Is democracy the natural state for people?
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:35, Tue 22 Feb 2011.

If history is any indicator then I would say no.

1)  Not entirely sure what is meant by "natural state," but I think Tlaloc's answer covers most of my thinking.

2)  I'd say it's more fear of instability and short-term thinking that's more responsible.  The US has (and does) support dictators usually because the government is more fearful of the uncertainty of who would get elected if there was democracy.  Of course, even if the US wants/wanted to get rid of a dictator in favor of democracy, it's often very expensive (in terms of blood, treasure, and political careers) to make the change, and it rarely seems to turn out the way we planned.  Put another way, it's more a "whats in it for us?" thinking amongst the US population and politicians that keeps dictators in power than racism.

In reply to Tycho (msg #3):

Your #2 isn't just the US.  Look at all the tyrants and dictators that get a pass on the world stage (UN, EU, etc.).  No one is helping Zimbabweans.  No one is helping the Sudanese.  No one called for Mubarak to step down until the people of Egypt themselves rose up for it.

The UN is deathly afraid of liberation forces and does its utmost to keep "stability".  Hell, the North Koreans can sink ships and bomb civilians and still only get a strongly worded letter.

Yeah, definitely agree with you there.  Though, I'd say the US's apathy is more important that that of others, if simply because we're the superpower.


Not entirely sure if I'd agree with that.  For the permanent members of the security that's probably true, though, and I guess that's largely all that matters.


Well, that probably has more to do with what they could do (and seem to be willing to do) to Seoul, than due to apathy from the rest of the world.  MAD can work just as effectively for dictators as democracies, I suppose.  At least at stopping foreign military intervention.  Isolation is a long-term losing strategy, I think, even if a country can avoid being invaded by posing a military threat.

And what, exactly, occurs when the US decides to enter the arena?



Where has the UN forced a dictator out of power without the US pushing it?  Even Clinton had to go into Bosnia without UN approval.



So what exactly has the UN done over the decades to free the people of North Korea?

My point stands.  The UN, and all major superpowers, are into creating democracy or freeing people from tyrants.  They are into stability even if they have to leave millions under the rule of dictators.  It is not just the US.

1: No, anarchy is the natural state of all humans, which swiftly revolves into Dictatorship, Theocracy, or Tribalism for the theoretical good of the general public. The latter two of these often metamorphose over time into Democratic systems, while the first ether collapses back into Anarchy or evolves into Monarchy, which may over time metamorphose into a Democratic system. However the problem is that Democracy is not stable ether. Its natural evolution is ether a collapse back into Anarchy or a dark apotheosis into Fascism. So far thankfully we have never seen what a long standing Fascist state turns into.

2: I don't think its racism per-se though that may be part of it for some, but the idea that non-'western' cultures do not have the natural inclinations toward freedom and individual thought needed for a democracy. I don't think this is true, I think that all cultures can or have at times fostered that kind of thinking. China at least does tend toward a more authoritarian mindset culturally, but so have India Korea and Japan, but all of them have become democratic, so I doubt it is really as hard as some would make it out to be.

  Where has the UN forced a dictator out of power without the US pushing it?

The point of the UN is to serve as a forum for international relations; not as a multinational military force that acts beyond the control of its member nations. They oppose dictatorships and human rights violations, but they don't have the power or the authority to act on it. The member nations would never permit it, because it would result in a decrease in their own sovereignty.

So what exactly has the UN done over the decades to free the people of North Korea?

Well, do you care to propose a solution that will not result in the deaths of about five million people in one of the largest cities in the world? Because any military action against North Korea will result in a massive artillery bombardment against Seoul, which will include chemical weapons.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:28, Tue 22 Feb 2011.

In other words, it's worthless.

In other words, it's worthless.

Really? Eliminating smallpox was worthless?

In reply to Falkus (msg #10):

By the time the WHA stepped in several other organizations were already doing a great deal to eradicate smallpox.  Besides the WHA could exist without the UN.

But on the subject, the UN is worthless in protecting humanity from tyranny, human rights abuse, and genocide.  So I will pretty much stand by my original statement.

Besides the WHA could exist without the UN.

Well, isn't that convenient? If you're going to use that standard, you can easily classify any organization or institution as worthless by claiming that what did accomplish could be done by somebody else.

  But on the subject, the UN is worthless in protecting humanity from tyranny, human rights abuse, and genocide.

