[dijit]

> 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.

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.

[mschuster91]

> 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.

[dijit]

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.

[mschuster91]

> 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.

[dijit]

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?