This just in: Israel returns fire on Syrian targets from the Golan Heights

[Hauldren Collider]

Apart from a small group of you, Poly is generally pretty anti-dictatorship too.

I'm very anti-dictatorship. I hate dictators. But I hate some dictators more than others. And I recognize that allowing elections in certain countries will result in exactly one election and a new, worse dictator.

I love democracy. I think the more democratic (with constitutional freedoms) the world is, the more peaceful and prosperous it will be. But as is often said, democracy must be more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to eat for dinner.

[regexcellent]

When you depose a dictator, you're rolling the dice. You're more likely to wind up with Pol Pot than Juan Carlos.

[Hauldren Collider]

Worthwhile note: Juan Carlos I came to power through succession, not revolution. Another case in point of this phenomenon: Burma.

[kentonio]

I love democracy. I think the more democratic (with constitutional freedoms) the world is, the more peaceful and prosperous it will be. But as is often said, democracy must be more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to eat for dinner.

If you love democracy then you need to understand that democracy is not something you can pick and choose between depending on whether you personally like the result. Otherwise it's not actually democracy.

[Hauldren Collider]

If you love democracy then you need to understand that democracy is not something you can pick and choose between depending on whether you personally like the result. Otherwise it's not actually democracy.

It's not democracy if you end up with a dictator.

[kentonio]

It's not democracy if you end up with a dictator.

No, that's where you're wrong. It stops being democracy when a dictator takes over, but the process leading up to that can certainly still be democracy. Your problem is that you're denying people the right to democracy because you think you can predict a negative outcome, and that is so arrogant as to defy belief. Come on dude, think about it a minute, you're saying that you sitting in your house in America would happily deny someone in Egypt democracy because you think you know more about their country and beliefs than they do themselves. Come on, really?

[SlowwHand]

Israel picked off the Hamas top military commander.

[regexcellent]

Israel picked off the Hamas top military commander.

I believe Israel managed to do that three times in as many days at one point back in around 2005 or 2006 or so.

[DinoDoc]

IDF twitter feed:
@IDFSpokesperson: We recommend that no Hamas operatives, whether low level or senior leaders, show their faces above ground in the days ahead.

[Hauldren Collider]

Classy

Oh, and killing terrorists

I'd like to take this moment to remind Kentonio that Hamas was initially the democratically elected government of Gaza. How's that working out for them?

[giblets]

I'm very anti-dictatorship. I hate dictators. But I hate some dictators more than others. And I recognize that allowing elections in certain countries will result in exactly one election and a new, worse dictator.

I love democracy. I think the more democratic (with constitutional freedoms) the world is, the more peaceful and prosperous it will be. But as is often said, democracy must be more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to eat for dinner.

What methodology do you use for determining which countries will become dictatorships if they are allowed to elect their government?

[Aeson]

Yes, I am looking at what people did, seeing that it didn't work, and telling them that they should have done something else. WHAT A REASONABLE IDEA.

No, you are looking at what people did (and predicting and what they will do in the future), comparing your biased view of the results to the results of what they didn't do (in your imagination) and telling them they didn't prefer to do what they actually did.

That you're doing it to support your authoritarian hard-on for dictatorships just makes it worse.

[Aeson]

For example under Mubarak you were pretty much safe as long as you said you liked Mubarak.

Maybe in the future Egypt will go all totalitarian and be a decent example for your support of dictatorships, but it certainly isn't a good example of why people should not dissent yet.

[Thorn]

Why is Israel always in the damn news, who the ****k cares let them kill each other and be done with it.!?

[Aeson]

Thankfully I've also never had to live in a war zone. However, given the choice I would go with the dictatorship.

You try to use future hind-sight to pretend you're just making the "right" choice, but the reality is when you're living under a dictator you can never know how the revolution will turn out. You do know whether current living conditions are better or worse than risking your life though.

People like you would damn all of humanity to always living under dictatorships if you had your way. You are the ones who allow dictatorships to continue to exist, who put their own short-sighted self interest over all else.

Thankfully there are people who are not so cowardly, who have risked their lives so that billions (and the sky is the limit here) of others can be free. Yes, many of them died. Yes, many of them failed to achieve their ends. Some of their ideologies failed when applied. There was collateral damage as well. It would be great if the stars aligned for everyone to be lead by a Gandhi against a relatively benign oppressor, but even getting to the point took several semi-successful and often very bloody wars to set up the situation and provide the inspiration.

The net result of the revolutions we have had is we eventually got to stable democracies for much of the world, and the sky is the limit on how large the number of beneficiaries will grow to ... (even those living under dictators now are often much better off for free societies existing elsewhere)

I'll take that over rolling the dice on what the world would be like if no one ever stood up to a dictator.