Moral Democracy Fails to Enforce Morality

Olympic Bomber Taunts Victims From Prison

Once again, the internally incongruous nature of democracy deconstructs itself. Democratic government, in upholding a flawed ideal of liberty and justice, cannot enforce meaningful respect for either liberty or justice. How predictable.

In other news:

Sounds like the coolest neighborhood in America, to me. I bet you can even get Andy Griffith re-runs there...

Nonsense. Outlier examples or occasional miscarriages of justice in no way invalidate democracy (or any resulting judicial system) unless a significantly superior alternative can be shown to exist. Which it can't, or at least hasn't yet, through thousands of years of human history.

This is hardly an outlier: prisoners frequently use their free speech 'rights' to harass and continue to victimize those they harmed before - this is just a particularly nasty and public example. This failure is built into the very fabric of democracies: because they reject coercion as 'immoral,' democracies lack the necessary tools to enforce their own ideals. It's a strategy for failure.

Aristocratic societies were far more successful in every meaningful sense. Democracy is both weak and fundamentally unstable, as well as woefully inadequate to meet the challenges proposed by overarching metaissues from cultural decline to global warming.

You're operating under the assumption that a democracy wishes to enforce its ideals. To the contrary, it wishes to enforce as few ideals as possible, generally enforcing only those rights without which the expression of ideals is impossible.

The man you refer to -- and others like him -- are in prison. They have no real power. The fact that they have the ability to taunt is not the monumental failure you suggest. It is unfortunate, to be sure, but no more than the existence of rotten.com and The Jerry Springer Show. Frankly, I find it bizarre that you regard taunting ex-cons as some sort of fundamental breakdown in democracy.

Yeah, I figured this would tie into your larger worldview at some point.

You're making claims you simply cannot support. The United States, to pick a particularly relevant example, is too unique and too new to render any sort of meaningful verdict as to its long-term viability. As for aristocratic societies being more stable; that may very well be true. But few would agree that stability should be the overarching goal of a society. Most would counter that human rights and basic decency (which we know you have a...ahem...atypical view of) should be given priority over longevity as a general rule.

You are grasping at everything you can in order to support your views of a country you despise yet live in and educate yourself in. Either you are a hypocrite or just like kiting the skirt. Which is it?

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“The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton

Like abortion, you mean?

It's indicative of the larger failure of the democratic nations to meaningfully project or even enforce their own moral values. The fundamental justification for democratic government has always been it's exclusive claim to moral legitimacy. However, this claim deconstructs itself: what is the point of a legitimacy that cannot be asserted without compromising its moral purity?

Stability is a precondition for respect for human rights, democracy is not. Historically, democracies have been among the very WORST of human rights offenders (as the US, Turkey, Israel and Apartheid era South Africa all prove today). The Athenian democracy was the most barbarous regime in Greece towards its enemies, while aristocratic Sparta was noted for its respect for the basic rights of captured enemies. Kemal Attaturk's democratic, secular government was responsible for one of the great genocides of the 20th century (the liquidation of the Pontine Greeks). The nationalist government in Serbia was democratically elected, the Musharraf government in Pakistan was not, but has by far the best human rights record in its region.

They were also know for killing weak babies and, eventually, fought themselves into extinction. Yes, the Spartan government was excellent.

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"This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined." -Baruch Spinoza

Because, obviously, this is a grotesque violation of human rights, but abortion-as-birth control isn't.

Not true - Spartan society collapsed because its population was simply too small to cope with the increasingly massive armies of the Hellenistic age. Conflict in the age was unavoidable, and one can hardly blame Spartan leadership for the failure to check the power of Macedonian dynasts.

In what way were these societies successful? A Roman society based on democratically elected representatives (which I acknowledge represented only a small majority of the people living within Roman boarders) saw more economic/technological success than the government of the Emperors.

Every government of every society commits atrocious human rights violations in the name of some greater good. You point out the crimes of democracies, and they are valid. I love the US, but the internment of Japanese-Americans in WW2 qualifies as an inexcusable human rights violation. However, aristocratic societies fail just as well. The French government attempted to obliterate the Huguenots. Imperial Japan has its infamous human rights violations in China.

I am not excusing human rights violations by saying every government does it, but every government does do it.

This is a selective argument. First off, this ignores the Spartan land being worked by a population of slaves which outnumbered citizens. Second, Thucydides notes the Athens of Pericles (who was democratically elected to numerous terms as prefect) would never have committed the atroctiies committed at Melios.

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"What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present." - T.S. Eliot

Optimist. I once got a papercut from a postage stamp. This country is a SHAM!

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Review: Cabin in the Woods 8/10

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Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
Buddha