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Comment by throwaway75 | Hacker News Reader

On the one hand, the west seems to think that people have a fundamental right to protest and affect change in government, because, yeah, democracy, will of the majority and all that.

On the other hand, if you let democracy get a foothold in many of the muslim-majority states, the winner of a democratic process will very likely be what the west perceives as a religious fundamentalist group whose values are antithetical to almost every single value that the west holds dear (including democracy itself). It will mean the rise of groups such as the muslim brotherhood that have pan-islamism and the establishment of sharia as their stated goals.

So you can either support the right of the people to overthrow an authoritarian regime and establish a democratic process that will lead to a fundamentalist islamic state, or you can support a regime that is authoritarian but will allow the practice of some western liberal values.

Which is it, and why?

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I don't think the two choices described are the only choices available. The point of a democracy is that — if the people are unhappy with those ruling them — they can change those in power without a revolution, civil wars or similar violence. Such a change is hardly imaginable with radical islamist powers.

This principle of being able to get rid of those you voted in is more important in a democracy than the actual representation of the "will of the people", because the "will of the people" can change and so the people should not be allowed to make a democratic choice that robs them, the oppositions and the coming generations of their future democratic rights. This is what we in Germany call "wehrhafte Demokratie" ("militant democracy").

If your democracy can be lost by voting in facists or religious nuts it is not a sufficiently enough militant democracy, seperations of powers didn't work as intended etc. Democracies should be designed for this case in mind, not for the normal "we have leaders who are a tad bit corrupt but things are otherwise ok"-case.

So every nation should be able to vote in whoever they please, but those voted in should not have the power to abolish democracy, human rights, etc. because it, is not their right fundamentally.

This is why one can be for democracy in a state and at the same time be against certain antidemocratic powers that will ignore, circumvent, undermine democratic guarantees like the ones mentioned. But the whole discourse is quite old already and had been well discussed by Karl Popper: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

Should we tolerate the intolerant in a tolerant society? No. Not even if they are the majority.

But who will be the tolerance police? If a majority votes for something that is intolerant, does that give an outside faction the right to start bombing them until they vote the right way?

In a true liberal democracy, the people themselves enforce these rights. The people must of course preserve some spirit of resistance, which provides the "militant" twist in parent's description of a "militant democracy".

While the German constitution says that all Germans have the right to resist against anyone seeking to abolish democratic fundamentals, there's not really a provision for it to be by violent means.

It's not "militant democracy", it does not point to the means, but to the idea that it's not possible to abolish democracy by legal means. It's a legal concept, not a plan to follow in case of emergency.

But what if they don't? A lot of countries in the middle east are profoundly not liberal. If things play out in an un-liberal/intolerant way, do we step in and "fix" them so that they meet our own standards?

No. You got to eatablish structures that can resist voting the wrong people, this means mostly seperation of powers and a working law system. Political movements that have direct military and jurisdictive power can only be voted out if they feel like it. Political powers that have enough military power to break the seperation of power can then force courts with weaponpower to decide their way.

So democracy is not about "letting people vote" it is about establishing a system that resists attemptet power grabs an keeps power in the hands of the voters should they want to vote people out.

The day the party in power can just ignore/fake the result of an election without consequences is the day a democracy started dying.

Who decides who is intolerant?

The ones with the power to decide or power to yield that power to another, as what already happens anywhere you go. You can't murder someone for slighting you, that would be intolerant in US law. Don't like it, yield power to change the law.

> You can't murder someone for slighting you, that would be intolerant in US law.

Yeah, they'll just put you in a cage, next to Julian.

Intolerance in Popper's sense has a different connotation than we might be used to today. The thinking of Karl Popper is heavily influenced by the horrors of the holocaust where people where denied rights, quartered up, shot or gassed based on being in the oposition, having the wrong ideology, religion, skin color, relatives, friends, gender identity, sexuality, etc. So for Popper this was not some vague undecidable "what is intolerance anyways"-kind of word, but bound to really harsh existential inhumane cruelties.

I guess we can agree that people who want others killed or at least surpressed like that do count pretty much as intolerant under regular free society standards. So in other words: intolerant people are people who can't be bothered to tolerate sharing their existance with other people who mind their own bussiness.

So: the definition of the word "intolerance" decides who is intolerant. And of course intolerant people will argue that they aren't (because that is not a nice attribute to get branded with, even if it is true) and therefore they try to change the meaning of "tolerance" in their image. And of course some people will claim intolerance where the definition won't justify it, because they feel it gives them an advantage in a given situation and therefore try to change the definition of "tolerance" into their direction. Ultimately like any codified law it would be a matter of presedence etc.

