Iran Election Result

[Rip]

Originally Posted by Skybird

I believe that legitimacy - or lack of - of Iranian elections for us does not make a difference. Thus we must not care - we are not living in Iran.

When elections are being held with a candidate representing a real alternative to the mullah regime whose policy also would make a difference for us (for better or worse) - then caring for the legitimacy of according elections would matter for us.

But if we purport to support the spread of democracy throughout the world we must act differently when we encounter truly democratically selected leaders of nations. No matter whether that democratic choice is the one we prefer. One of the biggest challenges we face in global diplomacy is the impression that we are hypocrites when it suits us.

[Rip]

Originally Posted by Max2147

You can't really use one blanket interpretation for all the protesters. Some of them are just like you said - protesting this election and only this election. Others are indeed protesting for a democratic Iran. Others are protesting because they just don't like Ahmadinejad, and others are protesting because they've got nothing better to do!

The key question is the balance of those motivations - i.e. are the majority protesting in support of Mousavi, or are they protesting against Khameni? I don't think anybody knows the answer to that question, not even the protesters themselves.

CastleBravo - Where did you see Obama appeasing/apologizing over this? Do you really want the American President to shoot his mouth off when he knows full well that there's nothing he can do to affect the outcome? That would be the exact opposite of "speak softly and carry a big stick."

A new proverb. "Talk **** and fling toothpicks"

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Rip

But if we purport to support the spread of democracy throughout the world we must act differently when we encounter truly democratically selected leaders of nations. No matter whether that democratic choice is the one we prefer. One of the biggest challenges we face in global diplomacy is the impression that we are hypocrites when it suits us.

1. I am not supporting this idea of spreading democracy everywhere.

2. I am against missionising in the name of democracy and religions of every kind, including Christianity, Buddhism and Islam.

3. Many Western states claiming to support the spreading of democracy, have arranged themselves happily with exactly the opposite kind of regimes in the past if that matched their selfish interests. I also question the democratic nature of Westenr states themselves. there is too much oligarchy, too much plutocracy and too much interweaving between economy and politics (which should be independant from the economy'S lobby).

4. So who is "we", since you talked of "we" ?

5. I also think that democracies have no obligation to assist in the voting of options that bring democracies down by bringing those wanting to destroy or prevent democracy to power - as seen is the votings in turkey, Egypt and with the Palestinians. In turkey the AKP's ruling has destroyed already much of the secular heritage of Ataturk and brought a fundamentalist crew with a missionary sporit to power. In Egypt Mubarak was pressed to hold freer elections - and the conservative Muslim Brotherhood immediately made a jump upwards in the parliament. they would have gained much more if the elecitons would have been all free indeed. And thanks to free elections for the palestinians there is an established terror group named Hamas in command in the Gaza strip now.

6. In case of Germany, the constitution explicitly allows active resistance by everybody against everyone trying to overthrow the constitutional order of the German state. Since this constitution is said to protect democracy, you can conclude from this example as well that there is no obligation that a self-declared democracy must accept the election of powers that try to overcome democracy itself.

7. In France, Sarkozy just once again have spoken out against tolerating the burkha, saying that it is an aggressive and radical expressing of values that are incompatible with values France traditionally stand for. In other words: an existing social community, whether it be democratic or not, has no obligation to tolerate that in it's middle that violates the canon of values that define this social community.

To argue that freedom or/and democracy come at the price of accepting that what destroys oneself, is pathologic, self-damaging, if not suicidal. It also implies that one has no right to fight agai8nst such tendencies or forces, and shall not resist to them. Whoich then builds a brink to another pervertion in especially EU-thinking: that idea of unlimited tolerance. there can be no such thing as unlimited tolerance without denying your own identity, completely. Inly when you totally give up what you are yourself, and whyat you stand for, you can embrace what is not you and is different to you so completely as expressed in the term "unlimited tolerance". In other words: you not only give up yourself, but you also will to become the other what originally was "not you", completely. You delete your own identity. - As I see it, the EU steams with full pressure into this direction of deleting inner-european identities and also making it prone to growing Islamisation ("Eurabia" etc.).

