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Are you anti-war and pro-democracy?
    #1402761 -

Do you know that over 70% of the American public supports George Bush's invasion of Iraq? What's wrong with letting democracy set the policy on this?

From CBS News/New York Times Nationwide Poll. March 20-21, 2003. MoE ? 3.
"Do you approve or disapprove of the United States taking military action against Iraq to try to remove Saddam Hussein from power?"
Approve 76%
Disapprove 20%
Don't Know 4%


--------------------
To call humans 'rational beings' does injustice to the term, 'rational.'  Humans are capable of rational thought, but it is not their essence.  Humans are animals, beasts with complex brains.  Humans, more often than not, utilize their cerebrum to rationalize what their primal instincts, their preconceived notions, and their emotional desires have presented as goals - humans are rationalizing beings.

Edited by Evolving (03/23/03 08:32 AM)

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Re: Are you anti-war and pro-democracy? [Re: Evolving]
    #1402774 -

"Democracy is a form of government designed to give the people just what they deserve"

I cannot remember where I have seen that, but I think it is appropriate.


--------------------
I may not always tell the truth, but atleast I'm honest
-----------

I see what everyone is saying. It is so hard to form an opinion when you see both sides so clearly!

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Re: Are you anti-war and pro-democracy? [Re: sirreal]
    #1402784 -

If the majority supports it, and it's being done, then what's the problem?


--------------------
What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you think you know,
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection,
Is it all you want it to be?


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Re: Are you anti-war and pro-democracy? [Re: Murex]
    #1402803 -

that's the problem with democracy. just because something's popular doesn't make it right.

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Re: Are you anti-war and pro-democracy? [Re: ]
    #1402811 -

Wasn't Hitler democratically elected?


--------------------
To call humans 'rational beings' does injustice to the term, 'rational.'  Humans are capable of rational thought, but it is not their essence.  Humans are animals, beasts with complex brains.  Humans, more often than not, utilize their cerebrum to rationalize what their primal instincts, their preconceived notions, and their emotional desires have presented as goals - humans are rationalizing beings.

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Re: Are you anti-war and pro-democracy? [Re: Evolving]
    #1402855 -

Yep, exactly.

I think it's right for people to elect the leaders they deserve, but it's wrong to let, say, the American people "democratically" vote about the fate of the Iraqi people. A country's vote should affect only that country, not one of its neighbors, let alone a remote country of the antipodes.

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Re: Are you anti-war and pro-democracy? [Re: Murex]
    #1402866 -

Quote:
If the majority supports it, and it's being done, then what's the problem?



The problem is that the majority is not always right. Maybe seldom right. Not cuz people are stupid, but cuz people are
slaves to authority. Our authorities are not always truthful...


--------------------
  -I'd rather have a frontal lobotomy than a bottle in front of me

CANADIAN CENTER FOR POLICY ALTERNATIVES

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Re: Are you anti-war and pro-democracy? [Re: Evolving]
    #1402921 -

You have a good point Evolving. Just to play devil's advocate, however, let me offer a few other points just to thicken the plot:

1.) Strictly speaking, Bush wasn't democratically elected. Even if one accepts that he FAIRLY won the Electoral College (i.e., if one accepts that all of those old Jewish people in Dade County actually wanted to vote for Buchanan), the Electoral College is not strictly democratic. In theory it is the delegates who cast the votes. Tradition and convention demand that the delegates vote according to election results, but in principle even THAT doesn't always have to be the case. In any event, Bush did not win the popular vote.

2.) The populations of all of America's allies, with the possible exception of Israel, oppose this war by overwhelming margins. If Blair and the other leaders of the so-called "coalition of the willing" actually listened to their people, the United States would be waging this war with ZERO international support and would become even more of a pariah than it already is.

