# The Arab Uprisings Have Gone Too Far **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 23, 2011, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arab-uprisings-have-gone-too-far/572373 "2011-02-23T19:48:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arab-uprisings-have-gone-too-far/572373/161 "2011-02-24T21:40:25Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > For the Arabic alphabet (actually, it’s usually an [abjad](http://www.omniglot.com/writing/alphabetic.htm)) values, I run to [the Omniglot page on Arabic](http://www.omniglot.com/writing/arabic.htm). The bracketed letters beneath the Arabic letters are the [IPA values](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IPA_chart_2005_png.svg) for said Arabic letters. Honestly Alessan’s note was vastly more understandable than that link. I suspect most of us don’t care enough to puzzle out IPA. > [@Commissar](#): > > If you are going to be a democracy apologist, you are going to have to address the Third Reich rather than simply hand-wave it away. This is a real piece of mastery in the performance art domain. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arab-uprisings-have-gone-too-far/572373/162 "2011-02-24T21:47:35Z")
This thread is not going to last much longer if the comments about trolling continue - which doesn’t mean I won’t hand out warnings. We’re also drifting off the original topic, which was the uprisings in the Middle East. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arab-uprisings-have-gone-too-far/572373/163 "2011-02-24T21:57:26Z")
> [@Commissar](#): > > Thus, an unbalanced monster that would have been marginalized by any autocratic system worth its salt was able to surf into power on the tide of mob mentality. Oh sure, if you’re going to compare all democracies against just the autocrats that are worth their salt, then of course you’re going to get a result that you like. I’m not sure whether false equivilancy or no true scotsman is the more relavent fallacy. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arab-uprisings-have-gone-too-far/572373/164 "2011-02-24T22:11:30Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Of course, if you attempt to paint regimes like Nazi Germany as ‘democratic’, and then hand wave away the fact that totalitarian communist countries actually occupy the number 1 and 2 murderous regimes in history, well…you aren’t exactly well grounded in reality, at the least. They had more people to kill than the tyrants of the past, so someone like Genghis Khan could depopulate entire regions, exterminate entire languages and cultures; yet kill fewer people than Stalin or Mao simply because there weren’t nearly as many people alive to kill. And modern civilization is also faster paced as well; modern armies and modern death orders travel faster. So I regard comparisons of absolute numbers of killings across all of history as somewhat deceptive; by nature they will make more modern regimes look more murderous than historical ones. And Nazi Germany was destroyed in mid-slaughter; if we’d allied with them to destroy the Communists (and it actually worked) I suspect people would instead be pointing out how the Nazis killed more than the Communists did. I can easily imagine an alternate universe where a victorious & nuclear armed Nazi Germany kills most everyone in Africa for example. As for democratic versus authoritarian; democratic regimes do tend to be much less murderous to their own people; not necessarily towards anyone else. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arab-uprisings-have-gone-too-far/572373/165 "2011-02-24T22:29:48Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] They had more people to kill than the tyrants of the past, so someone like Genghis Khan could depopulate entire regions, exterminate entire languages and cultures; yet kill fewer people than Stalin or Mao simply because there weren’t nearly as many people alive to kill. And modern civilization is also faster paced as well; modern armies and modern death orders travel faster. So I regard comparisons of absolute numbers of killings across all of history as somewhat deceptive; by nature they will make more modern regimes look more murderous than historical ones. [/QUOTE] I don’t really know. I suppose it’s possible that mass murderers in the past killed a higher percentage of their or someone else’s overall population than these guys did. So, just leave it as an apples to apples comparison and simply look at modern times…say 20th century. Personally, I think that modern regimes WERE more murderous, especially during that 20th century period, but I admit I don’t have any data to back that up…just a gut feeling. > [@](#): > > And Nazi Germany was destroyed in mid-slaughter; if we’d allied with them to destroy the Communists (and it actually worked) I suspect people would instead be pointing out how the Nazis killed more than the Communists did. I can easily imagine an alternate universe where a victorious & nuclear armed Nazi Germany kills most everyone in Africa for example. That assumes that the Nazi’s would have won, and having won would have lasted long enough to continue their murderous rampage. All possible, I suppose, but you have to make some assumptions and guesses for that. All that is what-if’s, however…what we know is that Nazi Germany ranks 3rd compared to Communist China and Communist Russia. He (Hitler I mean) doesn’t even rank number one on absolute percentage of population killed, since Pol Pot (another Communist) takes the top spot on that one as well. > [@](#): > > As for democratic versus authoritarian; democratic regimes do tend to be much less murderous to their own people; not necessarily towards anyone else. Do you have any statistics to back up your assertion that democratic regimes are more murderous towards others than totalitarian or authoritarian regimes in general? I actually don’t know and would be interested to see the stats. A lot of totalitarian regimes are seemingly introspectively focused, so I suppose it’s possible. Regardless, you aren’t buying into the OPs assertion that Nazi Germany was a democratic regime are you? -XT ---
