Commissar, simply denying my invented positions for you does not provide any explanation of what you believe. Youir statements regarding China are simply silly and do not appear to be based on anything more than a desire to applaud China while evading the issue that you simply post whatever you think will rile up your readers. You have prvided no coherent or consistent pattern to praising China, (pretending that its totalitarian state is merely authoritarian), or Qaddafi while condemning Saudi Arabia. As for your endorsement of dictatorial rule, if you cannot describe a method for choosing governments and providing succession–something you have failed to even attempt–then you are simply blowing smoke.
Without a basis for your self-contradicting statements, I am going to consider trolling as the best explanation for your posts.
As for your claims to have posted more citations: I have not seen any such citations. Where is your evidence for your claims about the Libyan turmoil? All the citations of actual actions in that country or references to the actual poverty among the people have been presented by your opponents while you have merely claimed that the citations are biased without presenting any counter citations.
From America’s viewpoint it is a mess. We would love to help the rebels but we can not. It is just not the right thing to do unilaterally. NATO is close to a vote now. That would give us cover.
WE would be a lot happier if the UN did it. NATO can be thought of a coalition dominated by colonial powers.
I suspect there won’t be a vote at the UN before they can secure the Chinese and Russian vote. A proposal being rejected would be worst than no proposal at all. For instance, NATO imposing a flight zone after a rejection by the UN security council would be worst than an unilateral decision.
Letting Gaddaffi brutalise his populace into submission and then set his secret police loose on them while sitting on our hands is worse than unilateral action.
The rebels are losing. They need our help. They are begging for our help. We have three outcomes depending on our choices.
First - a Gadaffi win - leaving a hostile, insane, bastard in power with an abiding grudge against the West and with the resources to stoke regional conflicts and supply terrorists all over the world.
Second: A bitter and angry new government wondering where the hell were we when they needed us.
Third. A grateful new government.
It’s time for Obama, Cameron or someone to man up and prove we aren’t just full of hot air regarding the freedom thing.
In which case we’re back to square one, Tom. In your last post, you demanded the following: “Here: I will provide what appears to be your philosophy in a few short lines and you can correct it, (if it is wrong, of course).” I did exactly that, showing where I agreed with your bullet-points and where a different statement explained my philosophy better. Now you’re withdrawing your request and apparently looking for something different - once again, without actually clarifying what it is you want.
See, that’s one of the problems right there. I believe that I have explained my beliefs regarding the PRC very well, but you refuse to comprehend them because they are based on different opinions and biases then your own.
As I said over and over before, I fully support China because I fully support authoritarian socialist states. That’s a two-pronged test: authoritarianism and socialism. As long as you have both, I support you by default. The first prong is satisfied by having governance without elections. The second is satisfied (inter alia) by significant governmental involvement in economic planning. China satisfies both prongs, hence I support it (note that I will also support some nations that fail one or more prongs, but this will be a different tests, as you will see in a second).
Libya under Gaddafi also satisfies both prongs, so I support his government. Saudi Arabia fails prong number two and goes to further analysis. At this point, it can only gain my support with an affirmative showing that, despite capitalism, the authoritarian government in charge must maximize human happiness and prosperity by creating the proper conditions for both (an example of a government that gets my support by using this test is Singapore). Saudi Arabia fails this due to its outrageous unemployment, huge wealth disparities, and a kleptocratic system that rewards ~8,000 princes with mind-boggling stipends (up to $250,000 per month). So, Saudi Arabia gets no support from me.
None of this is particularly difficult to understand, I believe. What you seem to be getting caught up on is trying to separate my theory from your personal opinions. Look, I know that you believe that economic planning is not enough to make a government socialist. Tough; that’s my definition, and I’m using it for my own personal theory. Your opinion is noted, rejected, and will in no way be incorporated into my political-economic model.
That would be true, so of course my theory addresses both inception of governments and continuation thereof.
INCEPTION: under almost all circumstances, new systems of governments come into power through armed insurrection against previous forms (I’m not talking about transfer of power between administrations, but rather about major changes such as the American Revolution). This will usually hold true for authoritarian governments.
CONTINUATION: the system will require the rulers to create a model for choosing future leaders and transferring power in a peaceful manner. A good example of this can be seen in China, which relatively recently had a transfer of power between two living individuals with no chaos or bloodshed. This is precisely the modern model that I wish to see in all authoritarian socialist governments.
I continue to disagree with your assessment, and once more reiterate my previous point on this issue in rebuttal. As I said, you painted a very biased and negative picture of Gadaffi’s government. For accuracy, let’s introduce some of your own statements:
“The “nation’s prosperity” is the personal wealth of the kleptocrat that employs the mercenaries and police to suppress the people who generally live in poverty.”
“So, basically, you are saying that you support a right bastard who keeps his people oppressed to enrich himself, solely because you like to make nasty comments about “the West.””