3.) Poll results, no matter what the pollsters claim about "plus or minus 5% accuracy" etc., are notoriously unreliable, which is made clear when you compare two different polls taken around the same time by different pollsters that show widely divergent results. Not to mention the fact that people tend to be more careless and lackadaisacal about answering pollsters than they are about casting actual votes. Not to mention also the fact that poll questions are often skewed to gain desired results.

4.) Approval ratings for presidents always go up during times of crisis. It's just a psychological/patriotic kind of thing. BEFORE the war started, Bush's approval rating was hovering at only slightly above the 50% mark. At the end of Gulf War I, Bush 41's approval ratings soared to over 80%. A year and a half later they were at 30% and he lost to Clinton.

5.) The success or failure of democracies is directly proportional to the intelligence and wisdom of its citizenry. In addition to providing an incentive to everyone to become as well informed and politically active as possible, democracy gives people their just desserts. Democracy is a hard taskmaster, but it forces individuals to take personal responsibility for the well-being of their nation, and personal responsibility is a good thing, no? Democracies make many mistakes, no doubt about it, but they have a greater capacity for self-correction over the course of time than any other system I know of.


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Re: Are you anti-war and pro-democracy? [Re: carbonhoots]
    #1402930 -

The problem is that the majority is not always right. Maybe seldom right. Not cuz people are stupid, but cuz people are

So I guess we should go with the minority vote every time then. That makes so much more sense.

:tongue:



--------------------
What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you think you know,
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection,
Is it all you want it to be?


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Re: Are you anti-war and pro-democracy? [Re: ]
    #1402937 -

Quote:
just because something's popular doesn't make it right.


But then the wall we'd run into would be: What constitutes "right"? What constitutes "wrong"?

And about those statistics: I'd be more ready to believe that they were somewhat true if other news corporations were broadcasting those results. Did they say how many they actually surveyed?


--------------------
The proper penalty of ignorance, which is of course that those who don't know should learn from those who do... - Plato

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Re: Are you anti-war and pro-democracy? [Re: Angry Mycologist]
    #1403420 -

deleted

Edited by mushmaster (03/23/03 12:47 PM)

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Re: Are you anti-war and pro-democracy? [Re: Angry Mycologist]
    #1403421 -

the majority at one point thought that slavery was ok, and so slavery was law. they thought that "relocating" native americans was ok, and so it was law. the majority now supports laws against drugs, prostitution, and gambling. in a democracy, a majority can always oppress a minority. it's mob rule.

that's why we have a constitution. certain things are protected and cannot be taken away, not even by the majority. a better system in my opinion would include a more extensive constitution with more guarantees for individual rights and restrictions on government.

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Re: Are you anti-war and pro-democracy? [Re: ]
    #1404024 -

"Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatable with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."
-James Madison

"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."
-John Adams

"A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way. The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty."
-Fisher Ames

"The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived."
-John Quincy Adams

http://www.ohioroundtable.org/tps/democracy/main.html
BTW: I do support the war.


--------------------
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniencies attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." - Thomas Jefferson

Edited by z@z.com (03/23/03 04:38 PM)

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Re: Are you anti-war and pro-democracy? [Re: z@z.com]
    #1404199 -

bah humbug, no fancy quotes.

i heard this lady saying, 'why all of a sudden do we care so much about the iraqi people, they have been dying for years, and NOW we care."

good point. and i think it is funny how the afganistan operation picked up pretty rapidly right after they bombed iraq for the first time. its like we are just trying to completely get rid of all that oppose the US. if we had a reason i bet we would bomb france too.


--------------------
Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy.
-Albert Einstein

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Re: Are you anti-war and pro-democracy? [Re: mike]
    #1404213 -

We have been trying to do something about Iraq for a while. For the last 12 years we have been trying to resolve the Iraq problem peacefully. It isn't like we are suddenly going to war. We have been on Saddam's ass to follow the sanctions and do the right thing for a damn long time.


--------------------
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniencies attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." - Thomas Jefferson

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Re: Are you anti-war and pro-democracy? [Re: z@z.com]
    #1404227 -

^
This is true.


