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Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

reuters.com

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Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#221

Post by cko »

labster wrote: post #182
throwaway3485t8 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that people are being arrested for the most stupid reasons in Turkey, I can understand people not wanting to put their life on the line. 10 years ago I could have seen people protesting (see Gezi park protests) but now ? Not really. What's worse is that somehow plenty of Turk are fine with it. Inflation above 100% for long time, crappy salaries, people can't even afford rents but the leader's party still get ab…

Well, damn, that was my strategy to deal with Trump, waiting on the economy. I guess it’s all joever for American democracy. 250 years was a pretty good run all things considered.

We had Japanese internment camps, Jim Crowe laws and McCarthyism and survived. Let's not write off American democracy just yet.

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#222

Post by tokioyoyo »

chrisco255 wrote: post #138
darkhorn wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy doesn't work when ordinary people are not educated. Education in Turkey has been very poor. Many people have finished only 5th or 8th grades. Many didn't go to a high school. Thus people are not critical thinkers. They are voting as if they are supporting a football team. Someone popular with a low education can fool people, just like in Turkey or Venezuella. And now here we see the result. Erdoğan has no d…

> Democracy doesn't work when ordinary people are not educated When USA was formed and for the first couple hundred years of its existence, most people in it didn't have a high school or college degree. In fact many of the founders of the United States had no degree, including Benjamin Franklin, who was a newspaper editor, scientist, statesman and inventor. Literacy can be learned by the 5th grade by most people. It…

I don't think many people look up to USA and think "oh yeah, that's a great system, we should have it". Many systems cannot be replicated for cultural, historical and other reasons.

Frankly, requiring basic qualifications for a very complex job is actually a solid thing. Especially when any trade school/university degree would work. I don't agree with revoking of the degrees part, but that's just government trying to shut down the opposition. If it wasn't for the degree, they would've done something else, just like it happens during every election.

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#223

Post by gizzlon »

TrackerFF wrote: post #45

Equally shitty is the fact that 27 other people probably got their degrees annulled, just as a cover your ass measure from the unis side.

Equally shitty? That affects 27 people, ruining the democracy and rule of law affects millions!

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#224

Post by jibe »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #198
dylan604 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having someone born in the country they are looking to lead seems silly to you? With that restriction, it has taken quite some time for a foreign adversary to have a puppet elected vs just shipping in some carpet bagger. Having a minimum age also allows for some decent life experience. After all, 35 years old is not that old.

Yes, it seems silly. Which countries have had a foreign puppet elected because they lack this provision?

Hitler?

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#225

Post by dyauspitr »

eru wrote: post #153
throwaind29k wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more fundamental question is why a degree should be necessary to run for President. US does not require one for example.

The US requires a fairly high minimum age and for someone to be born American. Those requirements seem also a bit silly and stand in the way of voters expressing their wishes. For some fun times, have a look at the requirements to become president in Singapore. Basically, you either have to have been a senior civil servant before or the CEO of a large and profitable company. https://www.eld.gov.sg/candidate_president…

Nothing silly about the requirement to be born in the country you’re going to lead.

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#226

Post by yupyupyups »

csomar wrote: post #168
alephnerd wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before the 2000s, depending on how overtly conservative you were and who was in govenenent (coups, counter-coups, and fits of "democracy" happened every couple years), you might not have been allowed to attend at all. An entire generation of women from conservative backgrounds couldn't attend university in Turkiye until the 2000s because of the hijab ban. Unsurprisingly, once conservative Turkish politicians like Erd…

> An entire generation of women from conservative backgrounds couldn't attend university in Turkiye until the 2000s because of the hijab ban. This should have been countered by "forcing" education for everyone. For university, you could do special high subsidies that enable the woman to break from their families. It'll be painful for a couple generations but it does work.

>This should have been countered by "forcing" education for everyone. For university, you could do special high subsidies that enable the woman to break from their families. It'll be painful for a couple generations but it does work.

Yikes

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#227

Post by dylan604 »

Quarrel wrote: post #199
dylan604 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having someone born in the country they are looking to lead seems silly to you? With that restriction, it has taken quite some time for a foreign adversary to have a puppet elected vs just shipping in some carpet bagger. Having a minimum age also allows for some decent life experience. After all, 35 years old is not that old.

> Having someone born in the country they are looking to lead seems silly to you? Whether it is silly or not, I'm not sure, but it certainly doesn't seem very democratic. IMO Arnold Schwarzenegger, to pick a random foreign born politician, should be able to stand for President. People can choose not to vote for him if they've bothered by him being foreign born. FWIW, in Australia, no member of Federal Parliament (so…

> would need to renounce their foreign citizenship before standing for election

I'm really glad we all live in a world where nobody lies to gain position, or no foreign enemy has ever tried to infiltrate their operatives into key positions by becoming double agents and renouncing anything

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#228

Post by Cyph0n »

csomar wrote: post #168
alephnerd wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before the 2000s, depending on how overtly conservative you were and who was in govenenent (coups, counter-coups, and fits of "democracy" happened every couple years), you might not have been allowed to attend at all. An entire generation of women from conservative backgrounds couldn't attend university in Turkiye until the 2000s because of the hijab ban. Unsurprisingly, once conservative Turkish politicians like Erd…

> An entire generation of women from conservative backgrounds couldn't attend university in Turkiye until the 2000s because of the hijab ban. This should have been countered by "forcing" education for everyone. For university, you could do special high subsidies that enable the woman to break from their families. It'll be painful for a couple generations but it does work.

You mean by “forcing” women to remove their hijab? That’s called religious persecution.

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#229

Post by pmags »

pmags wrote: post #48

The Trump administration is similarly trying to purge / stifle academic institutions and bend them to their uses. For example, the Trump administration has told Columbia to dissolve specific academic departments. See this earlier discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43358925 The US and Turkish governments are operating under the same authoritarian rules of engagement, it's just that the Turks are further…

LINKED IN THE COMMENTS (I was trying not to repost stuff that was in the prior thread):

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/13/nyregion/columbia-univers...

A direct quote from the letter the Feds sent Columbia reads:

MESAAS Department – Academic Receivership. Begin the process of placing the Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department under academic receivership for a minimum of five years. The University must provide a full plan, with date certain deliverables, by the March 20, 2025, deadline.

The NY Times article provides a directed link to the PDF of the letter.

Awaiting your retractions doubters...

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#230

Post by dylan604 »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #220
dylan604 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Born in the country lessens the likelihood that you are beholden to more than one master. Born in another country then naturalized still does not rule out sleeper agent situations. Seems pretty obvious to me. I'm one that questions the whole pledge of allegiance forced to be recited by children that have no wherewithal to understand what allegiance even means or the ramifications of that pledge. Yet, I'm okay with bo…

And yet when you look at the great espionnage stories, the perpetrators were citizens of the country. When you look at people who were "almost born" (came to the country as toddlers) or naturalized because of the love of their new country, purple claiming that they are second category citizens are hard to listen to.

Maybe because the policy exists that people have not so easily been able to get to the top position. Remove that policy and Putin himself could run for the office. It's an idiotic comment for an idiotic misunderstanding of why the policy exists
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