does Befuddlement do? Some Cuban officials came to Mexico City and checked into a Sheraton. He had the Sheraton eject them. It was utterly childish, and utterly pointless (you don’t suppose there might be another hotel in Mexico City, do you?) and infuriated Mexico. People are still angry. And sympathetic to Cuba.

But Cuba does not practice democracy, and to Dudley Do-Right, or the Do-Right Dud, the abstraction is what counts. Cuba bad, democracy good, urg. Bow-wow.

He has no faint idea of how people work. The man is an idiot.

An old reporter’s saying holds that a “burro” is an ass, and a “burrow” is a hole in the ground. A newsman, it is said, should know the difference. Maybe presidents too.

http://www.fredoneverything.net/Bush.shtml

[Arrian]

Originally posted by atawa


compared to the north I always thought it to be quite liberal

Well that's a ringing endorsement, isn't it! "Well, we're more liberal than North Korea!"

-Arrian