Hacker News Reader

Comment by geff82 | Hacker News Reader

Turkey in total is in decline. It is the classic way of the dictatorship: after some initial successes in the economy, the leader wants to get more and more power, surpresses more and more diversity, tries to bring under control the thoughts of people and finally destroys the country by his power. I wish the Turkish good luck with their deliberate choice to give their sucker at the top everything he wants. They knew what they vote for and they absolutely deserve the results.

View on HN

We need you to do better than to jump straight to the most generic inflammatory claim than you can make—especially without any support. It doesn't lead to the kinds of discussions this site is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> It is the classic way of the dictatorship

Let's not kid ourselves though. The people voted time and again for Erdogan and his policies. It's a democracy that brought this upon itself. Putting the blame on a single individual and labeling them a dictator just muddies the water.

Actually when they voted the wrong way he just held a reelection for more preferred results.

Rather like the EU forcing Ireland to vote again on the rejected Lisbon Treaty. 'Vote until you get it right'.

>Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.

Karl Popper, "The Open Society and Its Enemies", 1945

Also related:

The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority

https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...

Suppressing ideas perceived to be intolerant by those in power is intolerant itself, though. Who is to decide what is and is not intolerant?

A good example of this is immigration reform in the US. Many people consider deporting illegal immigrants to be intolerant despite the fact that they would just be enforcing existing US law. Should everyone who wants mass illegal immigrant deportation be suppressed and attacked in the name of tolerance?

That's why he calls it a paradox. IIRC Popper mentions it in the context of the also relevant democratic paradox (a democracy abolishing itself by democratic process).

You can advocate for law enforcement without being a frothing animal about it.

Reminds me of rationale behind GPL versus BSD. Or is that far fetched? Are there other analogies?

True, but is also a public secret that people who vote against Erdogan are being threatened.

It's really not that simple. That's akin to saying the people of Russia and North Korea voted time and time again for Putin and KJU.

When 90% of media is either in prison or controlled by the state, when judges are appointed and dismissed based on their politics, when massive protest after massive protest is brutally crushed, when investigations into irregularities at polling stations are ignored, year after year after year, it can't be said that this is simply what the people voted for. The opposition has been being illegally and brutally suppressed for a decade.

The Turks in Germany also voted for Erdogan in large numbers. There is a little more going on than just oppression.

> The Turks in Germany also voted for Erdogan in large numbers.

The Turks in Germany who voted voted for Erdogan in large numbers.

In most elections only the people who voted get counted. That's the way elections work. The Turks in Germany could have voted against him if they had wanted to without fear.

It's a democracy that brought this upon itself.

This is the country that gave us the expression 'deep state', so the idea that this was a strong institutional democracy that foolishly but genuinely voted itself itself into the current situation is pretty facile.

It is important to note that Hitler came to power by an entire "democratic" process. His party was voted into power by several elections until they reached a point where they started passing laws which one by one eliminated democracy.

Look at the recent changes in Turkey. Yes, Erdogan got democratic approval to the changes to the constitution which now enable him to control the media and most government functions.

EU citizen here. Also I live in Turkey.

The education in Turkey was/is low quality. Always 50 years behind Europe. The reason why half of Turkish voters voted for Erdoğan is that Erdoğan is able to tell lies to uneducated people. The western part of Turkey is more educated and doesn't vote for Erdoğan.

And as you might know Socrates hated democracy. I really understand him now. He believed that uneducated people will vote for the popular guy on the ship, they won't vote for educated.

Here's your lie that Erdogan's party (AKP) does not get votes from the western cities.

http://www.haritalar.web.tr/1_kasim_2015_Turkiye_Genel_tekra...

Kind of weird posturing considering all of the red on the west side.

He's saying the equivalent of "the east coast didn't vote for Trump" and you're responding "that's a lie look at North Carolina and Florida".

That's not what a lie is. You just have different criteria for the statement being accurate.

I have B.S. in Statistics. And you cannot tell me lies. The map you are showing is shit because it doesn't show persantages. As you go to west the persantage for CHP increases. HDP in south east is another story, they are ethnic Kurds.

Also most of the population is consantrated in western costs.

http://fotocdncube.gazetevatan.com/vatanmediafile/HaberIciRe...

I want to add that as one person's level of education increases his support for Erdoğan decreases http://www.vegaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_201704...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com