Politics ad absurdam

[xoxoxoBruce]

I'm so fucking good, I responded to post 57, in post 56.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Not visibly, Bruce. I don't think you have any basis for finding regime-change from autocracy to democracy "repulsive."

[xoxoxoBruce]

I sure it's not "visible" to you.
You can't understand why you shouldn't go into your neighbors house and kill him, because you don't like the way he treats his family, home schools his kids and doesn't wash his car. Why he might even end his sentences with a preposition.

You can't understand why you shouldn't go to the PTA meeting and kill the president, they elected, because you don't like the way he runs the meetings.

You can't understand why you shouldn't go to the church and kill the pastor, the congregation chose, because you don't like the way he handles the collections.

You can't understand that you are the bully, not the savior.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Boy, are you standing everything on its head and wrong-end-to, Bruce. You'd no more happily live under the misrule of a dictatorship than I would, and where is your understanding of the Baghdad taxi driver who quietly told a reporter before the invasion, and I quote: "If the Americans don't come, I'll kill myself."

I think that counts for something. Every Iraqi knew and still knows it would take a major invasion to shift Saddam and end his dark night. Note there is no insurgent flying the Ba'ath flag, though this could well be a ruse on the part of some Sunni factions. Still, too much of Iraq doesn't want the bad old Ba'ath dictatorship's days to return for it ever to be managed, it seems to me.

I understand that I am among the saviors, and telling me I'm a bully can't make me other than a savior. Sorry. Fighting battles of liberation is hardly bullying, but more the effective solution to bullying, wouldn't you think? Why would you think otherwise? You do not explain this; you merely call names. That's not arguing your point, but further evidence that you either can't find your own point or that you are wholly lacking one. This must be frustrating.

You clearly have nil understanding just how nasty a nondemocratic social order is, if you're going to compare it to a rather grubby neighbor, a PTA meeting, or a church congregation. It's wrong to trivialize this. Jeez, I thought we got this sorted back in WW2 when we noted that the Nazi Party wasn't much comparable to Republican or Democratic membership back here in CONUS. Had to remind a few people of that, we did.

Given your fondness for leaving oppressors to oppress -- unconscionable, all things considered, no? -- do you really think yourself an enlightened being? Let's just say it's wide open to doubt, Bruce. You're tolerating an incredible amount of injustice, and refusing to see the value of administering justice to those needing it meted out, and for those who have suffered and suffer yet in the power squabble.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I've learned about the savior.
I've studied the savior.
You ain't no savior.

You are nothing but a real live "Church Lady", telling the whole world how they should live.

Ask any cop about the perils of a "domestic".

[Urbane Guerrilla]

If you learned about the savior, then you aren't following his advice any too well -- you're not bringing the enlightenment to the places that don't have any. You'd rather just sit there, and in particular, you'd rather I just sit here. Bruce, I can't be a savior if I do what you want me to.

Thing is, human liberty is good for any human being, anywhere. Even in foreign parts. You seem not to consider this. All I'm telling anyone anywhere is you don't get to interfere in that in fascism's name or anything else's, and if you try, it's time for me to kill you. How could this be anything but the effective response to the bullying of the oppressor? Your rhetoric is suprisingly similar in tone to that of the Red Chinese during the Cultural Revolution, in communiques about "provocation." And it was pretty silly the first time around, too.

The whole world should live free -- except maybe xoxoxoBruce?

You're losing this argument, because you started from false first principles, and I started from true ones. What's more, I can articulate them.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Only in your mind, Don Quixote.

[DanaC]

That's a seriously special brand of self-delusion ya got going on there Urbane. Pretty impressive.

[Aliantha]

Don't be so hard on poor old UG Dana. lol

He's young. He knows not what he says. Nor does anyone else...but...that doesn't matter. At least he's a happy chappy.