Democracy is meaningless without liberal values. So no, there is no "fundamental right" to a tyranny of the majority that oppresses minority groups and opinions. This was very well understood in the West; it's why many Western countries have Bills of Rights that cannot be overruled by the ordinary democratic process, including the United States.

are you even aware of your own history? Genocide, slavery, segregation, oppression of religious and sexual minorities etc ? You did wars to spread christianity. Even now gays don't have equal rights. Whatever little rights they earned was just recently. Bill of rights was in the 1700s. Genocide, slavery and all that rest happened while your bill of rights was in full force.

How do people write these shit with a straight face knowing western history? especially United State's history.

As for the topic in hand, the Bahraini govt is accused of doing to select people what US govt does to everyone, and you are getting self righteous? Lmao this is hilarious.

This is a twisted form of whatabboutism. Every lineage of humans has a sordid history. None of those people are alive now; what matters is what the people who are alive today do.

The crusades a thousand years ago do not justify jihad today. "The West" has come a long way. It's not hypocritical to want the rest of the world to catch up.

>This is a twisted form of whatabboutism.

As if that's a valid criticism. What about your whataboutism? hehe.

You wrote about western countries and especially US having protections that make your democracy enlightened - especially citing bill of rights that protects the rights of everyone. To which I pointed out that you had genocide of natives, slavery of Africans, oppression of women, sexual minorities etc when bill of rights was in full force. Point being that not only are you wrong about west being equal, but also about having these protection would actually mean anything.

>The crusades a thousand years ago do not justify jihad today.

No where did i say it does. You are literally making stuff up. How does you lot doing genocide and slavery in US justify Taliban blowing up whatever they find unislamic in their narrow definition of pure islam? None of the examples I used went far back to 1000 years, why even bring it up?

As for ignoring this happened in the past - Axe doesn't remember, the tree does. You can conveniently forget horrific events in the past when you benefited from it or you did it (whatever that "you" identity is). You might say the genocide of natives was in the past, so shouldn't matter, but the native americans would definitely beg to differ.

btw where do you draw the line? 500 years? 100 years? 10 years? yesterday? Of the genocide, slavery, segregation, wars to spread christianity and/or stop communism - what according to you is beyond the statute of limitations on moral responsibility?

>"The West" has come a long way. It's not hypocritical to want the rest of the world to catch up.

It really hasn't. The latest nightmare that is unfolding in Afghanistan, is created by west. The rest of the world can't catch up when you keep destabilizing it.

The events in Afghanistan started from Sour revolution, which went sour. That's when USSR was invited to the scene by the Afghan president. So is it east or west that started trouble? In general, its empires that attempt to take of advantage of weak states - be it USSR, US, China. If you go back arbitrarily in time, then, yeah, everyone were barbarians.

Yeah, USSR's help was sought out by Afghanistan. How does it concern US? As a sovereign republic, it's Afghanistan's right to self govern seeking help from whoever she pleases. It's none of US' business.

As for history and barbarians. In the last 300 years, US have eclipsed whatever injustices others have done in thousands of years. If we include the whole of western hemisphere, it's not even comparable. There is no other civilization that matches the horrific evils that the "enlightened western civilization" did even remotely. You lot wiped off entire natives from multiple continents. Did mass murder in other continents. Followed it up with slavery. I could go on, but even chengiz khan looks like an emo kid if you look at the evil and barbarity of western history.

And yet you stand in a 1 KM queue to get a visa to the "west". :P

touchy. i really touched a nerve huh? why the smiley at the end though.

>And yet you stand in a 1 KM queue to get a visa to the "west". :P

How else are we going to destroy you from within? :P

What exactly do you want to do with past events? At least in the west (I am a South Asian) they document it and possibly learn from it / incorporate it in studies (Germany). Would you rather have the Chinese method of whitewashing or completely censoring past (bad) events? There is pretty much no empire in history which hasn't tried to expand, coerce, or otherwise influence weak states, so going back hundreds of years is pure uselessness. Take China for example - Do you think the current generation of Chinese bother about failures of CCP during the cultural revolution or would they be happy about what the CCP has achieved in the last 30 years?

Also, learn about what happened in Afghanistan from 1975 - You'll find that it has evolved into a proxy war between many parties, but was started by an Afghan president seeking help from Soviets.

>What exactly do you want to do with past events?

Reconciliation, reparations and justice.

>Lot of talk about China

Why is it US or China? It's just two countries. There are so many other way to do things. Why do you conclude that other than US' way, the only other way is China's way?

>Also, learn about what happened in Afghanistan from 1975 - You'll find that it has evolved into a proxy war between many parties, but was started by an Afghan president seeking help from Soviets.

Good one. How does Afghan president Soviet help justify America and Pakistan creating Taliban to destabilize Afghanistan? How is it America's business? Every sovereign nation has the right to seek help from whosoever they like. It's none of America's concern. But no, that won't be. Taliban has to be created to bring down a government that dared to seek Russia's help. I am not saying then afghanistan govt was all good. I am saying that doesn't justify US/UK destabilizing Afghanistan and creating Taliban with the help of Pakistan.