Why? Because they don't outright invade countries?

In reply to Falkus (msg #12):

As I noted before that statement, the effort to eradicate smallpox was well under way before the WHA got involved.



Now you're getting it!

According to you, the hundreds of thousands who died in Rwanda are more acceptable than violating the borders of Rwanda.  Same with the Sudan.  Same with, well, the same with any country that commits atrocities within their borders.  That is why the UN is worthless, it gives tyrants and dictators a comfy place to sit back and denounce the real tyrants, the US and Israel, without any accounting of their own tyranny.

EDIT: Sorry for being off-track.  No.  Democracy is not the natural state of humanity.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:51, Tue 22 Feb 2011.

A much bigger set of carrots and sticks are available for dealing with the problem?


But the US is on the security council, so any dictator it doesn't want pushed out is in the clear.  If there were no veto power for the security council members, the UN would probably do a whole lot more than it does (which would have good points and bad points--I'm not sure which there'd be more of).


Again, that's largely a security council failing.  China keeps the UN from doing much to North Korea the way the US keeps the UN from doing much about Israel.  Like I said before, it's not that there's no will to do anything within the UN, it's more that a few countries can stop anything from happening.

[I added the "not" in there because I assume that's what you meant.  If not, please correct me]
I would agree with this statement, though perhaps not quite so strongly worded.  It's not that they're not into creating democracy or removing tyrants, it's just that they're far more concerned with stability overall, and their own power.  It's definitely not just the US.  Though, as I was saying before, what the US does or doesn't do tends to have more impact (or more significant lack of impact) than what, say, Jamaica does or doesn't do.  It's not that the US is more apathetic than other countries (I'd say most countries are more so, really), just that it often has more leverage to bring about change than most other countries.

So the US is the one on the security council stopping the UN from kicking some dictator butt?  Wow.



Again, wow.  Israel and North Korea are on the same level of tyranny?  That is one of the reasons that the UN is so very, very worthless.  If one were to walk into the UN, not knowing anything about the nations involved, they would think that Israel is ruled by demons.



Thank you for the correction.

As for the rest of your point, I think you overstate the infuence the US has in the UN.  We just pay 22% of the bar tab.

Yea, 22%, almost a quarter, by ourselves.

Devil's golden rule: them as has the gold makes the rules.

No, didn't say that.  The US is the one on the security council stopping the UN from kicking the butt's of the dictators they'd rather not see ousted.  The other members of the security council have the dictators they protect too.  More so than the US, probably.  But the original question was when was the last time the UN kicked out a dictator without the US's help.  But the UN can't really do anything without the US's help, because if the US doesn't want to help, it probably doesn't want to let anyone else do it without them, either.  The point being that the lack of instances of the UN doing things without the US's approval doesn't imply that the other members of the UN don't have any desire to do anything, but that without the agreement of the US its prevented from doing so by the US's veto.  Make sense?




Did I say that?  I certainly didn't mean to.  Apologies if it sounded that way to you, but I didn't mention Tyranny in my post, so I'm not sure how it could have.  I'm talking purely about the mechanism here, not whether the examples given were good or bad uses of it.


Well, much of the world does disapprove very strongly of Isreal's treatment of the palestinians.  The US tends to overlook this because Israel is both a strategic ally and more culturally similar to the US than other middle eastern countries.  It's like you said earlier, the US, like pretty much everyone else, cares more about stability and their own interests than about the rights of people on the other side of the planet (which is different, for the record, from saying they don't care at all about those rights).


And sit on the security council, so can veto anything we don't like.  That's about as influential as you can get in such a body, I'd say.  But for what it's worth, I wasn't talking about the US's influence in the UN, but rather their influence in general.  UN or no UN, if the US sits back and does nothing that has a different effect than chile sitting back and doing nothing, for example.

In reply to Tycho (msg #17):

You paint the picture of a broken UN which I would agree with and was my main point and I see your point about the mechanisms at work.  Whether it be due to Security Council deadlock or the fact that the actual tyrants have a say in UN policy the fact remains.

It is worthless.

Off subject (how odd, I know): I would say that we ally ourselves with Israel because they are an actual democracy surrounded by nations that hate them for their religion.  I would also say that the Palestinian Arabs have had a hand in how they are treated even if they were subjected to the weaponization of their culture by Fatah and Hamas.  What other nation is subject to barrage after barrage of missile attacks, specifically targetting civilians, and shows such constraint?  They are held up to an impossible standard.



