Hi Joe,

"Muslims are as entitled to democratically choose their own political leaders: the freedoms and equalities that we take for granted should, sooner or later, be available to everybody"

Why? and if the majority are happy with a dictatorship or some other non democratic system. Why is that choice less preferable than our choice.

You said "but the path from A to B may be very long and very bitter for many of our fellow human beings." I will agree with that. Following the dismantling of colonialism in Africa post WWII, Britain bestowed freedom and democracy on a number of states, but nothing much else, and it failed

Hi Paul,

You ask " .... if the majority are happy with a dictatorship or some other non democratic system. Why is that choice less preferable than our choice."

Do you realise how contradictory that sounds ? 'A majority happy with dictatorship' ? Then why not put it to a vote ? Can you answer that ?

Let me answer it for you: 'because a dictatorship with majority support' is a myth, a fraud. And we will see that in the case of Turkey.

No democracy is, or ever will be, perfect. But any democracy, no matter how ramshackle and 'noisy', is streets ahead of the most 'benign' dictatorship.

Back in my Maoist days, I couldn't understand the title of one of Mao's pamphlets: 'On the People's Democratic Dictatorship'. If it was democratic, I thought, then why the need for a dictatorship ? A strongly vigilant democracy, yes, but dictatorship ? Of course, there never was, or has been anything like democracy in China, and it doesn't look like springing spontaneously into being in the foreseeable future.

What is a democracy, crudely speaking ? Some may say, a system where you get the people you vote for. No. You vote, and if you don't get the people you vote for, you cop it and try again next time, and keep trying. That interpretation is foreign to societies that have never had anything like democracy.

Bush & Co. naively believed that it would be so easy. Obama has probably swung the other way, or at least is aware that democracy has to be home-grown - and one could add, the outcome (f there is one) of a very long and brutal learning experience.

To repeat, and avoid your need for a straw-man, "No democracy is, or ever will be, perfect. But any democracy, no matter how ramshackle and 'noisy', is streets ahead of the most 'benign' dictatorship.'

Cheers,

Joe

Joe, you offer an opinion that the Western democratic model is superior to all other. but offer no evidence. Even for the west, the present system with its universal suffrage is relatively new, as little as about 100 years ago voting was restricted to an elite, landowners, males. Governments reflected the interests of a small minority, hardly democratic. it was a long process involving wars and revolutions to build the version of democracy we enjoy today. I suspect certain conditions of equality need to exist in a society before the a system of democracy can survive and flourish. Unfortunately for much of the world, the necessary conditions to foster a true democracy as we know it do not exists, Turkey could be such a country.

It is amazing how racist the greens are, not only do they boycott Jews, but they deem that it is OK for other cultures to suffer tyrants and dictators.

So Paul the answer is that it is not OK for any dictatorship, and it would be impossible to determine whether a majority of people supported it, as they can no longer say so. I doubt Erdogan would be have been elected in originally if the people knew what he would do.

There is no dictatorship or single party state that has improved the lot of the subjects either in living conditions, human rights or environmental protection.

Hi Paul,

You claim: "Joe, you offer an opinion that the Western democratic model is superior to all other, but offer no evidence....."

and then rebut yourself:

"Even for the west, the present system with its universal suffrage is relatively new, as little as about 100 years ago voting was restricted to an elite, landowners, males. Governments reflected the interests of a small minority, hardly democratic. It was a long process involving wars and revolutions to build the version of democracy we enjoy today."

Well, yes, that's precisely what I have been trying to get through to you. But claim it as your own original idea if you like :)

Actually, I'll correct you on one point: when men got the vote in Australia - at least, in South Australia - regardless of property, Aboriginal men also got the vote. When women got the vote here in 1894, Aboriginal women also got the vote.

Joe

On the Turkey Coup:

There's 2 theories of what happened might have happened.

the first is that Erdogan orchestrated the coup himself to capitalise on the fallout.

The second is that the US orchestrated the coup which isn't out of the question either.

The US is refusing to hand over Gulen, the person Erdogan has accused over the coup. (he lives in Pennsylvania)
Erdogan says he will attack any nation that defends him. (ie the US)
One of the coup plotters has asked for asylum in the US.
Erdogan had stopped movement in and out of Incirlik air base and locked the US out from their nukes, but I believe the access has been restored.