**Author:** ![Commissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c68b51/32.png) [@Commissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Commissar)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arab-uprisings-have-gone-too-far/572373/166 "2011-02-24T22:47:52Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > Didn’t he pay over a billion dollars in reparations? But what, he crossed his fingers and said I didn’t do it? Yes, the Libyan government was essentially blackmailed into making outrageous payments as a precondition of the lifting of Western sanctions. None of this has anything to do with proving liability. By same token, countless settlements occur daily in the US legal system, whereupon the defendants agree to pay money to the plaintiffs without admitting any wrongdoing whatsoever. It is fallacious to use a payment to prove actual responsibility. > [@xtisme](#): > > [Here](http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DBG.FIG1.7.GIF) is a series of graphs from R.J. Rummel that pretty clearly show the difference between democratic, authoritarian and totalitarian regimes wrt democide. Of course, if you attempt to paint regimes like Nazi Germany as ‘democratic’, and then hand wave away the fact that totalitarian communist countries actually occupy the number 1 and 2 murderous regimes in history, well…you aren’t exactly well grounded in reality, at the least. > > For anyone interested, [here](http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM) is the main Death By Government web page by Rummel. > > -XT Your random links are interesting, but hardly illuminating. For starters, I draw your attention to the blatant editorializing found on the site you posted: “The Communist Chinese Ant Hill.” “The Depraved Nationalist Regime.” “The Khmer Rouge Hell State.” Yeah, I am entirely convinced that a source referring to nations as “hell states” will be 100% neutral and unbiased in its assertions. Moreover, these are, to put it bluntly, bizarre figures pulled out of someone’s rear. Over 60 million killed in the USSR? Really? In a nation that never even reached a population of 300 million? There is absolutely no support for the 20 million figure typically kicked around by Westerners - a number triple that is absolutely ridiculous. This is something that I have noticed about Westerners, as an aside… You will readily attack autocrats and autocratic sources, but you have absolutely no qualms about using made-up “information” whenever it suits your needs. If I were to link to a Communist site openly hostile to capitalist democracies and making outrageous claims about said capitalist democracies, you would dismiss it in a heartbeat… Certainly gives off a hint of hypocrisy there, my friend. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arab-uprisings-have-gone-too-far/572373/167 "2011-02-24T22:51:38Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Do you have any statistics to back up your assertion that democratic regimes are more murderous towards others than totalitarian or authoritarian regimes in general? I actually don’t know and would be interested to see the stats. A lot of totalitarian regimes are seemingly introspectively focused, so I suppose it’s possible. No, you misunderstand. What I meant is that while democratic regimes are about as willing to kill foreigners as authoritarian regimes, democratic regimes are much less murderous _towards their own people_ than more authoritarian ones. While authoritarian ones seems equally willing to kill their own or outsiders. Just look at the USSR and USA in the Cold War for a recent example; their domestic behavior was different as night and day, but there wasn’t much to choose from in their foreign policy in terms of brutality and ruthlessness. > [@xtisme](#): > > Regardless, you aren’t buying into the OPs assertion that Nazi Germany was a democratic regime are you? No. ---
**Author:** ![Commissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c68b51/32.png) [@Commissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Commissar)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arab-uprisings-have-gone-too-far/572373/168 "2011-02-24T22:55:30Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Regardless, you aren’t buying into the OPs assertion that Nazi Germany was a democratic regime are you? Just to clarify, I call NAZI Germany “democratic” in the sense that it arose as the direct result of representative democracy. I am not asserting that NAZI Germany allowed open elections, which would be blatantly untrue. My overall point is that NAZI Germany represents a predictable outcome of representative democracy. Popular unrest leads to a mob mentality, which is exploited by group of raving lunatics that is elected on the power of hate-mongering and ignorance alone, which results in untold human suffering and misery. In a sense, democracy is a ticking time bomb. For a while, it will sit around harmlessly. Then it will inevitably blow up in your face, and a lot of people will suffer. As a Communist, I cannot accept a system that will invariably result in human suffering; the very concept is abhorrent to me. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arab-uprisings-have-gone-too-far/572373/169 "2011-02-24T23:02:35Z")
> [@Commissar](#): > > My overall point is that NAZI Germany represents a predictable outcome of representative democracy. Popular unrest leads to a mob mentality, which is exploited by group of raving lunatics that is elected on the power of hate-mongering and ignorance alone, which results in untold human suffering and misery. Just like Communism. Or theocracy. The “one man, one vote, one time” phenomenon where a demented, tyrannical regime gets elected and ends democracy is hardly unique to Nazism. ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arab-uprisings-have-gone-too-far/572373/170 "2011-02-24T23:06:00Z")