[DanaC]

Young?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Bruce is in the unhappy position of defending undemocracy from democracy. It's really quite an absurd position for someone of Bruce's fundamental understanding of human rights and civil liberties to take, I must say. He's out of ideas: he cannot show that non-democracy better suits certain peoples, whereas I can show that democracy suits every human living, and keeps them richer too. His last several posts have been ad-hominem only, and we all know what that means. Not only that, they're detumescing -- limper and limper and limper. No blood flowing, nourishing the substance.

I'm the partisan of democracy here -- he... well, he needs to become one. It's not exactly hard, but somehow for him it's uncomfortable. What, because he'd end up sitting near me? The wife tells me my physical frame is quite cuddly -- "cuddliscious" being her term.

Our chief difference, thee and me DanaC, is that we're working from different paradigms of government's proper sphere -- what, that is, it should be doing. There are philosophical and utilitarian arguments for either paradigm; for me the question is which arguments are the better. For twenty years plus I've been persuaded of the libertarian notion that government should be minimalist.

Now frankly, if you're going to call what I've written self-deluded, you are staggering under an enormous burden of proof. And so far, you've not done any proving. Since I am not self-deluded, you can't show I am, but I invite you to try anyway. Most of my opposition can't justify their stands -- some of them cannot justify themselves.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Bruce is in the unhappy position of defending undemocracy from democracy.

No I'm not.

[queequeger]

Jebus, UG, it's almost like you're writing poetry. Lot's of them there college words.

What do you say to a society that thinks that democracy isn't right for them? Maybe they're brainwashed, maybe they're ignorant of democracy, but how do you give them democracy? Do you treat them as children that don't know what's best for them? And most importantly, isn't this contrary to democracy in and of itself?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by queequeger

Jebus, UG, it's almost like you're writing poetry. Lots of them there college words.

What do you say to a society that thinks that democracy isn't right for them? Maybe they're brainwashed, maybe they're ignorant of democracy, but how do you give them democracy? Do you treat them as children that don't know what's best for them? And most importantly, isn't this contrary to democracy in and of itself?

You take the anti-democrats out of the picture, of course; listening to those guys is like taking at face value an official opinion poll from a dictatorship. And you keep removing antidemocrats as they pop up -- Whack-A-Mole with pruning shears, if you like. This does not necessarily have to be done by external forces or American soldiery, either -- but that is no argument for never doing it with American soldiery. The international problems presented, aggravated, and fevered by social discontent and turbulence within the Gap and its undemocratic social orders are reduced by reducing the Gap -- bridging the gap in economic and societal connectivity between Gap nations and the developed economies of the global Core -- that is, developing social and trade connection and with it the size of the economies therein.

Higher economic expectations amounts to a demand for more options in life than a nondemocracy offers: economic liberty drags political liberty along with it, increasing both as they go. Play the cards right, and non-democracy becomes superseded by democracy -- though not infrequently, it needs a push to topple the ancien regime. Both wars between states and revolutions within them present possibilities this way. The revolutions may avoid being at all bloody, though I avoid pinning my hopes on that. Slow social revolutions waste fewer lives, but faster ones are paid for in blood.

A very big part of this (and very inexpensive for outside agencies) is educate the women. Educated women influence their society's intellectual lives and their men's mindsets. Distaff education is among the chief social lacks to be found in Gap nations, and it is notably prevalent there. Nations not in the Gap -- Old Core (the developed world) and New Core (China, India, Brazil -- nations strongly developing) nations -- don't have such an educational separation by gender.

Nobody not a fascist says no to democracy -- even the most isolated sort of foreigners have some notion of just what we've wrought with it, and like me, they understand that if they too were to enjoy it, they'd be in much better shape than they are now. The fascist objecters object primarily because they think they'll lose their license to pillage or to oppress and be reduced to living in cardboard boxes in rainy alleys. They are not thinking of the opportunities actually present, and how ethical transactions rather than pillage in the end make everyone much wealthier and living much more stably.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla View Post
Bruce is in the unhappy position of defending undemocracy from democracy.

No I'm not.
___________

Really? How then can your position possibly be mistaken for defending undemocracy from democracy, rather than truly characterized as this? You too are staggering under a heavy burden of proof.