[Skybird]

On Iran, what the media almost completely fail to meditate about is the possibility that the riots and election results already got instrumentalised for very different purposes. Inside the Iranian theocracy, there is a bitter fight taking place since long, between the faction around Rafsandjani, and Chamenei. Rafsandjani is an extremely powerful clergy with a far more pragmatic, earth-based orientation and material power founding in this realm, a man whom is after power for the sake of itself. Chamenei is the national authority in the theological field, but lacking the established material network of Rafsandjani. He also is said to be very ill and trying to establish his son as his successor. Both men's camps are at war with each other since years - and theology has little to do with it, it is about power.

I think it is very likely that Mussawi maybe is just a minor figure in this current time of protests in Teheran, and that it is Rafsandjani boosting the riots as a weapon to damage the power of Chamenei. Mussawi - maybe just happens to lend his name to it. Once Rafsandjani got what he wants, whatever it is, he probably will move Mussawi out of the way, one way or the other.

[Rip]

Originally Posted by Skybird

1. I am not supporting this idea of spreading democracy everywhere.

2. I am against missionising in the name of democracy and religions of every kind, including Christianity, Buddhism and Islam.

3. Many Western states claiming to support the spreading of democracy, have arranged themselves happily with exactly the opposite kind of regimes in the past if that matched their selfish interests. I also question the democratic nature of Westenr states themselves. there is too much oligarchy, too much plutocracy and too much interweaving between economy and politics (which should be independant from the economy'S lobby).

4. So who is "we", since you talked of "we" ?

5. I also think that democracies have no obligation to assist in the voting of options that bring democracies down by bringing those wanting to destroy or prevent democracy to power - as seen is the votings in turkey, Egypt and with the Palestinians. In turkey the AKP's ruling has destroyed already much of the secular heritage of Ataturk and brought a fundamentalist crew with a missionary sporit to power. In Egypt Mubarak was pressed to hold freer elections - and the conservative Muslim Brotherhood immediately made a jump upwards in the parliament. they would have gained much more if the elecitons would have been all free indeed. And thanks to free elections for the palestinians there is an established terror group named Hamas in command in the Gaza strip now.

6. In case of Germany, the constitution explicitly allows active resistance by everybody against everyone trying to overthrow the constitutional order of the German state. Since this constitution is said to protect democracy, you can conclude from this example as well that there is no obligation that a self-declared democracy must accept the election of powers that try to overcome democracy itself.

7. In France, Sarkozy just once again have spoken out against tolerating the burkha, saying that it is an aggressive and radical expressing of values that are incompatible with values France traditionally stand for. In other words: an existing social community, whether it be democratic or not, has no obligation to tolerate that in it's middle that violates the canon of values that define this social community.

To argue that freedom or/and democracy come at the price of accepting that what destroys oneself, is pathologic, self-damaging, if not suicidal. It also implies that one has no right to fight agai8nst such tendencies or forces, and shall not resist to them. Whoich then builds a brink to another pervertion in especially EU-thinking: that idea of unlimited tolerance. there can be no such thing as unlimited tolerance without denying your own identity, completely. Inly when you totally give up what you are yourself, and whyat you stand for, you can embrace what is not you and is different to you so completely as expressed in the term "unlimited tolerance". In other words: you not only give up yourself, but you also will to become the other what originally was "not you", completely. You delete your own identity. - As I see it, the EU steams with full pressure into this direction of deleting inner-european identities and also making it prone to growing Islamisation ("Eurabia" etc.).

The we I refer to as I always do in political discussions is the United States.

I understand that we does not include you.

Considering what appear to be your anti-democratic views and apparent disagreement with the basic premise that a free and self ruled people will seek to live in peace, that is a good thing.

