The vote was 20 in favor, and 14 against. And of course the result is meaningless. Imagine the horrific outcome if the UN had proportional representation and actual power.
Can you articulate what horrific outcome you're thinking of? I'm not good at imagining what other people find horrific.
I also find sad that people feel they need to speak of South Africa as a democracy. Mandela is gone and the leadership is what it is.
Did you notice the irony in your comment? You praise the "good record" of Western democracies, but do not want a "democracy" within UN, because in that way, the idea of democracy would work against the "Western democracies". That seems to be some kind of "selective democracy", i.e. only apply democracy when it works to your advantage.
If you really support democracy, why not embrace it in the UN and let the decision be based on votes?
People are stupid, and generally don't know what is best for them, and the more of them you get together, the more likely they'll develop mass insanity. You need some kind of buffer to moderate the fickle will of the public.
People all have a similar amount of intelligence. Given that the effect you acknowledge is partially due to large groups, I wonder if it's more a problem of party politics, or an us-versus-them mentality, or collective decision-making...
However, that there's a paradox is no reason to not acknowledge that Western democracies have the best human rights situation and personal freedom in the world, and giving control of the Internet to authoritarian, populous regimes would be bad for us all.
The US had caused more wars and killed more people in the last 50 years than other countries combined, for financial gain and continues to do so. And no one has been held to account for these serious crimes against humanity.
There is a serious situation with the way black people are treated by the law enforcement, their continued marginalization, demonization, and social mobility. There are more issues around native americans.
There is an entire totalitarian type surveillance state now in operation, with secret courts, secret lists, secret processes and those in power not only routinely getting away with crimes against humanity but also their own people.
Whistle blowers and journalists like Drake, Snowden, Greenwald, Poitras and others who seek to expose the burgeoning surveillance state far from raising alarm are being harassed and persecuted.
These cannot be held up as examples of individuals or states that care about human rights and freedom and I suspect the reality of losing the historical and carefully nurtured 'moral high ground' that has been used to principally bully 'inconvenient' interests and nations has not sunk in among the population. Continuing to claim the high ground clings to nostalgia and myths that have little to do with reality.
The abuse of human rights to demonize other nations for political and strategic interests with little actual concern for people at large has gone on for too long. And achieved little in reality than fuelling a gratutious sense of superiority in the west and complacency in turn and diasters like in Iraq and other unfortunate targets. A genuine interest in human rights will need a untainted less self interested approach. Freedom is not a competition.
That said, the parent post was merely demonstrating that "morally right" or "best human rights" record is completely subjective.
In a democratic system, your notion of "right" and "wrong" is nonsensical and incorrect if it does not align with the majority, regardless of how "evil" or horrifying this may seem.
You either have democracy or you don't.
Certainly not so. Having democracy is never about black and white, if we want to use a metaphor. It's about shades of grey between black and white. A scale between absolute democracy (which is hard to define and hardly exists) and absolute lack of democracy (which is almost achieved, often by countries that describe themselves as "people's democracies").
Western democracies certainly are closer to actual ideals of democracy.
And if we think of the Internet, we certainly want it to be controlled by parties living in the Western democracies, not by autocratic, repressive governments that have a majority of world population.
No, that is not enough. If it is to be controlled at all, I want it controlled by democratic bodies, not simply by parties that happen to reside in a democracy. Or would you be happy to let the Internet be controlled by Enron, Halliburton, the NRA or the RIAA?
Russia has less than half the pop of US, and it's declining.
Also other nations with authoritarian and anti-freedom stances have large populations (Pakistan >200M, Nigeria >180M, Iran 80 M, Bangladesh >170M, etc).
If voting power is based on population, China and India alone could outvote Western democracies.
slightly less-awful human rights records
Made it more accurately descriptive.
Nobody's perfect, but let's not try to confuse things.
People would vote to ban free speech on the Internet.