451–460 of 466 posts
Erdogan worries me as a NATO partner. They're incredibly important geopolitically. The rule of law appears to be disappearing, and its turning into a Lukashenko/Putin situation.
The NATO was never an ideological partnership. It's a strategic partnership, that's all. There have been other dictatorships in the past that were NATO member as well: Greece, Portugal.
ROTFL.
How many democracies left by now?
0
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From a brief reading of the wikipedia article you linked, I'm under impression that the accusations are baseless (given that there are - supposedly - witnesses and his former classmates that confirm his version, and apparently no whistleblowers that present a proof otherwise). The sources are in Turkish so I didn't consult them[1]. Is the article biased or omits some important context? Since you believe the degree is…
I think you are confusing Erdogan with Imamoglu. Imamoglu has photographs, classmates, there is no doubt that he attended college. His diploma was anulled because he transferred initially from a different college. He spent 4 years at the Istanbul uni, attended classes, passed the exams, there is no doubt in that. On the other hand, Erdogan does not have a single photograph during his university years, no classmates t…
>Aydın Ayaydın, a Member of Parliament from the opposition party CHP said that Erdoğan participated in the four-year degree education of Aksaray Academy of Economic and Commercial Sciences, as Ayaydın himself was a teacher of Erdoğan. Expressing that he remembers Erdoğan and his classmates very well, Ayaydın said "one of his classmates is Mehmet Emin Arat, who currently is a professor at Marmara University
>Mehmet Emin Arat himself called the claims on Erdoğan not having a degree "unfair" and "baseless", stating that "the claims do not have any legal, official or historical basis".[14]
>Israeli Journalist Rafael Sadi, who was another classmate of Erdoğan,[15] said that he was irritated by "people that are telling baseless lies just to slander the man for the sake of opposition" and shared the names of professors that he and Erdoğan followed courses from.
Of course they can all be bribed and/or lying, but the Wikipedia article as written supports the version that his diploma is legitimate. Or at least that's my reading.
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> Regardless of how you feel, a country should be able to set its own policies. And in a democracy that means that voters should be able to set the policies. Voters can already resolve by themselves to vote only for people who are native born, or who are of a certain age, or under a certain age, or who like the right football team, or have the right haircolour. We don't need to further restrict who voters can and can…
If voters care so much, they can change the policy. Everything is mutable with enough will. America was founded as a colony fleeing its imperial oppressor. The fact that the rules are so strong here is a testament to the bloody and deep scars we gained from overthrowing our foreign oppressors. It's a direct consequence of our nation's founding. There was a lot of pain felt at the hands of foreign powers, so we encode…
Haha, no. That's nice propaganda, but the Brits weren't oppressing the colonists. In fact, they ran just about the most liberal regime in existence at the time (with perhaps the Dutch being the main competition for top spot).
North American colonists were also paying less taxes than people back in England.
See also Canada for what happened to the colonists who stayed 'oppressed'.
Btw, did you know that only a minority of people in the 13 colonies were even in favour of insubordination against the Rightful Authority of the Crown?
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Yes, Trump refusing to send in the DC Guard could be considered allowing it to get out of hand.
The mayor of DC is in charge of DC's guard, and Trump did request their presence, but the mayor failed to abide the request.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/06/politics/pence-national-guard...
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The mayor of DC is in charge of DC's guard, and Trump did request their presence, but the mayor failed to abide the request.
This is a blatant lie: Trump resisted sending the national guard and the Mayor of DC had to ask Virginia and Maryland for police assistance. Ultimately Pence pushed the Pentagon to respond, and he’s never been forgiven for it. https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/06/politics/pence-national-guard...
https://dc.ng.mil/Join-the-DC-National-Guard/DC-Army-Nationa...
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That's a nice dream. Let me shatter it: what you suggest might make policy reflect public opinion better, yes. But alas, public opinion is crazy and we can be lucky that policy by and large isn't quite as crazy. Have a look at Bryan Caplan's "The Myth of the Rational Voter" for more background.
But now you have a system where the general public still decides who leads the caravan but a potential leader can straight up lie about what they're gonna do and it'll be a pain to replace them before their term is over. To fix that you need either unequal votes or to remove the voting rights of those with incorrect opinions and understandings. Maybe education but then you'd have to make reeducation camps for those o…
Not necessarily. You could also punish liars several after the fact, ie after their term, and hope that incentives will do the trick.
Though my favourite idea is to make voting with your feet easier. If you have more issues decided at more local levels, then it's easier to up sticks and move to the next town over, if you disagree with a policy.
I call that the "McDonald's flavour of democracy": McDonald's doesn't let you vote on their menu, but if you don't like it, you can always just head over to Pizza Hut.
You can either (A) do that inside an existing system by aggressively pushing responsibility down. That's what subsidiarity is meant to capture. And also how the US was supposedly meant to be structured; but over time centralisation won out.
Or (B) you can ensure that by having smaller independent countries. Ideally city states.
That's one of the reasons why Singapore is my adopted home.
Moving with your feet is about the most direct democracy you can get, but you also don't have to worry about the usual downsides of direct democracy.
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Well, you could at least move to Approval voting instead of first past the post. Or you could try sortition, which you haven't even considered at all.
i co-founded the center for election science, which promotes approval voting. my alternative proposal to simple sortition is election by jury. https://www.electionbyjury.org/
Though I would just directly fill up parliament with a few hundred MPs picked at random from among volunteers.
Parliament can then make laws and pick leaders for the executive (like in Germany or the UK).
As a slight complication, I would allow people to pre-declare proxies that would sit in parliament for them. Proxy declaration season would be akin to traditional election season.
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In the UK or Germany, this way you could keep most of the existing political architecture intact. You'd just change how MPs get selected. Compared to your proposal, you also get the benefit of the law of large numbers, and you don't have to have a judge etc.
I would argue against picking a singular leader at random, just because the variation is too high. But in the US, you could re-use much of the existing system: fill up the electoral college at random.
You could take inspiration from the 'National Popular Vote Interstate Compact' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta... for how to accomplish that gradually.
The US house of representatives and senate probably have enough members that you could bank on the law of large numbers.