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Comment by m741 | Hacker News Reader

Something I've wondered recently: in the past 10-15 years, how many functioning democracies have fallen apart vs been created?

I'm fairly ignorant about this, so please correct me if my perceptions ar wrong, but Turkey seems to have devolved to autocracy after being democratic for a while. I've heard scary things about Poland. Venezuela, as mentioned in the article, fell apart. Obviously there's Putin's Russia, though I'm not sure Russia was ever really democratic.

I can't think offhand of any new, functioning, democracies.

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'Functioning democracies' are probably better thought of as being a gradient rather than a binary property. There are a number of indices of varying regional and temporal scope, e.g. you could look at the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index for 2006 onward [1].

There's a lot of latent causes that move these indices (e.g., the collapse of the Soviet Union) so theoretical frameworks are useful for understanding the raw data, e.g. Samuel Huntington's 'waves' characterization of democracy [2]. Not saying that this is right, but sometimes it helps to think about the underlying currents.

Finally, democracy and liberal institutions are not concomitant... in fact it's sort of a bug in democracy that you can totally democratically dismantle institutions like court systems, press freedoms, and even voting [3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Wave_Democracy [3] http://media.library.ku.edu.tr/reserve/resfall15_16/Sosc116_...

> Finally, democracy and liberal institutions are not concomitant... in fact it's sort of a bug in democracy that you can totally democratically dismantle institutions like court systems, press freedoms, and even voting [3].

Actually, I believe that to avoid those Russell-style paradoxes, it should be a rule that the vote must be potentially reversible in the future with the same process. So the decisions like

- strip democratic rights to a minority

- kill a specific person

cannot be democratic. On the other hand, creating a democracy then cannot be democratic decision either.

Dismantling press freedoms and courts would still be democratic (in fact, many democratic countries do not have full freedom of speech), as long as people could vote again on the issue (I don't see why they would vote to dismantle it, so it's not a big deal).

Poland is still as functioning a democracy as it was 15 years ago. They elected a party that's a bit on the extreme, so what, isn't that how it's supposed to work ? Does Trump's election means american democracy has "fallen appart" ?

Turkey is still democratic. Yes, the rule of law is taking massive hits, and yes, Erdogan really wants to be sultan and makes his way there, but so far he has always won in the election in the same way and rules people won with 15 years ago there. He didn't have a 50+% majority of votes to be PM but neither did the torries in the UK. It might go wrong if there are more actions against legislative political opponent.

Venezuela went from a pretend democracy where everyone massively voted for the popular charismatic dictator to a pretend democracy where everyone massively dislike the unpopular dictator, nothing fell apart because there was nothing to break there.

Russia is a valid case.

Trump's election may very well cause US democracy to "fall apart". He's already signaled that he wants to stifle a free press, and he's made a lot of campaign promises that go against the rule of law. Congress doesn't seem willing to stand up to him, and there are a lot of vacancies in the judiciary that Trump can fill with people more likely to give him a free pass. Trump's greatest enemy in accomplishing his undemocratic agenda is his own incompetence and unfamiliarity with Washington DC politics. He'd be the next Erdogan or Putin if he could be.

For example, American flag burning has twice been ruled a first amendment right by the Supreme Court.

This morning Tump tweeted:

>Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag - if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!

Hillary co-sponsored an actual bill called the "the flag protection act".

The fact that the democrats and republicans produced such like minded candidates is the more worrying aspect.

The Flag Protection Act of 2005, the one cosponsored by Clinton, would have prohibited destroying the flag for the primary purpose of intimidation, inciting immediate violence, or terrorism.

While one can certainly argue that there is little merit in specially punishing that particular mechanism of achieving those unlawful ends, that clearly is not the same thing (or even a similar thing) to a general ban on flag burning.

Titles of laws are rarely accurate indications of their substance.

Or as the more common adage goes, "don't judge a book by its cover."

Except who decides what that intimidation, violence or terrorism is ? If you are burning it in public, it could easily be spun different ways. We know some police officers treat minorities differently, so the line gets blurry.

Does a white college educated young person burn the flag with no consequences, and everyone else gets hit with intimidation ?

The same people who would do so for an incitement to immediate violence, intimidation, or terrorism (which are generally illegal under other criminal laws alreadyn whether or not destroying a flag is involved): prosecutors, judges (trial and appellate), and juries.

