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Notes on El Salvador

mattlakeman.org

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Re: Notes on El Salvador

#171

Post by joenot443 »

bugglebeetle wrote: post #96
starspangled wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's crazy is just how terrible the globalist neoliberal political agenda and the mindless cookie cutter politicians they produce everywhere have been, that people are thoroughly fed up and are looking for alternatives, no matter how bad.

> globalist neoliberal political agenda Bukele pitches crypto at CPAC, so it’s frankly hilarious you think he resides outside this order.

I think it's bizarre and frankly hilarious that you think proximity to crypto is an indicator to ones proximity to the colloquial globalist order.

If there's one thing that the Five Eyes are known for, it's their commitment to crypto. /s

Re: Notes on El Salvador

#172

Post by ta8903 »

wolverine876 wrote: post #90
fvdessen wrote: post #9

Gang crime seem to be a common weakness of democracies. There's a notable list of countries that had to resort to elect a quasi-dictator to get rid of gangs. As my hometown is coming to grip with a bubbling gang war, I wonder if there is a better way.

> Gang crime seem to be a common weakness of democracies. I've read many histories and that hasn't been a problem. I've lived all my life in democracies and it's never been a problem anywhere that I've lived. I also don't see a correlation. Countries with high levels of corruption, of every form of government, have organized crime problems. Haiti has a very serious gang problem but never much democracy. You might not…

I think you misunderstood the parent post, they didn't say democracies had a common gang crime problem or that there is a correlation between gangs and democracies, they just said democracies don't do very well in dealing with gangs.

Re: Notes on El Salvador

#173

Post by SinjonSuarez »

bluish29 wrote: post #157
philwelch wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iran had already ceased to be a democracy by the time the coup happened. That was actually one of the precipitating causes for the coup, which had a ton of popular support at the time. Mossadegh was essentially a dictator ruling by means of emergency powers at the time he was overthrown, and even before that point, he had also interfered with the 1952 parliamentary election by stopping the counting of votes once the…

> That was actually one of the precipitating causes for the coup Are you suggesting that the CIA was worried about democracy in Iran so they ousted him to give the absolute power to the king?

They just happened to ignore the fact that mossadegh nationalized oil right before the us and uk led the coup

Re: Notes on El Salvador

#174

Post by valval »

whatever1 wrote: post #150
StrauXX wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they don't. The issue with dictatorships is that your powerbase rurns from "the people" (or a wealthy subset of the people, depending on how well your democracy works), to a small group of powerfull supporters. Army generals, police chiefs and so on. Even if you were an angel, the power dynamics of dictatorships don't give you the ability of doing all too much for the general populace. Thats the beuaty of democrac…

Which works in long time scales as long as the players agree that they will play by the rules of democracy, aka respect the institutions. So democracy suffers from 2 main issues: 1) timeliness: some problems need to be solved now, not in 10 years. Example, need to decide your stance against Russia. 2) fragility from the inside: A malicious player can manipulate democratic institutions and convert it to an autocracy.…

See: list of things that I’m clueless about.

Re: Notes on El Salvador

#175

Post by constantcrying »

StrauXX wrote: post #148
whatever1 wrote: post #118

Quoting from the article: "The whole point of democracy is to spread political decision-making and create approval-based feedback loops with the population so that good leaders are elected and bad leaders are deposed without resorting to violence. Dictatorships concentrate power to permit more state dynamism but at the expense of this dispersed risk. This makes dictatorships a higher risk-higher reward proposition. A…

No they don't. The issue with dictatorships is that your powerbase rurns from "the people" (or a wealthy subset of the people, depending on how well your democracy works), to a small group of powerfull supporters. Army generals, police chiefs and so on. Even if you were an angel, the power dynamics of dictatorships don't give you the ability of doing all too much for the general populace. Thats the beuaty of democrac…

>Your power base is (indirectly and delayed, but still) the people.

In almost any democracy the power base are political parties who have the obligation and ability to control what politics are allowed to manifest in the country. Very few democracies (a notable exception might be Switzerland) actually allow for the general population to act against what the political parties want.

The population exists as a feedback mechanism, which should enforce competition between parties. But the actual manifestation of the power is in the party representatives of the population, not in the population itself. If you want to tell me that the population just can create a new party, look how well that works in the US...

