Oh. I was talking about people voting for a party whose programme explicitly includes the elimination of democracy, if only for "provisional" time.
'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?![]()
Sometimes it's not even that. If the culture has enough Values Dissonance with ours, it might not even occur to them that regular elections are a good idea, and they may want to apply Asskicking Equals Authority by electing and trusting the most Bad Ass among, say, the warlords, not because he's nice or competent, but because they think he deserves to rule... or because they think he won't be challenged... which boils down to security again...
Belgium
needs a dictatorship? Cuz no-one is holding it down.
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edited 19th Jan '11 9:14:57 AM by RawPower
'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?Apparently the Belgians are more concerned with keeping the civil rights than with keeping the country whole. In fact, they are about to slip, and it's not like there were riots or anarchy or anything. That is because the Res Publica (even when it's a monarchy) is a shared reality of all citizens, and as long as they all believe in that reality, it holds up. Individual leaders as a necessary symbol of a nation are a holdover from another era where men would rather answer to a man than to the Law. As of now, the Law can stand without a Man to be its Face: the People hold it Together, for the sake of All (except for those who are dead).
'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?Well, then the government hasn't secured the faith of the people. They don't trust it and it doesn't seem strong enough to just deal with that. If the people don't have confidence and vote against their own interests, the government is going to fail and the people will suffer. Though it might very well be a wealthy enough country so that the suffering won't really be that bad I think their insistence on civil rights over stability will make them worse off.
You Anglo-Saxons and your obession for Stability, as if it was something good in and of itself. The English Revolution
is still haunting your political thought, it seems. 'This is your fucking stability'
A hard-line/Fundamentalist government is unlikely to form in Tunisia without significant imposition of outside forces. To credit Bourguiba, he kept the Nahda from laying the groundwork for a strong Fundamentalist movement. There is also the matter of the citizenry of Tunisia who, despite having a corrupt secular president, are wary of Fundamentalist interpretations of Islam in the rule of law; it doesn't help that Ben Ali fled to the most hard-line country in the region (Saudi Arabia) for refuge.
Egypt, on the other hand, will be a different matter entirely when the dominoes fall (and they will).
Here is to hoping the US doesn't do something stupid and intercede, thereby increasing the role Fundamentalists will play in the foundations of a new Tunisian government.
edited 19th Jan '11 1:53:15 PM by UnabashedFornicator
Safety and stability have to come before oppression, too.
Simply put, if enough people raise enough protest, cause enough damage, cripple enough systems, authorities have to grant their demands or the structure of authority will collapse anyways when the governed refuse to cooperate it. You think we got the right to vote/unionize/be treated equally regardless of gender/be treated equally regardless of race/etc. etc. because we asked nicely? Hell naw. Those rights were granted because our predecessors made it damn well clear to those in power what would happen if they weren't.
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.While I agree that rights should come first, you can't enforce/protect the people's rights unless your government is stable. At the same time, a government that doesn't respect rights (i.e. an autocratic dictator) is inherently unstable. So you've got to have both at once. Given that, I don't really think it matters which side you start from, as long as you work toward both of them in the long run.
Not that such an abstraction really helps us make the question less muddled...
Edit: I guess I sorta rehashed everything that's already been said, but there you go.
edited 19th Jan '11 5:38:09 PM by darksidevoid
GM: AGOG S4 & F/WC RP; Co-GM: TABA, SOTR, UUA RP; Sub-GM: TTS RP. I have brought peace, freedom, justice, and security to my new Empire.Bump with update
.
I like the social diversity
◊ those images show... Reminds me of a classic
◊ (warning, mildly NSFW)...
It's interesting to see they want to avert The Thermidor...
Here you have it. No communists, no islamists.
And this
edited 20th Jan '11 8:49:03 AM by RawPower
'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?

No. People who vote for seemingly legitimate figures who then take away democracy often have no idea what the ultimate result will be until it happens.
edited 18th Jan '11 5:16:51 PM by Pykrete