You mentioned the IMF, the World Bank, and other similar groups. I've not heard that the IMF has an army.
> > > For example, many right wing idealists justify
> > > the Iraq war by saying that it is all about
> > > democracy,
> >
> > That'd be me.
>
> OK, forget about the "right wing idealists" ;
> I meant to talk about knee-jerk Cheney-sucking
> wank-for-brains neo-con propaganda enthusiasts.
That'd be me, too. ;-) Except the sucking part.
> > > but democracy isn't something that can be
> > > imposed from without, without ceasing to
> > > be actual "democracy".
> >
> > True-ish.
>
> Drop the "-ish" please. Political power is, in ALL
> cases derived from the consent, explicit or tacit,
> of "the people".
I disagree, but not by much. Rather than "tacit consent", I'd talk about instances in which the population is too cowed to do anything about it. They may believe that their government is illegitimate, but not be able to do anything about it.
> When the majority reaches a state of opinion
> where the governance is totally rejected,
I'd say: "and that majority is willing to do somethign about it". Political will fails frequently.
> the latter will almost inevitably be overthrown,
> as has recently happened in Georgia.
And kudos to them, too.
> Put simply, "the people" will not do what it
> believes it should not do, nor obey those it
> does not believe wield legitimate authority.
Yes, they will. For long periods of time, if the government keeps the ability to kill those who disagree.
> Politics is the art of encouraging
> a certain pattern of power yielding and power
> wielding.
True. But many governments use torture, execution, etc. as means of governing.
> Many Western nations use the expedient of
> glorified opinion polls and multiple-choice
> questionnaires, trivially mutated into
> comparisons of televised personality sketches,
> to discover whether "the people" continue to
> give their consent to the elected leaders,
> or not.
>
> The drawbacks of such a system are painfully
> obvious.
Democracy is the worst system, except for all the others.
> > However, try distinguishing these two cases
> > in practice:
> > (a) The "people" really don't want democracy
> > -- they want theocracy, naziism, communism,
> > or whatever ism.
> > (b) The "people" really would prefer to choose
> > their own government on a regular basis, but
> > are afraid to say so because of thugs who
> > will take over at the earliest opportunity
> > -- one man, one vote, one time.
>
> My problem here is that you present a fairly
> simplistic picture where political systems can
> be put into two black & white groups :
> democracy / "-isms".
I was trying to coutner your implicit assertion that the lack of public suppport for democracy fairly indicates an absolute lack of support for democracy.
> Democracy isn't necessarily the best system
> for one and all.
Yes, it is. Or, at least the best one invented so far.
> How about :
>
> "That would be an acceptabe result to me. So
> would have a Nazi government in Germany. Let the
> ideologues run the government for a while; it will
> run its course, as it has in Turkey."
You added new facts. The only fact that you hadpreviously asseted was that the elected government of Iraq might be anti-American. So be it. If it then goes around slaughtering ethnic minorities and invading its neighbors, that's another thing altogether.
Fundamentally, no one has the right to tell a democracy who it ought to like. (See, e.g., France.) However, we can tell any country to obey international law. (And, yeah, yeah, I recognize the argument that the American invasion of Iraq was illegal under international law. Let's not go back to that tired argument, eh?)
> How will the hostile elected representatives
> be "supervised", exactly ? Assuming the most
> interesting possible case, ie that they are
> the majority ?
Pretty simple. There should be a transitional period where they get used to the idea of having elections every once in a while. I'd prefer an international commission of mature democracies to oversee most formal aspects of the transition. We'd also have troops on the ground in case it broke down.
Personally, I'd be for the idea of having some form of choosing of representatives (not quite an election), then have those representatives replaced at a real election. It would give them experience with the idea that people can be chucked out of power without the workd coming to an end.
> Someone will be there to give them
> orders from on high, perchance ?
More vetoes than orders, ideally.
> Actually, I think that the main motivation
> behind the Resistance is that they're fighting
> for their country, against an alien occupying
> power, not for a dictator.
A fair point. They see it as an extension of triabl warfare, alomst.
> Besides, last time I looked, Saddam Hussein
> could hardly be described as a "dictator".
>
> You need to be in lone control of your country
> to be one of those, don't you ?
Fine. Ex-dictator. That makes them stupid, too.
> "Leader of the Opposition" maybe ?
That's a phrase hitorically used for people seeking change by non-violent means. That youngish fire-brand Shia cleric whose name keeps popping up, for example.
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