Most democracies are representative democracies. Where instead of army and industry leaders the government has to deal with party leaders and the representatives. Certainly there are different power dynamics there, but just as certain they exist and impact the actual policies. And just as certain there are misalignment of interests between population and party representatives.

Re: Notes on El Salvador

#176

Post by leosanchez »

wolverine876 wrote: post #112
screye wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm Indian, I would seriously question anyone who considers India to be an 'economically successful' democracy. 400 million Indians still make less than many sub-saharan African nations. India is admittedly stable. But it was very much an economic failure. Things only started turning around in the mid-90s.

Let's not forget that before the 1990s, there were the partitions with Pakistan and Pakistan-Bangladesh, Indira Gandhi's seizure of power ... > 400 million Indians still make less than many sub-saharan African nations. Yes, and they are more important than all the programmers in Bangalore. Also, non-Hindu Indians, including those who are Muslim, are relegated to second-class status (which also must affect their econo…

> Yes, and they are more important than all the programmers in Bangalore.

This doesn't make any sense.

> Also, non-Hindu Indians, including those who are Muslim, are relegated to second-class status (which also must affect their economic opportunity).

This is not true.

Re: Notes on El Salvador

#177

Post by leosanchez »

screye wrote: post #102
thisislife2 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite true - and even with democracies like Japan and India, it is quite apparent from their early history that they were kind of autocratic democracies with one large party / leader / family in power for a long period. In India, the Indian National Congress ruled for nearly 5+ decades since independence, and 3 of its Prime Ministers were dynasts (Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi) from the same family. Note also th…

I'm Indian, I would seriously question anyone who considers India to be an 'economically successful' democracy. 400 million Indians still make less than many sub-saharan African nations. India is admittedly stable. But it was very much an economic failure. Things only started turning around in the mid-90s.

Hot take, I wouldn't consider India as a proper democracy at all the way political parties are setup India is a temporary dictatorship.

Re: Notes on El Salvador

#178

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

macintux wrote: post #79
SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whether the bureaucrats lean towards one party or the other doesn’t change the fact that they aren’t compelled out of fear for their jobs to break the law at the president’s command. I’m thinking about all of the politically motivated “leaks”, the weaponization of institutions like the FBI, DOJ, IRS and I’m just wondering how you are seriously saying above. The “deep state” or “the state” or “the elites” or “ the b…

The thesis that started this thread: the deep state protects democracy. Obviously if you interpret “deep state” as “secret cabals of evildoers” then yes, that’s a nonsensical argument. My personal interpretation of the “deep state” argument that Trump has been bandying around is that he means “people who resist my desire to do whatever I want as President”.

And when it politically aligns with you, you’re happy to say “preserves democracy” while ignoring all the evil and law breaking I guess?

Re: Notes on El Salvador

#179

Post by spacechild1 »

constantcrying wrote: post #175
StrauXX wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they don't. The issue with dictatorships is that your powerbase rurns from "the people" (or a wealthy subset of the people, depending on how well your democracy works), to a small group of powerfull supporters. Army generals, police chiefs and so on. Even if you were an angel, the power dynamics of dictatorships don't give you the ability of doing all too much for the general populace. Thats the beuaty of democrac…

>Your power base is (indirectly and delayed, but still) the people. In almost any democracy the power base are political parties who have the obligation and ability to control what politics are allowed to manifest in the country. Very few democracies (a notable exception might be Switzerland) actually allow for the general population to act against what the political parties want. The population exists as a feedback…

> If you want to tell me that the population just can create a new party, look how well that works in the US...

This is a problem of a particular voting system. The majority reprentation system has a very strong tendency towards two party systems. In countries with proportional representation it is significantly easier to create new parties and even rise to power. On the level of local governments this happens all the time. But even on the state level it is definitely possible. Just think of the various green parties in Europe that have been founded in the 1980s and 1990s. Or to give a more recent example: the rise of the AFD in Germany in recent years.

Re: Notes on El Salvador

#180

Post by bugglebeetle »

joenot443 wrote: post #171
bugglebeetle wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> globalist neoliberal political agenda Bukele pitches crypto at CPAC, so it’s frankly hilarious you think he resides outside this order.

I think it's bizarre and frankly hilarious that you think proximity to crypto is an indicator to ones proximity to the colloquial globalist order. If there's one thing that the Five Eyes are known for, it's their commitment to crypto. /s

Unironically, yes. It was more likely than not invented by them.
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