" He is a tin pot dictator of the Duvalier-Battista-Hussein mold, running the country for the benefit of himself and his family.
His “pan-Arab” and “pan-African” claims were little more than propaganda used to try to get support for his regime in the 1970s and early 1980s and he has not used any of his country’s oil wealth or even his bully pulpit to actually promote those goals in any concete way in the last 25+ years."
Thus, you took every opportunity to imply and/or explicitly state that Gaddafi stole the nation’s oil revenues, doing absolutely nothing for the benefit of his people. I refuted your position with a devastating cite, which showed just one example of a very expensive project funded by the Colonel’s government for the benefit of the people. Your response? You moved your goalposts, somehow jumping from “Gaddafi never does anything for the people” to “Gaddafi, like all despots, undertakes immense public works projects for the people.”
And this is just one example in which support for my argument was entirely ignored/blown off by my interlocutors.
Which is all nice and good, but… While I agree that the rebels are losing, I’m not sure I understand how you reach the conclusion that we must intervene on their behalf. Why? They are too weak to wrest control away from their government, so we must do it for them? Would we be obliged to do so for other rebels elsewhere? What if, say, it’s a rebellion against a friendly dictatorship such as the Saudi Arabian monarchy?
Stating that Gaddafi will dislike the West if he wins adds nothing to your argument - he already dislikes it, always has, always will. I’m sure that, his feelings notwithstanding, oil will continue to be bought and sold, and all sides will be happy (except the rebels, who will be dead ).
Unlike you, I have no issues with the way things are going. This has always been a domestic Libyan dispute, and it is now being resolved among the relevant parties (read: Libyans). The fact that your side is losing does not magically transform this into an international war justifying the suspension of principles of national sovereignty.
Readers will note that Commissar has already been shown cites that the average Libyan lives in a thoroughly shitty state, most unable to get proper health care, about a quarter of young people are unemployed, Quadaffi’s family and inner circle spend lavishly to the point where his children are well known on the European jet-set scene. Why does he claim not to support the Saudis?
“[O]utrageous unemployment, huge wealth disparities, and a kleptocratic system that rewards ~8,000 princes with mind-boggling stipends”
Mmm hmmmmm.
Oh, and, Saudi Arabia is a centrally planned economy.
The salient difference, naturally, is that one is anti-Western and the other isn’t.
Nick Kristof writes about the case for a no-fly zone. He talks to General McPeak a former Air Force chief of staff who makes the case that enforcing a no-fly zone particularly in parts of the country which Gaddafi doesn’t control is not that difficult.
Kristof was one of the few major pundits who strongly opposed the Iraq war. That doesn’t mean he is right on this one of course but IMO it does give him extra credibility when he calls for limited military action in Libya.
To be sure it's a huge decision for Obama and I don't know enough about the situation to be confident about the right policy for the US.
A careful reader will also have noted that I do not claim that the Libyan government (or any other government, for that matter) is perfect. There is always room for improvement, but this is no reason to turn one’s back on a decent administration. The Colonel’s government, being run by humans, is far from perfect, but I strongly maintain that it is better than the vast majority of the alternatives (though, to be fair, it is worse than a Chinese-style government).
You would have been correct at one point, but you must have been snoozing since the 1990s. Had you been paying attention during the past two decades, you would have known about the monarchy’s comprehensive agenda of privatizing pretty much everything that’s not nailed down. Had it made different decisions, I may have become a supporter.
You can, of course, repeat these claims until you are blue in the face, Finn. Nonetheless, though I tend to oppose Western nations and ideals, being pro- or anti-Western does not determine my support or lack thereof. As I mentioned recently, Switzerland is a Western (and pro-Western) state. However, its non-nonbelligerent and anti-interventionist philosophy means that I have absolutely nothing against this wonderful nation.
Because of the situation Libyans find themselves in – limited access to healthcare, high unemployment, a corrupt and repressive regime ruling over them, etc. – do you agree that violence is the only recourse these people have to effect any kind of justice for themselves?
Two things. One, the Chinese government uses a better economic model (Gaddafi has likely tried his best, but some of his economic policies have had less than ideal outcomes for his people). Second, the Chinese government is less individual-oriented and more willing to spread power around. Much as I like the Colonel, I do not believe that a single individual should wield so much political clout. I want to see single-party rather than single-person rule.
And you’re at your best when you blatantly dodge a question and assume that the rest of us are too dumb to notice. :rolleyes: Now, could you please answer Dick Dastardly’s query? I would very much like to know your position on this.
Oh, and on an earlier issue, those reading along should realize that Commissar is again distorting/creating ‘facts’ in order to bolster his spurious, rationalized argument in support of anti-western tyrants. Just as he based his support on certain characteristics that even a cursory knowledge proves Libya does not possess, his claim about the Saudi centrally planned economy is… interesting.
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