I have no idea what your identity has to do with your points. So, i am just gonna ignore all that except the "South Asian" bit. It's hard for me to take anyone seriously that uses that term. South America and North America actually mean something. They are real geographical entities in the south and north. It's just plain stupidity to call India, Pakistan and Bangladesh as "South Asia". All of Arab states, Iran, Pak, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar all the way to Vietnam is South Asia.

Where did I say that any of the events in Afghanistan is justified? My point is, the reality in Afghan has many sides, and none of them look good. Blaming one party is stupid. Also America didn't "create" Taliban - again you make inaccurate points. One faction fighting the civil war eventually became the Taliban and then were supported by ISI. The US had no role after Soviet withdrawal (until 2001).

"Reconciliation, reparations and justice" - yeah ideally. But how many years will you go back? And who exactly will accept their mistakes and fix? I mentioned China, US because these are the powerful entities now, along with Russia. If these countries can't accept responsibility for the issues they created, then no other country will because its politically infeasible.

Identity doesn't relate to my points as such. But you are simply blaming the "west" for all troubles and ignoring the acts of others in these conflicts. I mentioned "South Asian" as an addendum to point out that I am not merely defending my region.

First understand the complexities involved, rather than making absurd statements such as "America created Taliban". Then argue your points.

It would be absurd to suggest that America created the people who became taliban - obviously their parents did. I doubt any of them are americans. I guess that part of obvious, and i am sorry that i didn't make it clear. What I meant was that it was US with their attack dogs in the area, ie pakistan, who gave money, training and weapons to them.

There are complexities to every situation anywhere.

PS: America created Taliban. ISIS too.

Start from here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Storm-333

(Hint - It was the Soviets who went with their guns blazing to Kabul setting off a series of events causing instability.)

Beyond that, your reading comprehension isn't good enough for further arguments.

No it was the US with the help of Pakistan. See - /dev/null.

How is it "whataboutism"? This isn't saying "america is bad because history" it is saying that the history of america shoes that democracy can function even with pretty limited application of liberal values.

It seems the crusades are always referenced but rarely in their historical context.

When you point out hypocrisy in HN, you will get downvoted and comments on how you are using "whataboutism". Most of the traffic to this website comes from the US, so you probably understand the clear bias. You will also see how people love to bring(rightfully so) Hong Kong crackdowns on protesters but willingly ignore what is going on in other countries (and have been going for longer) like Venezuela, Cuba, etc... Is just how it is.

Hong Kong is an extremely international and technically advanced city that freely accepts American passports for visits. Many on HN bring up the HK crackdowns because they have personal experiences with the city.

Its unlikely that on a majority-American forum you will find many people with personal experiences in countries that the USA has put under embargo.

So, countries under embargo are doomed to apathy and disregard from the American public? Their people suffering can be safely ignored , just because their country is not "international"(whatever this means) or "technically advanced" enough? Your comment shows the sentiment I was describing. Is never about being fair, or about freedom, etc.. Is just about what can I say to make people like my comment. But anyways, I get your point, is just sad.

It's "people like us". Always been. What's changed is how the "people like us" is defined. It used to be race, then skin color, then religious belief, and now it's class. It's still us vs them, only "us" is not defined on racial or religious lines.

> just because their country is not "international"(whatever this means) or "technically advanced" enough

I think you're misunderstanding me - it is much more likely, due to those qualities, that people on a majority American forum have personally lived in or met people from Hong Kong. An embargo heavily reduces the ability for Americans to visit or meet people people from that country. This obviously makes those people "feel" further away.

This reduction in cultural exchange between America and communist countries is a key goal of the embargo. Between propaganda and the embargo, the average American public has no chance of realistically meeting, visiting, or understanding these people and places.

Strongly disagree. I am not an American, but I am aware about Hong Kong, but know nothing about, say, Burkina Faso. The reason is pretty simple - HK is going downhill (from my perspective) while there isn't much of a change in Burkina Faso, although I would rather be in HK than Burkina Faso. In other words we react to what we see as "negative change" from our own perspective.

that and they really are unaware of the horrible things their government/country did and still does. In my view, every good thing/ideal has been corrupted and weaponized by the west. Be it women's rights, civil liberties, human rights in general - whatever. West uses this as a means to pressure other countries to achieve west's foreign policy goals. It's just a stick to beat others with - not an ideal to uphold. So, what you have is a few in the west setting the narrative, and the rest mindlessly dancing as per the narrative believing it. What you see in HN/Reddit etc are the people who believe the propaganda as they being the good guys despite the ones doing the horrible things all across the planet for the last few hundred years. It's hypocrisy when the ones setting the narrative peddle this nonsense. I don't think that crowd comes to HN/Reddit. They are more in nytimes/wapo/economist opeds and columns. The ones you find here are genuinely clueless and/or can't think for themselves. As punishing wrongthink becomes the norm, it's going to get worse.