Can these actors be unfair and express biases not in the text of the law? Sure. But that's more an argument for policies to address that problem than it is an argument against additional criminalization of a subset of a category of generally already-criminal acts. (And against which, I should add, there are plenty of other arguments.)

These are great questions, but in the end they are ones that the left didn't bother to ask when they dropped a principled support of the first amendment for "hate speech" as intimidation, in particular on college campuses as enforced by the US Justice Department. Personally I am against criminalizing flag burning, but for the purpose of highlighting hypocrisy I would like to be the first conservative to cite Karl Popper to argue for it: tolerant societies have a right to be intolerant of intolerance. Burning the flag is hate speech and intimidation based on rejection of our shared American values, and shall be banned.

Anyone on the left who disagrees with this argument? Re-evaluate your own principles then, in a way that doesn't assume "my values are right and yours are wrong" in the context of a democratic republic.

I'm on the left, and I disagree with your argument - but then again, I disagree with hate speech laws in general.

Then again, why is burning the flag necessarily "hate speech". I would dare say that it's perfectly legitimate way to protest any abuses that are carried out presumably in the name of that flag - like, say, Gitmo or Patriot Act.

Why is anything "hate" speech?

Because sometimes speech really is intended to arouse unmotivated hate in the audience. I don't have a problem calling such speech "hate speech" - it's a perfectly accurate label. It's also subjective, insofar any emotion is subjective, which is why it doesn't have place in law.

While still a bad bill, that is not quite the same thing. The Flag Protection Act made it criminal to burn the flag for the purpose of inciting violence. Not just randomly burning it. It's the same idea as yelling fire in a crowded theatre, or holding a rally telling people to go riot.

> The fact that the democrats and republicans produced such like minded candidates is the more worrying aspect.

Except they absolutely didn't.

Loss of citizenship? People of a certain age will remember Viktor Korchnoi playing Anatoli Karpov, and Korchnoi with the white flag of the stateless. That's what the sworn enemy, the arch-Satan would do to dissidents! The US, on the other hand, would be the empire of free speech and capitalism.

But under Trump there's no need to be a dissident, just burning the flag is enough. How lame is that?

It's worrying that he tweets that. It's like he doesn't have a clue about the first amendment or the rule of law. We elected him to be president, not to be a dictator.

So he's, essentially, ignorant about American civics. It's a shame that he's ignorant, and more of a shame that a person ignorant on that topic got elected. That said, the courts are supposed to limit the effect of such ignorance about how the system works, and about what our rights are.

If the courts start failing in that role, that will be cause for very serious concern.

> If the courts start failing in that role, that will be cause for very serious concern

Courts are mostly able to act after-the-fact of alleged violations; by the time they fail to do their job, it will be way too late to start being concerned.

True. But say somebody burns a flag on inauguration day (probable). Say Trump tweets that the person should be arrested (also probable). What happens? Does the person get arrested, or do the police know (and follow) the relevant court rulings?

If the person gets arrested, do they get prosecuted, or does the prosecutor know and follow the relevant court rulings?

If the person gets prosecuted, does it come to trial, or does the judge throw it out?

If it comes to trial, does the person get convicted, or does the judge or jury rule that this behavior is protected by the First Amendment?

At every step, the flag burner should be home free. If they wind up facing a year in jail or losing their citizenship, that is not just time to start being concerned - it's time to start thinking seriously about leaving the country. But I'm more optimistic than that. I think, however, that it will be interesting to see how far it goes before it's thrown out, to see exactly how broken things currently are...

Isn't fire the accepted way to retire an old flag? What's the penalty for allowing the flag to touch the ground?

>Poland is still as functioning a democracy as it was 15 years ago. They elected a party that's a bit on the extreme, so what, isn't that how it's supposed to work ?

dismantling the constitutional tribunal is hardly "a bit" on the extreme. there are two law systems in the country right now - one where rulings of this tribunal hold (in the judiciary branch) and one where they don't (the legislative branch). please tell me how this is democratic again?

Hungary is becoming authoritarian.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/22/world/europe/e...

>Viktor Orban and his right-wing Fidesz party, running on a joint list with the K.D.N.P., a Christian Democratic party, have won the last two parliamentary elections in Hungary, worrying many Western leaders about his increasingly authoritarian rule. The party also decisively won in voting for the European Parliament in May 2014.

