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US Dictatorship


Altai

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This topic aims to reveal dictatorial moves of US.

You can share any informations or logical conclusions based on informations in this topic.  

Please share or quote a link for the information you share or share or quote a link for the information that where your logical conclusions depends on.

 

Please avoid any kind of trollings, avoid drealing topic in a way, avoid provocative moves. Thèse kind of posts will be deleted at the first opportunity. Thanks for your understanding and kindness.

 

You can also start another topic for another country.

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7 hours ago, JamesHackerMP said:

The link is in Turkish. How can we share anything if the vast majority of us won't be able to understand it?

I searhed for an English link but I could not find anything. All the English links were related to a Jordanian pilot murdered by Deash.

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"Anything includes injustice". OK. So anything "unjust" is also "dictatorial"?

Alexander Hamilton (Secretary of the Treasury for Pres. George Washington, co-author of The Federalist Papers) said that "if men were angels, government would not be necessary." And I think Voltaire said something to the effect of "government requires both shepherds and butchers."

There seems to be this belief that a democratic government should automatically do what its people want, and perfectly protect their liberty. If this were true, then bills of rights and written constitutions would not be necessary. The fact of the matter is that, in a democracy, you get less infringement of rights than in a dictatorship--there is never a complete absence of infringement of liberties. Why? Because men and women--especially those in power--have the propensity to abuse their positions at the expense of others. Democracy simply minimizes this, it does not 100% eliminate it.

That's why I have trouble with the assertion that the United States is a dictatorship of some sort because its government performs unjust actions. Is the US government unjust--even cruel--at times? Certainly. But on the whole, I wouldn't call it a dictatorship. America's far from perfect, I admit. But you can still say so out loud and not disappear in the middle of the night, never to be heard from again.

It never ceases to amaze me how people go around thinking that a democracy can ever be some sort of perfectly just society. It just isn't true.

 

OK, but that aside, what sort of dictatorial acts were you looking for? I agree that we can find plenty, but I need a starting point to google. :)

Edited by JamesHackerMP
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1 hour ago, JamesHackerMP said:

"Anything includes injustice". OK. So anything "unjust" is also "dictatorial"?


Yeah, dicta is ruling people according to the interests of one person or a group of people. ( source: http://bit.ly/2CnvCr2). The aim of "democracy" is to prevent unjustice. (source: http://stanford.io/1YjnlLh) and therefore we can say that unjust moves are dictatorial. 


Democracy is also a dictatorship, because votes cannot always determine the facts. More people voting for 2x2=5 does not make it 5. 


 That's why I have trouble with the assertion that the United States is a dictatorship of some sort because its government performs unjust actions. Is the US government unjust--even cruel--at times? Certainly. But on the whole, I wouldn't call it a dictatorship. America's far from perfect, I admit. But you can still say so out loud and not disappear in the middle of the night, never to be heard from again.



Being able to say whatever you want alone does not mean that a govt is not a dictatorship. 

Govt is a whole. One person's mistake is the whole govt's mistake. 

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On 12/16/2017 at 10:18 AM, Altai said:

Yeah, dicta is ruling people according to the interests of one person or a group of people. ( source: http://bit.ly/2CnvCr2). The aim of "democracy" is to prevent unjustice. (source: http://stanford.io/1YjnlLh) and therefore we can say that unjust moves are dictatorial. 

I have to disagree with that, in part but not in whole. Democracy might aim to prevent injustice--as you put it, and with which I agree--but it does not always succeed. Therefore saying that "unjust moves are dictatorial" misses the point that there is still a "democratic elite" in some democracies, which try to promote their interests above everyone else's. No one has invented a form of government that stops all injustice. Therefore, it's incorrect to call a government a dictatorship because it has done unjust things; because democracies do do unjust things. It's part of human nature. That's why Winston Churchill said (or is thought to have said) "democracy is the worst form of government...except for all the other ones that have been tried." The point of democracy is to minimize injustice. No one's invented a form of government yet that has successfully eliminated it yet.

James Madison in his famous Federalist No. 10 spoke about "the violence of faction." What he was talking about was precisely that: elites governing for themselves. Today, we would call Madison's "faction" a special interest. His belief was that, in an extended republic, there are too many elites for any one of them to gain the upper hand for any extended period of time. (Oops.)

 

On 12/16/2017 at 10:18 AM, Altai said:

Democracy is also a dictatorship, because votes cannot always determine the facts. More people voting for 2x2=5 does not make it 5. 

I totally agree with this statement. People vote based on their perception, which doesn't always match up with the facts--in fact, it frequently doesn't match up with facts. This is one of the reasons that injustices occur in democracies. Many people vote out of ignorance, and it's impossible for anyone--even for a person who is well-informed--to be armed with all the facts before they check the box inside the voting booth. (For this reason we have republics instead of direct democracies.) And of course, it is human nature to not truly understand what it's like for someone else until you've walked a mile in his shoes. It's not possible to walk a mile in everyone else's shoes before going into the polling booth.

 

On 12/16/2017 at 10:18 AM, Altai said:

Being able to say whatever you want alone does not mean that a govt is not a dictatorship. 

I totally agree with this statement as well! In western democracies, libel or slander--especially when the slanderer is attempting to ruin you--is not legal. True, that in the USA, the first amendment protects free speech and press, but not actual libel. (Of course it's actually hard in the United States to stop someone libeling you once they've done it: you have to be able to prove the slanderer's intent in court. Otherwise the person libeling you can just claim "oops, i was wrong.") There's also the expression "you can't yell fire in a crowded theater." You certainly cannot. Freedom of speech doesn't mean you have the right to start a stampede for the fire exit when there's no fire.

On 12/16/2017 at 10:18 AM, Altai said:

Govt is a whole. One person's mistake is the whole govt's mistake. 

Well, politicians do seem to have a special talent for shifting blame onto their colleagues. The proverb that seems most applicable would be "Victory has a thousand fathers; defeat is an orphan." That's why the framers of the American constitution created a one-man executive (he might have assistants, but they're not equal to him in authority): because if there were a council of chief executives they'd spend their entire time shifting blame onto each other. It's hard for a president to totally escape blame for some sort of screw-up: he's the most visible member of the regime and the most powerful, so the egg will land squarely on his face. (Hopefully.)

Pretty good debate so far! :rolleyes:

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Despite my aversion to always using Wikipedia as a source, this article does have a good summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._10

I just realized Altai, I seem to have misinterpreted your statement about saying what you want does not mean the government is not a dictatorship. I think I read that wrong, sorry.

I'd have to disagree with you then. If you can say what you want the government is not likely a dictatorship. People disappear in the middle of the night for saying what they want in a dictatorship, typically.

Edited by JamesHackerMP
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