More than half of the countries in existence are poor places to live. Generally if conditions deteriorate in a country it attracts attention - so in Hong Kong people clearly lost rights which they had because of CCP policies. Its not that people willingly ignore Cuba - its more to do with reaction to change which is perceived as negative.

> So you can either support the right of the people to overthrow an authoritarian regime and establish a democratic process that will lead to a fundamentalist islamic state, or you can support a regime that is authoritarian but will allow the practice of some western liberal values.

> Which is it, and why?

It has to be the former, because the latter is unsustainable and builds further local opposition to liberal values equating them with shams covering Western imperialism in the service of commercial interests of foreign elites (because in that case that's exactly what they are, once you limit “liberal values” to those that can be enjoyed without giving substantive power to local opposition to the Western-imposed regime.)

Of course, the thing is, the actual motivation, not just the incidental result, is commercial imperialism in the Middle East—“liberal values” are an excuse, access to and influence over global markets for resources (particularly oil) are the actual critical concern.

Lol what a long-winded comment just to demonstrate your racism.

Tell me, how long did you live in any Muslim-majority country, let alone the Middle-East? Because I’ve lived in, and regularly visit, one for the past 21 years.

They have as much capacity for democracy and “liberal Western values” (whatever that means) as the West.

I could flip your question around and ask why the US deserves democracy, since it inevitably elects a bunch of war-mongers that have wrought untold destruction across the world.

It is such a travesty what we've done in the middle east. We kept toppling people we thought we're bad and are surprised that the puppet doesn't have support. Maybe the stability that was there was hard one. Maybe everyone in Iraq hating Suddam equally was a very stabilization lodestone instead of them all fighting each other. What we did is like dropping a bomb into a river, it is going to take decades for a new stabilization to occur.

>Maybe the stability that was there was hard one.

Stability is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition.

Propping up dictators because they are "stable" is something the West has done - to little success - for a long time.

Toppling dictators because they are "evil" is something the West has done - to little success - for a long time

The West never toppled one dictator for being "evil". It toppled many for not being profitable.

This is same thing that happened in Algeria back in the nineties, in Algeria if you let a clear and honest democratic process in the country make assure that an Islamic group will win by majority and that why Europe union (France) will not ever make it happen and Algeria now is in really very bad situation with corruption running by an authoritarian regime so that they can milk them with stupid economic trades.

And to put it in the bigger picture why USA will never let a democratic process in Muslims majority country happen is simply the existence of Israel, you know exactly what the first thing Muslims will do if they united.

Isn't Iraq democratic now?

no, not really... just on paper. like Afghanistan 1 months ago.

Afghanistan wasn't democratic even on paper. Only a sovereign state can be democratic, colonies and occupying territories with puppet governments are by definition non-democratic, even if they pretend to have “free” elections.

Nah keep Israel out of this. First, it would benefit from secular democracies in the region. Second it has seen far worse things than "Muslims united" and it has won.

The only factors are that big global/regional players (USA, Iran, Turkey, SA) like their vassal state to be easily controlled. And that most cultures there do not have a history of democracy, or for that matter of national states.

When exactly has Israel specifically won?

The Suez War, the Six-Day War, and the Yom Kippur War, I guess?

This time, both sides will have nukes: even the "winner" will still lose.

Edit: what absolutely baffled me was the eagerness of the previous US administration to do nulcear tech transfer to Saudi Arabia; I couldn't see any tactical or strategic advantage to that.

It always fascinates me to read comments like this in here. Because it shows quite clearly that we all buy into narratives pushed by states. This post says that only winner of democracy in middle east is a fundamentalist religious governments. This is totally untrue. For example Iran, which was way more religious in 1950s managed to establish a secular democracy. It was the foreign intervention that derailed it. The same people who derailed the very democracy then pushed the idea that middle east is not suitable for democracy.

In addition to that, @throwaway75 (GP) sounds unaware about eg the US supporting religious dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, Oman and elsewhere, providing the dictators with weapons.

I'd rather look at this as it's the West that perpetuates religious dictatorships, by supporting the dictators in exchange for eg oil.

And that people in general in the middle east want democracy any especially the women want to get to dress however they want (can be both with or without the hijab). But @throwaway75's home country likely gives weapons to the dictators oppressing the women and people.

Human rights (or rather, lack thereof) in Saudi Arabia, a US weapons and military training receiver: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saudi_Arabia

That's the West upholding sharia laws

Indeed. I have come to the conclusion that any values that people hold, like human rights, religion, etc, etc; will eventually become something that politians will use to build a narrative with.

Sometimes it's maybe even good to start with the assumption that if a politician in a large country says that they'll do this and that good thing, because of human rights or religion -- then he's trying to manipulate you

If we've learned anything from Afghanistan and Iraq, the will of the people will eventually win out. So western liberal values should always support democracy because they still haven't been able to show a unicorn self-sustaining, liberal authoritarian.

