Quote:I most certainly do. It is, as you say, the oldest trick in the book. And as the old boy says, it simply can’t be done.
Quote:The most recent moves towards demokracy have all been reactions against Western puppet governments and dictatorships.
So was the removal of Saddam Hussein.
Quote:In Europe itself, the GFC has seen a move away from demokracy - according to your favourite link, anyway.
Do you have your own opinion on this?
Quote:Chile might be more democratic now, but this is because the US no longer has influence there. The lowered US presence in South America is a result of the creation of NAFTA, the post-Cold War trading bloc created by the US to compete with the EU.
The democracy there is a result of the rise of democracy in western Europe.
Quote:FD the fact that many democracies today owe their institutions to European influence doesn't change the fact that the US spent most of the Cold War trying to quash most independent democratic movements.
What is your point?
Quote:You are not making any sort of relevant point here.
My point is that democracy has spread remarkably quickly throughout the world, because the west genuinely values it, genuinely exported it, and fought two world wars against decidedly undemocratic forces, and won. This is not a delusion, and not a convenient excuse to insult the intelligence of our soldiers. If we had lost either world war, that make would look very different.
True Colours wrote on May 7
th, 2014 at 9:37pm:
polite_gandalf wrote on May 7
th, 2014 at 8:19pm:
FD the fact that many democracies today owe their institutions to European influence doesn't change the fact that the US spent most of the Cold War trying to quash most independent democratic movements.
Western democracies, whose systems third world nations understandably want to emulate, can be oppressive towards those third world nations - believe it or not.
You are not making any sort of relevant point here.
Democracy is the invention of a bunch of pagan homosexuals (living suspiciously close to the Middle East).
Why did they invent democracy? Because they knew that nearly all of them were a bunch of deviant twisted jerks, and they couldn't trust anyone of them to have too much power.
If democracy was really great, then ask yourself why we don't vote on every major issue? Instead we elect a bunch of people to think for us for 3 or 4 years because we know that most people are too stupid/ignorant to make good decisions on every issue - which begs the question "are the majority of people smart/educated enough to elect good leaders in the first place?"
The Greeks established democracy in Athens in 508 BCE. 28 years later Athens was sacked by the Persian Empire. Athens was constantly at war with its neighbouring city-states, and within a century of instituting democracy had lost its place as the predominant state in Greece.
You are doing it wrong TC. You are supposed to pretend you support democracy, but try to find an excuse to undermine it at every opportunity. Ask Gandalf if you don't understand. He can show you how to reinterpret Muhammed's example to come to this position.
The reason we have representative democracy is the cost of direct democracy. This has historically been seen as an unavoidable trade-off, due to practical limitations, but there is a mechanism that combines the benefits of direct and representative democracy.
http://www.ozpolitic.com/electoral-reform/voting-by-delegable-proxy.html