Jobbik, a far-right, anti-immigration, populist and economic protectionist party, won 20 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections in 2014, making it Hungary’s third-largest party.

Its policy platform includes holding a referendum on membership in the European Union and a call to “stop hushing up such taboo issues” as “the Zionist Israel’s efforts to dominate Hungary and the world.”

Jobbik wants to increase government spending on ethnic Hungarians living abroad and to form a new ministry dedicated to supporting them. In a 2012 bill targeting homosexuals, the party proposed criminalizing the promotion of “sexual deviancy” with prison terms of up to eight years.

> I've heard scary things about Poland.

Poland is fine, don't listen to the bullshit in mass media. That was just some noise of little importance to anything whatsoever, perpetuated because the party that lost last elections wasn't too happy about that fact.

> That was just some noise of literally zero importance to aything whatsoever, perpetuated because the party that lost last elections wasn't too happy about that fact.

That seems eerily similar to what happened in the US.

So the proposal to ban abortions was just a lie?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/05/polish-governm...

What about the story that Poland is one of the few European countries that want access to encrypted communications?

https://www.euractiv.com/section/social-europe-jobs/news/fiv...

They proposed a ban and backed down on public pressure. That does not seeem anti democracy.

How is any of it undemocratic ? If people elect candidates who are anti abortion and pro surveillance, then being democratic means those laws should happen.

"Democracy" doesn't mean "they do what you agree with" nor even "they do what's best for their citizen", it means the citizens elects the one they want, even if it's the guy whose policies are so bad he's going to send them backward 20 years.

If people elect candidates who are pro-totalitarian surveillance state and limitation of individual freedoms, then being democratic means those laws should happen as well?

Basically if people elect candidates that want to kill democracy then the democratic thing would be to let it die?

> How is any of it undemocratic ? If people elect candidates who are anti abortion and pro surveillance, then being democratic means those laws should happen.

See, this is why the US is supposed to be ruled by a constitution, rather than just be a democracy. The constitution says that there are things you can't do, even if you have a majority (unless you have enough of a majority to amend the constitution).

Now, granted, that's been eroded under the last few presidents, with (probably) worse to come under Trump. But this is why it matters that we have a constitution that limits what a president can do.

When people in the West talk about "democracy", what they usually really mean is "liberal democracy".

> So the proposal to ban abortions was just a lie?

Yes. I.e. not the proposal itself, but the stories about it being likely to be implemented - yes. The "Black Protest" thing was a media-inspired panic.

> What about the story that Poland is one of the few European countries that want access to encrypted communications?

That is indeed worrying, but I don't see anything different here than happens in many other western countries.

In Poland, the ruling party (Party of Law and Justice) is a right-wing, populist party, which has tried to nominate/replace judges and to some extent, control the media. EU is has voiced concerns, but Poland's democratic processes still work, as evidenced in the recent recall of controversial abortion bill.

A Similar, but perhaps further evolved situation is in Hungary, where right-wing populists have held the power for quite a long. But even in Hungrary the rulings party's power is not absolute, at the moment, and you don't get thrown into jail for having wrong opinions.

Try RTFA:

The government’s attempts to undermine the country’s constitutional tribunal, for instance, set off an investigation by the European Union. The resulting report warned that the government’s actions “endanger not only the rule of law, but also the functioning of the democratic system.”

I live in Poland, I know this stuff first-hand.

Some countries that became more democratic over the past 10-15 years would probably include places like Tunisia, Pakistan, Myanmar, and Georgia (to name a few).

It's a complex issue, and like others have pointed out, being democratic isn't a binary switch. Take Turkey, for example - in a country prone to military coups, the most recent military coup failed. Erdogan has autocratic tendencies, but people really do support him and he seems to be in power because of mostly democratic elections.

I don't know, but I'm definitely interested. I know nationalism is on a world wide tear.

In Poland it's just poor people electing populist leaders and well off people taking their nice and modern country for granted and not bothering to show up at the election or spreading their votes on anti-system small parties because it's rad.

Russia was a democracy that, in less then a decade completely fell apart economically. Putin, and the rising price of oil can be credited for stabilizing the country, and largely pulling it out of a dystopian horror show.

Freedom and democracy is nice, but having the means to buy bread, and not being robbed and killed by desperate people is even nicer.

Edit: I presume the downvotes aren't coming from people who lived in Russia through the 90s.

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