Could you provide an example where a democractic process has legitimately elected a religious fundamentalist group? That is how I understand "the winner" in your statement, as if the group was elected by the people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Egyptian_presidential_ele...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Palestinian_legislative_e...

Neither Hamas nor the Egyptian Muslim brotherhood are fundamentalist movements. They're conservative, but that's quite different.

Naturally, people who feed off of pro-US media may think them fundamentalist (as some commenters here seem to), but their respective electoral platforms and governmental policies do not agree with such a characterization.

From Wikipedia:

[..] Islamic Resistance Movement") is a Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist,[c] militant,[16] and nationalist organization.

Ah, so the national security assistant to John McCain says Hamas is fundamentalist. Well, I guess it must be true then. How could I ever disagree with Wikipedia, silly me. They are _never_ biased in favor of US foreign policy positions, right?

Huh? "Hamas is a radical Islamic fundamentalist organization that has stated that its highest priority is a Jihad (holy war) for the liberation of Palestine."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas

> a person who believes in the strict, literal interpretation of scripture in a religion. "religious fundamentalists"

They're both Islamist, conservative, fundamentalist, pro-Sharia law, etc. etc. Both were or are still considered terrorist groups, and both have used terror tactics to murder opponents or enemies.

If the people want Sharia, than they should be free to chose it.

Meanwhile, the west can go back home and instead of bombing democracy into these countries, we compete with their model (like we did with communism), we outperform their model and they will want our model.

We didn't win against communism with bombs, we won against communism with widespread increase of wealth. We had more wealth, more rights, more freedom, a better life.

Our own democracy and our own values have severely suffered after the downfall of communism, we are not on top of our game anymore. If young people from poor countries look at our countries and feel _hate_ instead of _envy_, then we are doing something wrong.

What we did is saying "here, look at our awesome democracy, which bombs your weddings, no matter if a Black progressive or and Orange lunatic is in power, doesn't even make a difference".

Almost all young people in Northern Africa are trying to run to Europe. They want what we have. Let's proof to them that democracy and liberal values are the way to get what we have.

The problem is that people aren't a monolith and fundamentalist sharia, like all religious nationalism, tramples all over minority rights. This is what makes me uncomfortable with the "if people want sharia" argument.

So, no democracy unless it's the correct type of democracy? Maybe just install a correct authoritarian regime and call it a day?

You may not be aware of the spectrum, but there are plenty of forms of government between democracy and authoritarian.

For instance, there can be an indirect democratic republic that is configured in a way to protect the rights of the minority against the desires of the majority.

In a democracy, any configuration can be changed given a qualified majority. If there's such configuration that it can't be changed by a qualified majority, then it's not a democracy.

Indirect democratic republic sounds painfully similar to people's democratic republics. Or infamous Putin's "controlled democracy" in Russia.

How would limited indirect democracy differ from autocracy such as in Russia or Belarus?

It seems that you aren't aware that The United States is such a Republic, properly called a Constitutional Republic.

I'm not from US so naturally don't know every single bit about US...

My country is a constitutional republic too. But here any article in constitution can be changed with a constitutional majority. Yes, it's not a simple 50%+1 majority democracy, but it's still a democracy where the population can implement whatever changes they wish. Given that large enough part of population signs off on it.

It is impossible for correct authoritarian regimes to exist because people die. Even the most benevolent authoritarian regime cannot build the sorts of institutions required for their continued goodness after their current ruler dies.

This is one of the reasons why democracies work out more often: because leadership changes happen more often, they act as a forcing function to build better institutions. Of course democracies have real failure modes too.

Well, according to this thread, democracies are not universal because people will die too.

The question about democracy is wether democracy can ensure it's population does not go wrong way to vote in wrong people. Or does it need an oversight to make sure the society stays on track to be fit for a democracy? But if society needs an oversight, is it truly a democracy?

A lot of our democratic law influenced by lobbyists is trampling on the rights of the majority to benefit a small minority.

We can't bomb democracy into these countries. We have to show them that our model is superior. We bombed away many dictators, just then to be unhappy with what the people voted for afterwards. How are you going to convince the Afghans that Democracy is better than the Taliban and Sharia, when their president was corrupt and fled the country with a helicopter full of money, instead of protecting the nation?

Imagine Apple bombing the house of a Samsung user to convince them to buy an iPhone. That's what we do in Arabic countries. And while we talk about democracy, we steal what they have.

With apologies to Planck, politics progresses one funeral at a time. For example, in Afghanistan there is a generation of women who had never faced oppression from the Taliban; who knows what would have happened if there were five generations of women who had never faced such oppression.

The US is quite bad, its imperial adventures are a disgrace, and it absolutely should not have been occupying Afghanistan, of course.

