141–150 of 192 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not at a useful metric at all. For example, most of the nationalist/Kemalist leaders were brutal autocrats. I'd argue that the best among them was Borguiba, but I suppose you've never heard of him.
Firstly nonsense about most Kemalist leaders being brutal autocrats. Second whats your point?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It may be even more fundamental: Good leaders emerge from a good democracy. Maybe what the Middle East needs is to copy from the constitutions of successful democracies. Even adopting just our First Amendment would be a decent start.
Not necessarily. Mustafa Kemal didn't emerge from a democracy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Care to give examples of good leaders in the Middle East? Keep in mind that the only countries in MENA that currently have a democratically elected leader are Tunisia and Lebanon.
My point was that getting rid of some of the terrible leaders did not solve any problems, indeed made things worse by most measures. Tribalism and perhaps worse - the rule of violence leads to bad leaders. I imagine even good people would have to be bad to stay on top in those societies.
I have experience with both the UK and US immigration systems. I agree, it is very easy with how complicated the processes can be to make mistakes, even seemingly big ones, just by misunderstanding a single requirement. Even non-immigration lawyers make serious errors. > Lucas made his application for naturalisation on 14 May 2014, a couple of weeks before the expiry of his visa. I'm playing devil's advocate here, bu…
I'm actually in total agreement, if they wrote an article about half the things that went awry in my life because of my total slackitude towards dealing with bureaucracy there would be a lot of work for some aspiring journalist -- like that time I was an "illegal immigrant" in both Mexico and Guatemala...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Look at this poll: https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/docume... The voters of all parties support these policies. What is "pandering" in a democracy? The people are xenophobes, they are getting what they want.
This raises an interesting question: what happens to a democratic society when "the will of the people" embraces principles and ideas that are profoundly anti-democratic? I mean, it's hard to find a definition of "democracy" that would satisfy everyone but, intuitively, xenophobia and open hostility to visitors who clearly mean well and are contributing to the well-being of the community (Lucas was a Cambridge alumnu…
It is a governmental structure, not a political ideology.
The athenians had slaves.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That wasn't my metric. It was a historical attribute that many "good leaders in the Middle East" shared. And you specified Middle Eastern, which I took to be exclusive of the Maghreb.
Look up what MENA stands for.
I'm sure there are other examples in North Africa.
But 'name good leaders in the Middle East' -> 'here are some good leaders (many of which were nationalists' -> 'most nationalist leaders were autocrats' isn't arguing the same thing.
I assume we agree that there were in fact many good leaders in the Middle East? Which was my original point.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Firstly nonsense about most Kemalist leaders being brutal autocrats. Second whats your point?
Name one Kemalist leader in the Middle East who did not persecute a segment of the population, or allowed the opposition to participate in fair elections.
It's ugly but true.
It also happened in the United States. In Britian. In France. In Germany. In Spain. In Italy. In ancient Greece and Rome.
There are lighter / harsher ways of going about it, though the appropriateness of those is also defined by the opposition's actions.
Successfully creating a national identity, where there were disparate groups before, breaks a lot of people in the transition.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This raises an interesting question: what happens to a democratic society when "the will of the people" embraces principles and ideas that are profoundly anti-democratic? I mean, it's hard to find a definition of "democracy" that would satisfy everyone but, intuitively, xenophobia and open hostility to visitors who clearly mean well and are contributing to the well-being of the community (Lucas was a Cambridge alumnu…
I think you're loading 'democracy' up with some extra values there that aren't really part of the definition. Democracy just means governed by the people. It doesn't mean liberal, or enlightened, or progressive, or open to visitors, or anything like that. Just governed by the people. The people can be left wing or right wing, progressive or regressive, whatever.
Democracy protects the majority from a minority (ie: nobility). Liberalism protects minorities (eg: people an with unpopular philosophy, religious view, ethnicity, language) from the majority.
"Indefinite leave to remain" sounds like some almost Orwellian concoction of meaninglessness to me. How exactly do you get from "permission to stay in the country" (aha, it means one has the permission to stay in the country) to "indefinite leave to remain" (uhm... to remain here, I need to leave indefinitely?)
Meta comment: "blattimwind" comment is grey at the moment. What is the point to down vote someone that has just misunderstood an arguably ambiguous expression ?