[chimeracoder]

> Most people acknowledge that the Iraqi people aren't ready for Democracy.

This is a really contentious statement that you just drop in both as fact and as the basis of your entire argument.

No, I would not say that 'the Iraqi people aren't ready for Democracy' is a true statement. I also wouldn't say that what 'most people [in the US]' think about the Iraqi people's readiness for democracy [in Iraq] is really relevant to the question of whether they are ready for democracy [in Iraq]. I also wouldn't say that the question of whether they (as a group) are 'ready' for democracy in Iraq is relevant to answering the question of whether individual Iraqi people are 'ready' for democracy in Minnesota (whatever that means).

> Look at how much trouble the U.S. has had cultivating democracy in places like Iraq.

It also doesn't help that we have a long history of doing the exact opposite of 'cultivating democracy' in the Middle East (ie, going in and deposing democratically-elected leaders so that we can install dictators that are friendly to the US).

The US has had trouble cultivating democratically elected regimes that are friendly towards us in countries like Iraq. In the US, we tend to conflate 'democratic government' with 'government that shares our objectives and goals'.

[rayiner]

It's an idea that was invoked by the American left to explain Bush's failure in Iraq, and eventually conceded by key figures on the right as well: http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-rumsfeld-admits-that-e.... So I'm not sure it's all that controversial.

And we're not talking about whether individual Iraqis in Minnesota are ready for democracy. We are talking about the link posted earlier in the thread, which suggested that the optimal number of immigrants in the U.S. would be two billion. That's not encouraging immigration of selected individuals, it's endorsing wholesale migration of huge populations.

[davidw]

> which suggested that the optimal number of immigrants in the U.S. would be two billion.

It suggested no such thing. Please reread it:

"What is the optimal number of imported tomatoes? Soviet central planners tried to figure things out this way. Americans shouldn’t. We should decide on the optimal terms on which tomatoes can be imported, and then let the market decide the number."

[rayiner]

Fair enough, but I don't think there is much of a distinction. The market would just import people wholesale to get the cheapest possible labor. The market hates the islands of civilization built in the sea of entropy. It wants to bring everyone to the global average, which for those fortunate enough to be already in the developed world, is a precipitous drop.

[MaysonL]

In 1945, most Americans would have believed that the Japanese people and the German people were not ready for democracy. Luckily the Truman administration and its allies were not as feckless and irresponsible as the Bush administration.

[harryh]

I don't think your assertion about 1945 is correct. Both Germany and Japan had functional and stable democracies before that date which was excellent evidence that they could support it.

[AnimalMuppet]

I'm not sure you could call Germany's "stable", at least not in the 1930s. I'm not certain you could call Japan's "functional" - wasn't it more ornamental than having any real ability to change the course of government policy?

[MaysonL]

Note that my assertion was not about Germany and Japan.

[MaysonL]

Belsen and Bataan beat anything ISIS has done.