That's a good point. I am Austrian, living in Germany. Perfect examples of how to do nation building after a war. Maybe we should have tried that in Afghanistan.

You are assuming Democracy is better, while at the same time saying that it isn't, due to who gets elected.

> Imagine Apple bombing the house of a Samsung user to convince them to buy an iPhone. That's what we do in Arabic countries. And while we talk about democracy, we steal what they have.

Sorry, that isn't what happens in the world. You seem to believe the justifications provided by politicians are the true causes of things. For example, consider the 20 year war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is ridiculous to think that the rest of the world couldn't eliminate a small group of people over a 20 year period. They are on social media. They use trackable phones. The intent was clearly not to track them down.

That's because the goal wasn't actually to eliminate the Taliban any more than the goal is to solve any of the wedge issues in politics. These things are kept alive in order to fund politicians and special interest groups. In the case of The United States in Afghanistan, there was a 20 year war overseen by Generals who have never won a war. They spent somewhere just under a billion dollars a day. In that case, Defense contractors were the ultimate beneficiaries of the 20 year war. Now that there is a pullout, The United States is sending civilians to help get people out of the country.

You are making my point exactly!

Assumption: Democracy is good. Counter: Look at what democratic countries did to Afghanistan in the name of democracy, when it really was just about some a-holes enriching themselves.

Conclusion: Spreading democracy by force make a mockery out of it. We should spread it by proofing that it is better, by having a better quality of life, a fairer system, more freedom, less injustice and so on.

No wonder people in those countries don't trust democracy, they have only seen the perversion of it!

If the people of your country vote that you are a second class citizen, and you are stripped of the rights that everyone else enjoys, should they have been free to choose that?

Who is gonna stop them?

If a majority of a country wants this, we have to literally murder the majority of a country.

We also talk about these countries like they are functioning democracies. They are not. In a functioning democracy, it is against the constitution for a majority to vote over minority rights.

Should we bomb a constitution into them?

All over the world people fought to be free, against tyrants, kings, foreign suppressors. The people in these countries will want freedom as much as everyone else. They will figure it out. I think we are stopping this process from happening through our interference.

We force upon them a democracy they have not brought on themselves, and we often enough prop up corrupt politicians. The President of Afghanistan fled the country in a helicopter stacked with cash, the Army abandoned their posts. Democracy let the Afghans down.

That's a false choice.

I was not suggesting that anyone bomb anyone else. I asked a question, which is still unanswered, about your statement which was in essence, "if a people want authoritarian rule, they should be free to chose it."

Your question will not be answered, because it does not make sense.

In a democracy, a majority can not vote on the rights of a minority. There is a constitution, a bill of rights. But to get there _people have to chose democracy_ over authoritarianism. As long as they don't do that by themselves, we only have the options to show them by example why they should want it, or to force them to want it.

Wherever we tried to force it, it recoiled.

Democracy doesn't infer that there's a constitution defending minorities.

Modern democracies generally have that, but it's not required

But aren't you advocating that the west should act as the world police and force sovereign states to act a certain way? If the people of a country vote for something, isn't that democracy? I understand that voting isn't a magical solution that will always produce a "good" outcome, but what right does a state have to tell another that they voted the wrong way?

> But aren't you advocating that the west should act as the world police and force sovereign states to act a certain way? If the people of a country vote for something, isn't that democracy? I understand that voting isn't a magical solution that will always produce a "good" outcome, but what right does a state have to tell another that they voted the wrong way?

I didn't say any of that.

Ok, but you asked "should they have been free to do that?" I don't have an answer to that question, because I don't know. I know that human rights violations are bad, but I also know that democracy means the majority rules.

But my point is that even if we come to the conclusion that democracy produced an outcome that we didn't like, how do we rectify it? Who will "correct" their "mistake"?

An essential part of democracy in the modern age is balancing majoritarian will with minority rights.

They run to Europe because we bombed Libya and continue the economic warfare and exploitation against the entire continent.

The Cold War was also won with coups and invasions and death squads and infiltration. What you see now is entirely in character with western imperialism, merely turning inwards as it collapses.

That's the point, people say we should intervene for, eh ethics or something and democracy, but we go there for selfish reasons _and make things worse_.

We should focus on fixing and improving our own democracy, make sure people here are visibly doing better than in places that don't have democracy and freedom and offer help to everyone who wants to achieve it.

Help as in "this is how you write a constitution", "this is how you write civil law", "this is how you run an efficient health care system" , not bombs.

But if that's the chosen path, then you'd have to be ok with the imposition of majoritarian laws on the minorities of the country - at least until the majority wakes up and tunes into the west's liberal values, or until the minority ceases to exist - whichever occurs first.

> If the people want Sharia, than they should be free to chose it.

That sounds disturbing to me.

As if you had said, if the majority of the voters in the US want to enslave all black people, they should be free to do so.

Sharia laws enslave women.