I agree with that statement.  I would go the "no UN" route.

What other nation is subject to barrage after barrage of missile attacks, specifically targetting civilians, and shows such constraint?

Palestine?

According to you, the hundreds of thousands who died in Rwanda are more acceptable than violating the borders of Rwanda.

Take a look at Iraq. Tell me that imposing democracy through military force works.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:01, Tue 22 Feb 2011.

Except the IDF does not specifically target civilians.  Perhaps if the "glorious freedom fighters" of Fatah and Hamas would quit using their own as human shields those casualties would be minimized, eh?



Take a look at Germany, South Korea, and Japan and tell me that it doesn't.  Iraq at least has a chance at democracy now and Saddam isn't around to invade his neighbors and gas his own people.

"Broken" is a stronger term than I'd use, but yes, the veto power of each member of the security council makes it difficult to get anything done.  As for the actual tyrants having a say in UN policy, I'd say most of the worst tyrants have almost no power in the UN.  China doesn't have the best human rights record, true, but I wouldn't put them in the "worst of the worst" category.  Non-security council tyrants can write statements about this or that, but unless the security council members agree with it, it doesn't pass, and nothing happens.


That's definitely stronger than I would say.  It most certainly has its flaws and problems, and it's very difficult to get anything done via the UN, but I think having a forum for all countries to voice their positions, very occassionally manage to speak with one voice, and generally set a standard for rights (even if the standard is largely ignored) has value.  I'd be all for finding ways to improve it, but I think getting rid of it entirely wouldn't put us in a better position at all.


That's part of it, but I think their being a strategic ally is probably more important.  Perhaps not to the average joe on the street, but at the political level I think that aspect is pretty crucial.  Also, blaming the hatred of Isreal purely on religion I think is over-simplifying things.  Definitely that is part of it, a big part even, but to discount the issue of palestine is a flawed analysis in my view.


I'd agree, to an extent.  But if someone said the Israelis have had a hand in how they're treated, I'd probably agree with that to an extent too.  Both sides have blood on their hands, and pointing fingers is what both seem more interested in than moving forward towards peace.  Each side prefers to say "but they did X!" as a justification for their own action, but neither seems at all willing to say "yes, we did Y, and it was wrong."


The missile attacks are wrong, no question there, but they're also incredibly ineffective.  They are a moral outrage, yes.  But they don't harm as many people as Israel's retaliations do, and the cycle continues.  Israel does show more restraint than most nations would.  But it also doesn't seem to be willing to make the necessary sacrifices to obtain peace.

I don't want to give the impression that I'm an "Isreal is wrong, Palestine is right!" person.  I think they're both in the bed they've made, and neither side is blameless.  I tend to challenge anyone when they take a definite side in this issue, regardless of which side they take, because I think taking sides is what's made it so difficult to resolve the issue for so long.

Hmm, if we're going to continue this part of the conversation, we should probably move it over to the Israel Palestine thread...

  Take a look at Germany, South Korea, and Japan and tell me that it doesn't.

Germany and Japan were culturally monogamous nations formed by natural borders and historical action. Iraq, Afghanistant and the other nations we're referring to aren't. Many of them are just nations that were created by colonial powers arbitrarily drawing lines in the sand. Countries whose people, had they been left to their own power, would never have come into existence. That's why there's constant conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq.

You can't have a democracy in a nation where the groups vying for election will wage war if they lose. Unfortunate, but true.

North Korea's the exception, it could become a democracy. But there's no way to overthrow the North Korean government before they could level Seoul through artillery fire, killing several million innocent people.

And also are you trying to suggest that the division and occupation of Korea, against the desire of nearly every single person living in Korea, after World War II was a good thing? Yes, it created South Korea, an advanced democracy that stands proud amongst the nations of the world. But it also created North Korea, which doesn't.

Iraq at least has a chance at democracy now and Saddam isn't around to invade his neighbors and gas his own people.

The current Iraqi government has death squads, torture camps and imprisons political dissidents. In the word of the great Sir Terry Pratchett: 'Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss.'

  Except the IDF does not specifically target civilians.

Operation Cast Lead, also known as the Gaza War, killed anywhere between three hundred and a thousand Palestenian civilians. The Israeli civilians killed by Hamas in the actions that led to the war?

Eleven.

So far a group not specifically targeting civilians... why are they killing so very many more of them?