[turbinerneiter]

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.

[IncRnd]

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?

[turbinerneiter]

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.

[IncRnd]

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."

[turbinerneiter]

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.

[8note]

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

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

[colpabar]

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?

[IncRnd]

> 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.

[colpabar]

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"?

[howinteresting]

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

[throwaway75]

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.

[lucian1900]

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.

[turbinerneiter]

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.

[howinteresting]

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.

[turbinerneiter]

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.

[IncRnd]

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.

[turbinerneiter]

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!

[howinteresting]

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.

[turbinerneiter]

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.

[mantas]

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

[IncRnd]

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.

[mantas]

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?

[IncRnd]

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

[mantas]

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.

[howinteresting]

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.

[mantas]

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?

[cutemonster]

> 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.

[saagarjha]

> 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.