Like it or not the official policy of the United States is that we support the spread of Democracy or whatever system allows the people to rule. For the President to indicate anything else would just guarantee him no chance at a 2nd term. Which would not bother me but he is no fool.

BTW How in the world can you use the hypothetical of "The People" electing a person that would advocate taking their right of self rule away? I am used to fighting a strawman, but that would have to be a strawbaby.

[Max2147]

Originally Posted by Rip

The we I refer to as I always do in political discussions is the United States.

I understand that we does not include you.

Considering what appear to be your anti-democratic views and apparent disagreement with the basic premise that a free and self ruled people will seek to live in peace, that is a good thing.

Like it or not the official policy of the United States is that we support the spread of Democracy or whatever system allows the people to rule. For the President to indicate anything else would just guarantee him no chance at a 2nd term. Which would not bother me but he is no fool.

BTW How in the world can you use the hypothetical of "The People" electing a person that would advocate taking their right of self rule away? I am used to fighting a strawman, but that would have to be a strawbaby.

Opposing missionary-style attempts to spread democracy does not make one anti-democratic.

Also, I don't think the United States' official policy is to actively spread democracy around the world. Our policy is to protect democracy. There's a difference.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Rip

BTW How in the world can you use the hypothetical of "The People" electing a person that would advocate taking their right of self rule away?

several possibilities, some of them are:

- lacking nowledge and awareness of the true nature of the party or person,

- wanting to bring a strong leader to power that must not necessarily be a defender of democracy - people can prefer a king, a tyrant, a clergy, a plutocrat, an ideologist, and they can prefer these for very many different reasons, obviously.

That you claim it to be an Amerian mission to democratise the world does not mean that all rest of mankind necessarily sympathises with that - not to mention that America supported and supports regimes that are anything but democratic, that it even has hindered and fought against democratic movements or decisions democratically made if they are an obstacle to American economic interests, and that it repeatedly did not care if it messed up a situation in a far away country that got democracy enforced onto it by american efforts, the experment failed, and afterwards the situation was worse than it was before. The claim over democracy is often not more than a shield behind which to hide the pushing of it's economic interestes and advantages, dominating other markets by establishing monopoles there.

In fact there are several cultures and ideologies that get supported by the ordinary people that have not much in mind with values that usually are attributed to "democracies". Islam is such an example. For many people, Sharia is much more important as a basis for a state, than this strange Western obsession called "democracy". If you think that all world is just craving for getting blessed by American missionary spirit and US democracy, than you totally overestimate and overrate yourself. Some want that, others not. And it is not only the tyrants and leaders not wanting it, but often it is the ordinary population. For many people in the world, there exist more important things than western values and democracies, like it or not. Not to mention that the state our western democracies are in is far from being a convincing representation of our idealistic claims about ourselve.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Max2147

Opposing missionary-style attempts to spread democracy does not make one anti-democratic.

Also, I don't think the United States' official policy is to actively spread democracy around the world. Our policy is to protect democracy. There's a difference.

To think I am a born anti-democrat for simply not liking it, and prefering something different for the sake of that alone, would miss the point about me. I simply do not see it working if the community subscribing to it exceeds a certain size, and I realise that many people in the world for political and/or religious and/or economic reasons do not favour demiocracy for themselves, and have ideas that are dearer to them. I also see private enterprise controlling political decision making, which means the latter is not independant from the first - and this bad circumstance always, always kills any potential for a democracy becoming real.
In fact democracy gets hollowed out - the bigger the community size, the easier business can hide the process in the uncontrollable size and complexity of the resulting construction of politics. andn thta is a reason why so many people defdend this process while being unaware of it, and thinking they would infact defend democracy. But in fact they help to erode it by their support.