Apparently is folloiwng the same script as the entertainment here: > [@](#): > > BBC # > 2024: The events unfolding across the Arab world are also being covered in the Cuban press, but the authorities are mainly interpreting events in relation to the communist island’s arch-enemy - the US, the BBC’s Michael Voss in Havana reports. He says that Libya is being portrayed as part of America’s plot to secure its oil. Right, American plot to secure oil. That’s just absolutely brilliant as art. ---
**Author:** ![Agnostic\_Pagan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@Agnostic\_Pagan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agnostic_Pagan)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arab-uprisings-have-gone-too-far/572373/171 "2011-02-24T23:17:03Z")
> [@Commissar](#): > > As a Communist, I cannot accept a system that will invariably result in human suffering; the very concept is abhorrent to me. 😕😕😕 My irony meter just broke. Oh dear Buddha, help me!!! ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arab-uprisings-have-gone-too-far/572373/172 "2011-02-24T23:52:52Z")
Wait. What? Cambodia under the Khmer rouge _was not_ a hell state? ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2011, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arab-uprisings-have-gone-too-far/572373/173 "2011-02-25T00:31:37Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Probably not, actually. IIRC, genetic markers which are present Arab population groups are present in the Egyptian population at rates of something like 15-25%. Now, that doesn’t mean that the Arab invaders settled in, conquered the place and exterminated its inhabitants and then the Arabs who stayed behind became Egyptians. But it certainly does point to a significant amount of genetic mixing during the centuries that Arabs were there. You are correct, of course, that the Egyptian Arab population is much more heavily descended from other populations. But they are, also, descended from Arab populations. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2011, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arab-uprisings-have-gone-too-far/572373/174 "2011-02-25T00:35:49Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Something is clear all right, and it ain’t that Gaddafi is a hero. Ditto. He is a monster. When he goes, good riddance and the sooner the better. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2011, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arab-uprisings-have-gone-too-far/572373/175 "2011-02-25T00:43:10Z")
Oh, and: > [@Monty](#): > > Insulting me outside The Pit does not assist your purported arguments. He was commenting to you but insulting me since I linked a recent report from a high ranking defector that Quadaffi had personally authorized the attack. But of course, I’ve also pointed out what Commissar’s argument has as its support, earlier in this thread. What with his whole ‘women and children were definitely not machinegunned. What, there’s massive evidence that they were? Well, what I meant to say is that we just can’t be sure and you’re totally wrong to say that they were’ thing. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2011, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arab-uprisings-have-gone-too-far/572373/176 "2011-02-25T01:04:25Z")
Thanks, **FinnAgain**. I’m still shaking my head at the assertion that the Khmer Rouge were not hellish. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2011, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arab-uprisings-have-gone-too-far/572373/177 "2011-02-25T01:07:08Z")
[QUOTE=Commissar] Your random links are interesting, but hardly illuminating. For starters, I draw your attention to the blatant editorializing found on the site you posted: [/QUOTE] They weren’t random. Did you actually click on them? They were all to the same person that Cecil cited in the Straightdope article I linked to earlier. Did you read that? > [@](#): > > “The Communist Chinese Ant Hill.” “The Depraved Nationalist Regime.” “The Khmer Rouge Hell State.” And? They seem fairly accurate to me, though a bit colorful on the language, but that’s neither here nor there. > [@](#): > > Yeah, I am entirely convinced that a source referring to nations as “hell states” will be 100% neutral and unbiased in its assertions. The Khmer Rouge WAS a hell state. Do you deny it? > [@](#): > > Moreover, these are, to put it bluntly, bizarre figures pulled out of someone’s rear. Over 60 million killed in the USSR? Really? In a nation that never even reached a population of 300 million? There is absolutely no support for the 20 million figure typically kicked around by Westerners - a number triple that is absolutely ridiculous. The figures are in dispute, no doubt. They range from the 10’s of millions to the 60 million figure. Do you have better figures? You dispute these without bothering to link to what you consider to be better. Do you dispute the fact that Stalin and Mao, over the course of their illustrious careers, killed more of their fellow citizens than anyone else in modern (_nods to Der Trihs_) history? If so, what do you base that on? What data do you bring? As for the later part of your statement, perhaps you should actually read the cites and try and follow what it’s saying. The 60 million killed weren’t killed in any one year…they were killed over a span of time. Russia’s losses just due to WWII were 8-10 MILLION military and 12-14 MILLION civilian…and that is just between 1941-45 (or possibly '39, if they are counting the war in Finland and their various occupations and other good deeds they did). [Cite.