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Originally Posted by zteccc
And how is it contradictive? Did i state anything that wasn't true? Where is the contradiction? The fact that people have used the word democracy to describe the United States doesn't make it true. Please provide evidence that my opening paragraph is not valid, if you have such. You've accused me of being contradictive, so support your accusation.
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It is contradictive once the notion representation/representative appears.
Voting directly on an issue or handling down the power of voting on an issue is equivalent. This can be determined through a tools set called a constitution. This is what happens in the democratic us.
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Originally Posted by zteccc
Also, please comment on the second section from my previous post. Do you agree that values have their roots in many sources besides a governmental system and that it is therefore a gross oversimplification to say that democracy is the basis of these values?
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Not much to be said because I'm interested in knowing what the democratic universal values are, not really how they are passed down.
It seems to me quite obvious that democratic parents make their children familiar with democratic values. Can come from democratic propaganda books, tv shows, radio shows etc... Not really the topic though. By the way, there is another thread you might intervene in: the one asking which god the founding fathers refer to since you talked about your faith. You might know.
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Originally Posted by zteccc
So your purpose was not to learn, but to criticize. Not surprising. Once again, you mistakenly label the United States a democracy and then try to suggest that it is because of democracy that a war occurred. The facts don't bear this out. Democracy had nothing to do with the war in Iraq. If it did, the citizens of the United States would have had to vote on that war (that is what is done in a democracy). Such a vote by the citizenry was never taken, so the war cannot be a result of democracy or democratic values. The closest thing to such a democratic process in this case was a vote by the representatives that i wrote about that authorized the war.
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"Indeed the democratic us bear universal values. If not, they will have no excuse to intervene into a sovereign nation's business, be it a dictature."
Where's the critic? It is just a statement of facts. The democratic us took that stance. They said that with the absence of other evidences, they are intervening on the sake of the democratic values. And comes to confirm that the democratic us bear democratic universal values.
The conception of democracy given here smells like dictatorship's manure.
Why only one form of democracy? No reason for that. A community of democratic people is free to do what they want with their right of choice.
If they decide to deleguate their right of choice to a specific person for specific issues through a specific process, they are democratically free of doing so. What matters is that the process is democratic. There are many forms to democracy around the world. They share a commonity: the democratic society project.
Next time, some tribal regimes where everyone (that is adult women and men) are associated to the decisions on the future of their tribes will be considered a democracy.They are not. They dont bear the democratic society project.
There are acknowledged democracies around the world. I just take them as they come (as long as they are acknowledged democracies) If the democratic england and france say that the democratic us are a democracy, it is enough. And if one day the democratic us say that the democratic france is no longer a democracy, that will be enough for not only the democratic us are a democracy, they are the brightest of all and even the champion of the democratic free world.
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Originally Posted by zteccc
I note you didn't say the United States was using the argument that the Iraqis were repressed in their enjoyment of democratic rights and values, but instead of "the universal rights/values". I agree, that their government was indeed denying them these rights. The war in Iraq, of course, was only in the slightest way because of this, just as World War II wasn't primarily about the Jews in the concentration camps. The fact that in both cases, people were freed from oppression was a side benefit.
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Well, reading the title of the thread should have made clear that it addresses democratic universal values. For once I didnt put democratic somewhere...But it is interesting to hear about other universal values which are?
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Originally Posted by zteccc
I think you're misquoting me. If anyone chooses to intentionally target civilians, they do indeed become enemies of civilization. A child in a palestinian refugee camp who puts on a uniform (required by the Geneva Conventions) and targets only the military is a military combatant, subject to the rules of war. If a person, out of uniform, attacks a military target, then they become combatants and I believe they are classified as spies (e.g given no protection under the Geneva Conventions). The United States Marine, in full uniform, who shot the "insurgent" in the mosque was targeting a combatant who was not in uniform. As such, I believe that the insurgent has no protections under the Geneva Conventions. That said, the Marine still has a human responsibility to protect the life of someone not threatening him. The Marine also has a human responsibility to his squadmates and his own life to take precautions. By the Marine's own words, however, he saw that the insurgent was "faking he's dead". In a warzone, the Marine could easily and justifiably be concerned that one faking being dead would be doing so for a reason that bodes ill for the Marine and his squad. On the day prior, a booby trapped body killed this Marine's squadmate, so it makes sense that this Marine feared that a live insurgent, faking being dead, would be planning to attack him or his squad. The Marine's own words prior to the shooting show that he feared this enemy combatant. As such, the shooting is justified. Now, how this relates to the values of a democracy is anyone's guess.
-- Jeff
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This is another very interesting extract that comes a bit in advance on the next large portion of democracy I'm currently working on. A lot of typically democratic in it.
Much often, people are born with civilian as their default status. Making most of the refugees born as civilians. But growing up in an environment where the civilians are the target of soldiers should not lead to take other civilians as targets without acquiring the status of soldiers. This move would make the kid an enemy of civilisation.
On the other hand, the soldier is indulged with his behaviour because the previous day, a kind of story happened to one of his comrades.
Very interesting indeed because some, despite of living dozens of life experience will never be forgiven their behaviour when others need only one similar reason or even not one.
There is also an example of that democratic behaviour, when pushed to the limits, leads to the democratic offspring called nazism.
It is the democratic way of putting people outside of their alleged democratic rights. As one might know, democracy recognizes the right of fighting against oppression: the democratic us for example maintain the right of bearing arms in case their government becomes oppressive.
But one of the conditions is : the movement fighting the oppression must
be acknowledged by democratic institutions as a movement fighting the oppression.
So in iraq any force must go and gain a general recognition from the occupying enemy power they might consider with a reason as oppressive. As long as they have not gained their recognition, they are out of the range of democratic rights.
It is known that the democratic france has tried to bring some of the rebel movements on the international scene and the democratic us, the main occupying power, has said so far "no way", depriving them of their chance of being acknowledged.
Summary: democracy says that it exits to protect some democratic universal values, the condition being to be a human being.
De facto, this renders everyone treated by a democracy contrary to those rights a non human being. The soldier didnt kill a human being. He killed something that was not recognized as a human being by his democratic government, something of an unidentified status, which disqualified the soldier for being called a murderer or so.