> We didn't win against communism with bombs, we won against communism with widespread increase of wealth. We had more wealth, more rights, more freedom, a better life.

Didn't this backfire with China? I mean, yes, it's moving away from communism, but it doesn't look like human rights are necessarily getting better.

The US has been propping up (mostly secular, but not exclusively) authoritarian regimes, and instigating coups, since at least the 1950s -- either to guarantee favorable terms for oil or shipping, or to destroy local communist/socialist/not-capitalist-enough movements.

One of Chomsky's oft-repeated facts is that Eisenhower commissioned a report while president, to figure out why is the US hated so much on "the Arab street" (but presumably including Iran, etc.)? The report concluded that the US is perceived to have installed and propped up authoritarians, and generally to have meddled in internal affairs and elections, and what's more that it's all pretty much true. I never found the report he's referencing, but you can easily find info about meddling, even on CIA's own website (pre-revamp), such as an internal CIA historian's favorable review of a history of their commission of the Iran coup.

I think this has to be taken into account when trying to explain the current dynamics.

> On the other hand, if you let democracy

That's your problem right there. Many of these countries are either under direct occupation of the US or its allies, or having a puppet government which answers to them and not to the population in any significant sense (e.g. Jordan, Bahrain when it's not occupied by KSA). So when you write "you let", the subject is the foreign occupier.

The most important thing which should happen is for "you" not to be able to "let" or "not let" people manage their lives one way or the other.

> get a foothold in many of the muslim-majority states, the winner of a democratic process will very likely be what the west perceives as a religious fundamentalist group

On the contrary. This happens when, in that country, you have fundamentalist forces which have been trained, equipped and sometimes even ferried in by the US (e.g. via the CIA) or its allies. Examples: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya. There is also the effects of decades of trying to suppress left-wing forces in various places in the world, which leaves a vacuum which fundametalist Islamist forces may fill, as in the case of Iran.

When that's not the case, you get something like Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen in the 1960s, Egypt in the 1950s, Iraq in the 1950s, Palestine in the 1930s etc.

Bottom line: When the US (and other Imperialist powers) don't intervene and manipulate things, the results are not what you're worried about.

> every single value that the west holds dear (including democracy itself).

Assuming "The West" means the EU states and the US, then I don't see how they hold democracy dear. They routinely prefer their national ruling classes' interests over democracy. We have even seen a recent example of this within Europe itself, where nobody opposed the Spanish Monarchy's suppression of Catalonian democracy.

You let them go fundamentalist because it will swing back the other way.

This only works if social changes are made allowing for these things to happen.

The assumption that “democracy” will be pro-fundamentalist is problematic on two fronts:

- A lot of protests are anti-Islamic.

- Democracy is still bound by its constitution to protect the minorities, so a democratically elected fundamentalist government that is bound by a proper constitution can still be a viable regime.

There is another dimension: when there have been liberal governments, but that want to do things like nationalise western oil companies, western countries prefer to destabilise those countries - the end result is often authoritarian regimes.

Democracy is "dangerous" in that people who wish to secretly concentrate power can become elected; Once elected they figure out ways to remain "elected" forever.

Any democracy that fails to listen to the will of the people is a failed democracy; so inherently anything that's "installed" is immediately failed.

There's also a huge populism argument here too, things that sound good are often very _not_ good; and it's difficult to make that kind of call for yourself let alone making it for other people.

But we should not be in the habit of installing governments, that shit is colonialism v.2.

> I think religious fundamentalism _should_ win out because that's the will of the people and we in the West are not supposed to be interfering with others in such a way.

Good point, but there are a couple problematic things in that take:

- What is the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" actually worth if no one enforces it?

- Religious fundamentalism at its core - Christian fundamentalism, Islamist fundamentalism, Hindu fundamentalism, Jewish fundamentalism, even entirely agnostic fundamentalism - is incompatible with democracy and human rights at its very core. Women's rights, equality of all people no matter their heritage, gender or sexual orientation, freedom of (and from!) religion... there are lots of conflict potentials.

- Can (or rather, should) we as Western countries turn a blind eye against grave instances of human rights abuses? No matter if they label themselves democratic or not? In case of "no", can we truly claim we as a species learned anything from the horrors of the Nazi regime? What is a sensible threshold to intervene?

And that's just the ideological side. There are also practical issues:

- How can "the will of the people", even if it were to live under Taliban rule, even be determined amidst widespread corruption, vote fraud, exclusion of societal groups from voting or running for an office, corrupt/demagogic/government-dominated media or mistrust in the voting process? It's hard enough to guarantee that in developed Western-ish countries as we saw with the entire US re-election fiasco, the media takeover by the government in Hungary, Murdoch being labeled a threat to democracy or the bought Brexit and outright impossible in cases like Russia or China.