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties) So, the 60 million killed doesn’t seem that unreasonable. Do you have better numbers? Trot them out then. > [@](#): > > This is something that I have noticed about Westerners, as an aside… You will readily attack autocrats and autocratic sources, but you have absolutely no qualms about using made-up “information” whenever it suits your needs. If I were to link to a Communist site openly hostile to capitalist democracies and making outrageous claims about said capitalist democracies, you would dismiss it in a heartbeat… Certainly gives off a hint of hypocrisy there, my friend. And I’ve noticed that you like to dance about and wave your hands in the air, attempting to make correlations that anyone with even a cursory knowledge of history is going to be rolling their eyes at. As for hypocrisy, well, you would know best about that I’d say. If you wish to take up the challenge and show that democracy has been responsible for more of their own populations deaths (or even more external deaths, as Der Trihs implied) then feel free to BACK YOUR ASSERTIONS UP WITH SOME CITES. Otherwise, you are merely dancing about and waving your hands and relying on peoples ignorance of history to swim your way through. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2011, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arab-uprisings-have-gone-too-far/572373/178 "2011-02-25T01:07:16Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > IIRC, genetic markers which are present Arab population groups are present in the Egyptian population at rates of something like 15-25%. You have to be careful, though. Which is why those figures remain in such flux and dispute. Some of those common markers might be the result of neolithic movement, rather than the Arab conquests. Arabia and Egypt are essentially geographic neighbors afterall. My own y-haplotype is heavily associated with Balkan Slavic populations. However it predates them in situ by thousands of years, reaching back to the last glacial maximum in Europe. My father’s line seems to have been singularly sedentary and unadventurous, squatting in the same corner of the Dinaric Alps for 12,000 years until someone lit a fire under their ass at the opening of the 20th century ;). Wiki claims ( uncited, so take with a heaping tablespoon of salt ) that: _Egypt has experienced several invasions during its history. However, these do not seem to account for more than about 10% overall of current Egyptians ancestry when the DNA evidence of the ancient mitochondrial DNA and modern Y chromosomes is considered._ That’s would be cumulative from all invasions, including the Greeks and Romans. That there is some Arabian ancestry in Egypt is certain. But we do know that a) Egypt did not see significant Arab settlement in the early conquest period and b) that it has been relatively heavily populated since the stone age. Given that I wouldn’t expect the proportion of Arabian ancestry to be very high in modern Egypt. Of course we are all mutts at one level or another. It’s not that modern Egyptians are essentially identical to ancient Egyptians ( who would have been mutts as well ), just that the modern Egyptian population, like most populations in settled Eurasia, is not _substantially_ descended from “recent” migrants. > [@](#): > > You are correct, of course, that the Egyptian Arab population is much more heavily descended from other populations. But they are, also, descended from Arab populations. I thought you were implying something a bit more in your earlier post. Sorry for the misunderstanding. But you were still wrong about Cairo ;). ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2011, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arab-uprisings-have-gone-too-far/572373/179 "2011-02-25T01:13:52Z")
Regardless of genetics, the overwhelming majority of Egyptians view themselves as Arabs. In fact, the overwhelming majority of North African “Arabs” are descendants of Arabicized Berbers but considering the fact that until the late 19th Century few people thought of themselves as Arabs it’s silly to argue they aren’t. By such standards there are few, if any, Greeks in Greece. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2011, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arab-uprisings-have-gone-too-far/572373/180 "2011-02-25T01:16:46Z")
With respect to the science, I think looking to the _percentages_ of Arabic genetic ancestry is missing the point. There _is_ Arabic ancestry. The people largely _identify_ as Arabs (though often not only so)… and that’s it. All ethnicities are genetic mixtures; it’s the cultural and self identification that’s most important. There are black Americans whose percentage of identifiable European genetic ancestry is greater than their African. They are still identified as “black” in our culture, they think of themselves as black, and if you were to dispute it, you’d be both a jerk and wrong. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arab-uprisings-have-gone-too-far/572373.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arab-uprisings-have-gone-too-far/572373.md?page=10)