[rayiner]

I think this fact is more well recognized outside the west than inside it. Fareed Zakaria predicted the failure of the democracy experiments in iraq and afghanistan back in 2003: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_of_Freedom. Those predictions were widely shared among the Muslim diaspora in the U.S.

The british sent their criminals to Australia (a harsh island continent) and they turned it into a thriving liberal democracy. Meanwhile most democracies in the developing world struggle. Culture is destiny: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20045923

[random314]

> The british sent their criminals to Australia (a harsh island continent) and they turned it into a thriving liberal democracy.

A misconception. Most people who moved to Australia were not criminals. Contrast that with Germany, which turned itself into a genocide state through the influence of European culture.

[petre]

> turned it into a thriving liberal democracy

Until Scott Morrison and the last three conservative governments undid some of that.

[rayiner]

Most developing countries would be lucky to have the order and competency even of the Trump administration. We aren’t even talking about the same planet here in terms of what’s a functioning democracy.

In Bangladesh, the government is putting leaders of the opposition party BNP in jail (https://learngerman.dw.com/en/bangladesh-court-sentences-opp...), and even then it’s the most functional government the country has had in decades.

[mike00632]

The Trump administration literally attempted a coup.

[solveit]

In some countries they call that Tuesday... And the coups often succeed too, and also have military involvement, and aren't embarrassingly poorly executed.

I'm not even talking failed states here, I'm talking about respectable developing countries like Thailand and Turkey. The United States, despite its numerous obvious shortcomings, has it pretty good when it comes to political stability and democracy.

[rayiner]

We left Bangladesh when it was ruled by a military leader that came to power in a coup: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Bangladesh_coup_d%27état. January 6 bears no resemblance to the coups I'm familiar with. More like a failed peasant rebellion.