- How can abusers be meaningfully sanctioned? China and Russia are already cozying up to the Taliban, just as the West has done with Saudi-Arabia and its chainsaw-loving prince.

> Once elected they figure out ways to remain "elected" forever.

Which is why it would make sense to expand the UN into an actual worldwide oversight committee. The problem with that however is that the majority of governments represented there isn't democratically backed and, given historic UN voting, would probably band together to dissolve Israel in an instant, probably followed by the US. Additionally, how should voting weights be distributed? By population? By economic quantities?

> Any democracy that fails to listen to the will of the people is a failed democracy.

That is coming close to a "tyranny of the majority" scenario, especially when throwing in demagogues into the mix. Any democracy worth calling it by that name must guarantee the human rights of its most powerless.

Everything you say is true.

But interventionism based on _your_ beliefs is a form of tyranny and usually stokes tensions which riles up support for your opponents ideology. It's not long lived.

All the things you say are things the EU struggles with Massively, and I'm not so naive to assume I have all the answers; but I have a hard time swallowing the idea that I know better than "Fundamentalist Muslims" or whatever else, because if that's the leadership they choose then unfortunately one way or the other I need to just let them get on with that.

Doesn't mean I agree.

You're right, though, that there are things like the human rights conventions, and the EU is quite good at not working with countries which do not ensure basic protections; but to some people (brexiteers, for a good example) this is also a form of tyranny.

You can't appeal to everyone, so you're basically imposing tyranny or allowing a tyranny of the majority in some form; as you so eloquently put it.

> But interventionism based on _your_ beliefs

They are not my beliefs, they are what the majority of the civilized world believed to be the core tenets of civilization after the horrors of the Nazi regime. That is the entire point on why I believe human rights interventions to not only be justified but morally necessary.

And for what it's worth I (as a German) would really love some sort of oversight committee to tell Viktor Orban or our own far-right to pound sand.

I guess the main difference I'm trying to get at here is: what we believe to be core tenets of civilisation are perhaps more hotly contested than we want to admit?

Or; to put it another way: you and I believe this (we're in the majority!), so should we force it on everyone?

Don’t forget that the US democracy started with a religious fundamentalist regime.

I have no ties to the US and very little knowledge of it's history but I thought the ideas around the separation of church and state can be traced back to the founding of the US?

It’s a ridiculous assessment and it’s comparing XVIII c. US with the modern day.

That would be like someone bringing up some deficiency in women’s rights in the US today and then retort by comparing it to women’s rights in 1700s somewhere else.

No, we live today.

The point was that it started as one. I read that as "even if it starts as a fundamentalist regime, it can develop into something else."

I would disagree on the assertion that it was fundamentalist. Compared to the places they came from, they were pretty open and indeed ensured that there was separation between state and religion, unlike many other places at the time where there was an intricate relationship between the two.

The only country i know of, where church and state are actually separate is France.

In Latin America, given the choice between 'a democratic process that will lead to socialism' or 'a regime that is authoritarian (with or without any "western liberal values" included)' the United States picks #2 basically every time.

Wasn't that paradox already apparent during the cold war, when the US tried to block Communism by propping up right- wing dictators?

There are other movements in the region but they tend to be seen as even more antithetical to western governments.

For example, the PKK wants to establish a modern secular Kurdish state. Turkey, Iraq, and Syria are opposed because it would be in “their” territory (never mind the desire of the people in that territory for self-governance).

But why is so much of the “democratic” west unwilling to support the PKK? Because they want a socialist state.

Similarly, there is a large contingent of Palestinians that want to establish a modern secular and non-anti-Israel state, but you never hear about them and they never get a seat at the table—even though lots of people hate the PLO and Hamas—because they’re socialists.

The west really does prefer authoritarian rule with the minimum of western liberal values to democratic socialism with a full embrace of western liberal values. Profit above all else, so any attempt at socialism must be opposed even at the expense of those values.

the only and correct answer is: you let them to do whatever they want as a collectivity, and you stop your imperialist project.

You can use all the softpower you want, and i see no problem with this, but it's up to the majority of the people to decide what to do.

So if the country decides to exterminate a specific ethnic group you just try and use soft power and if that doesn’t work then oh well?

Would you make that argument for the US treatment of minorities historically? No? Why?

Yes I would.

Would you?

There is nothing preventing an autocracy from doing the same thing, right? In fact, history shows that autocracies are more prone to doing that.

And who are we kidding here: the West is not against democracy in MENA because of some deep care for minorities or individual liberties. The West is against democracy because it’s more unpredictable and opens up the possibility that the people decide to take control of their resources.

Feel free to believe otherwise if it makes you feel better, but it’s not the truth.

I cant tell if this is a yes or a no.

I can tell you missed my point. Anyways, I’m more interested in the people reading the discussion.

False dichotomy. You left out the obvious US style republic with heavily enforced rights that can't be voted away.

Who enforces those rights in that scenario?

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