Democracy is no holy grail for me. I think of it as a tool, not more, and it is not the only tool available. It either is a benefit for the task ahead, or it is a hazard. If it is a benefit, it is not my problem. If it is a hazard or does not serve the purpose that i want to see succeeding, then I throw it away and try something else.

[Max2147]

Any political system depends on the people in it and around it.

If you get the right dictator a dictatorship is great. Ataturk is probably the best 20th century example. He fast-tracked Turkey out of the Ottoman stagnation and into the modern world. He basically ruled by decree, and the country was better off for it because it allowed him to do a lot more than he ever could have done in a democratic system. As one of my professors once said, he was incredibly difficult to work with because he thought he was always right, but it was okay because he WAS always right.

The problem is that the vast majority of dictators aren't cut from that cloth. They think they're always right, but they're not. The Shah of Iran is a great example - he thought he was Iran's Ataturk, but he wasn't half the man Ataturk was. So instead of bringing Iran into the modern world he provoked a revolution.

The nice thing about a democracy is that it's less dependent on finding that perfect leader, because the checks and balances curb everybody's authority. It also allows you to get rid of an ineffective leader easily. But it requires an educated, engaged, and informed electorate to function properly.

I'd argue that the American democracy is not the most effective in the world right now, mostly due to high levels of apathy. There are several countries around the world that have healthier democracies than the United States.

[Skybird]

In parts I agree, and disagree. A one-man-rulership, and a democracy, both are prone to the same problems: corruption at the top level. Democracy can helpt to lower that problem only as long as it embedded in a communal context that can be overseen and thus is relatively limited in size, beyond that, it gets eroded and turned into an oligarchic and/or plutocratic structure that again sees corrupt individuals runnign the show- and the checks and balances do not help in that once it has degenerated that far, but are becoming turned around and help to legitimise the corruption of the few - and eroding democracy. Also, democratic elections do nothing to make sure the best man wins, or the most qualified. It is juts a coincidence if that is the case (and most often it is not like that, especially at the top levels).

See my two-pages-long reply to UnderseaLanceCorporal just a week ago, where we again "collided" over his defence of the market regulating all for the better and me arguing why I see a combination of democracy at the local regions level and a somewhat feudal system at the national and supernational level as worth being thought about, and why I disagree on the strange idea that a market based on egoism would be a benefit for all. It's just a draft idea by me, and I don't say it is perfect and that all details are already thought-out, but you may get my general idea and the "why?" behind it.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...=152683&page=2

[Jimbuna]

So now the game of tit for tat expulsions begin

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/8116515.stm

[Happy Times]

Its no news to me that there are secular and civilized people in Iran. But i would bet they are a clear minority. They didnt even have a candidate in the election, they had to vote between fundamentalist options.
The demonstrations also seem to concentrate only in Teheran.
The best we can do is to take these sane people as refugees, instead of the jihadist welfare scammers Europe is currently inviting.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Happy Times

The best we can do is to take these sane people as refugees, instead of the jihadist welfare scammers Europe is currently inviting.

I wonder what sort of response this statement will provoke

[Happy Times]

Like i care, i call it like i see it.
The Persians that fled before have been no problem but integrated.
You cant say the same about a long list of other nationals, especially Somalis.
Other people i would recommend taking instead are Assyrians, Kopts, Burmese, Vietnamise etc..
Im talking about asylum seekers and UN refugees.
Legal and illegal imigration is an other issue totally.

[Rip]

Originally Posted by Happy Times

Its no news to me that there are secular and civilized people in Iran. But i would bet they are a clear minority. They didnt even have a candidate in the election, they had to vote between fundamentalist options.
The demonstrations also seem to concentrate only in Teheran.
The best we can do is to take these sane people as refugees, instead of the jihadist welfare scammers Europe is currently inviting.

You are being delusional. There are plenty of civilized and even secular people all over Iran. They can't have a candidate because all candidates have to be approved by the mullahs. Which mean to run you must believe in the type of government they want and swear an allegiance to them.