--------------------
What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you think you know,
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection,
Is it all you want it to be?


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Re: Are you anti-war and pro-democracy? [Re: ]
    #1404242 -

the majority at one point thought that slavery was ok

No they didn't. It took a tremendous effort on the part of the rich slaveowners to force slavery on the country. The vast majority of people hated it because it took work away from them and drove down living standards for everyone. In the early days there were so many whites helping and caring for escaped blacks that the rich slaveowners had to pass laws saying if you helped a black you would be punished severely.


--------------------
Don't worry, B. Caapi

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Re: Are you anti-war and pro-democracy? [Re: Xlea321]
    #1404318 -

Alex123 writes:

No they didn't. It took a tremendous effort on the part of the rich slaveowners to force slavery on the country.

Mushmaster's point is that at various times in various places, the "will of the majority" endorsed things that seem abhorrent to us today -- slavery being just one of many examples.

One as well-read as you is certainly aware that slavery has been the norm in countless societies for many millennia. To try to refute that fact (with, as usual, no source cited whatsoever -- just the standard Alex proclamation) by claiming that some Americans didn't like it is disengenuous.

Leaving the southern States aside, the majority of Romans, Africans, Arabs, Aztecs, Native Americans, Egyptians and more regularly used slaves. It was a tradition for centuries that defeated combatants be sold into slavery, and no one thought to question the practice, least of all the slaves themselves. The slaves didn't like it, and cursed their misfortune at being slaves, but few objected to the concept of slavery.

Once again, (as usual) you attempt to nitpick trivialities and avoid the main concept of the thread -- the inherent fallacy of relying on majority opinion as the deciding factor in decision-making.

pinky


--------------------

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Re: Are you anti-war and pro-democracy? [Re: EchoVortex]
    #1404341 -

EchoVortex writes:

Strictly speaking, Bush wasn't democratically elected.

Irrelevant to the concept being examined.

The populations of all of America's allies, with the possible exception of Israel, oppose this war by overwhelming margins.

Irrelevant. That is a reason for those allies to withdraw, it is not a reason for the US to withdraw. The most that can be said is that the leaders of those allies are defying the will of the majority in their respective countries. Clearly Bush is not.

Poll results, no matter what the pollsters claim about "plus or minus 5% accuracy" etc., are notoriously unreliable, which is made clear when you compare two different polls taken around the same time by different pollsters that show widely divergent results.

This is arguably correct. It would be interesting to hold a nationwide referendum on this issue.

Approval ratings for presidents always go up during times of crisis. It's just a psychological/patriotic kind of thing.

Irrelevant. The poll was not about Bush, it was about Bush's action -- a "single issue" poll. In every poll I have seen, the percentage of those in favor of military action against Iraq has been higher than the percentage of those who approved of Bush.

The success or failure of democracies is directly proportional to the intelligence and wisdom of its citizenry. In addition to providing an incentive to everyone to become as well informed and politically active as possible, democracy gives people their just desserts.

Correct. Hopefully this attempt at "democracy" that we call the United States of America will escape the historical fate of all preceding Democracies.

pinky


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Re: Are you anti-war and pro-democracy? [Re: Phred]
    #1404638 -

the inherent fallacy of relying on majority opinion as the deciding factor in decision-making.

Tell me something. How many people in America do you think owned slaves? The majority? Did the millions of poor whites all have slaves? Or was it just a handful of rich people? Would you be surprised if I told you that less than 5% of the whites in the american south owned slaves?

Do you think the majority of the roman population had slaves? Or just a handful of rich people?

If you had put slavery to the vote in America by asking whites "Will you vote for slavery, or will you vote for vastly increasing your own wages by abolishing slavery and forcing the rich to pay you a decent wage", slavery would have been abolished overnight. 95% of the population didn't even have slaves - what are they going to miss?

Don't assume that if something happens in a country it is the "will of the majority". The current attack on iraq is a prime example.




--------------------
Don't worry, B. Caapi

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