Damn it. My numbers in my previous post are fucked. Well, I usually know how to count, so excuse the, 1., 2., 2., 3 numbering. 
sorry 
Wrong thread. mods, okay to delete? sheepish
No, I’m not arguing with your links. I just wanted to establish if I understood you correctly. When I asked “Are you similarly in favour of getting rid of all the people of European ancestry in those countries [US, Canada, Australia]?” and you answered “No more in favor than Sarkozy is in favor of kicking out the gypsies and banning burkas; or more than Europe is in favor of kicking out the evil Muslims,” your answer meant in effect “Yes”?
How do you define “foreigner” in such a way that it doesn’t include, well, most of the world’s population? Need I point out that the Bantu-speaking peoples who make up 80% of South Africa’s population are themselves descended from conquerors who settled South Africa during the first millennium AD?
I also object to your use of the word “foreigner” in that it surely implies having some connection to a foreign country. Afrikaners, in general, have no social or legal or cultural connection to the Netherlands, except that it’s where their ancestors came from. (This is admittedly less true of Anglo-South Africans.) (I also object to the word on a personal, emotional level, but I’m trying not to draw that in here.)
What I really don’t understand is that you seem to be saying that Africa trying to get rid of “foreigners” is good, but Europe trying to get rid of “foreigners” is bad. My position is that it’s wrong either way, which seems more consistent.
I tried to acknowledge this in my post; but does it actually affect the validity of the argument? Basically it’s an ad hominem. I’m not arguing that colonisation and apartheid was OK; but I am saying that at some point you have to accept the status quo and do what you can to redress the situation within that.
So this is my problem: I don’t really know what you’re actually proposing. What do you actually think South Africa should be doing?
Re CitizenPained:
I don’t really understand the way you’re using the word “legitimate”. I mean, the ANC won 65% of the vote in a free and fair election - and the 2009 election had a turnout of nearly 80% of registered voters. (The number of votes cast does amount to slightly less than half the population of South Africa; but then about 40% of the population is below the voting age of 18.) I don’t think the ANC is running the government well, in general, but not every bad government is an illegitimate government. But this is really pointless semantic bickering.
You wrote quite a bit about checks and balances, and the ability of the government to take away the liberties of the citizen. But you seem to be unaware of the extent to which checks and balances are present in South Africa’s system of government. Although South Africa is a parliamentary system, it does not have the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy; the actions of Parliament and the administration are subject to the Constitution, including an extensive Bill of Rights. The courts, and the Constitutional Court in particular, have been quite active in defending human rights, and willing to overturn actions of the government. A recent example would be Glenister v President of the Republic, in which the court overturned the government’s political decision to merge an independent anti-corruption unit into the police. That was not about individual rights per se, but for an example of that once could look at the gay marriage decision (Fourie v Minister of Home Affairs), which MrDibble mentioned above.
You also questioned the willingness of the ANC to hand over power should it lose an election. All the evidence we have - the Cape Town municipal election in 2006, the Western Cape provincial election in 2009 - suggests that they will.
Let’s refer to your quote:
South Africa has such protections, as I have mentioned above.
Yup.
Yes, yes, and yes.
This is more subjective, but I’d say South Africa has this too.
Incidentally, to answer your question about parliamentary systems with merged head-of-government and head-of-state, if my information is correct the other countries that have this system are: Botswana, the Marshall Islands, and Nauru. Also Switzerland, sort of, in that the Federal Council collectively is head of state and of government.
No game; your misuse of the same terms is relation enough.
In going over your posts I’ve discovered that you haven’t yet used the term “failed state.” You referred to South Africa, the ANC, polices/laws, etc as failures, failing (or have failed). However I can’t find a quote with you using the exact term “failed state;” maybe it was implied, but not wrote. I stand on the point, but should’ve gotten a better quote.
Not at all. Your quote of my citation doesn’t serve an example of you proving anything, nor does the listing of South Africa (along with half the globe) as “warning” prove that it is a failed state.
[QUOTE=CitizenPained]
2. On party monopoly of government:
But will it become a literal one party state? What did I say? I expressed concern about the ANC’s legislative agenda. I said in the idea that, as in, ‘when you look at it this way’. I could’ve just called it an oligarchy. Sorry. But I did clarify my statement. More than a few times.
Want to put democracy to the test? Let’s see if the ANC will cede any power. 
[/QUOTE]
South Africa is not an oligarchy at all. The supreme power is vested in the people. You are simply using these words incorrectly. I have yet to decide if it is willful or ignorance.
Good job, I see you have corrected yourself. Dominant-party system is the correct term to use for South Africa, not single-party system. There is no problem with using that term.
The world does not have a hard time viewing the ANC as legitimate. South Africa is a democracy and the ANC’s legitimacy comes directly from winning free and open elections regularly held in that country. There is no confusion as to whether the ANC led government currently speaks for the South African people. They do. This was not the case with either Rhodesia or (currently) Libya
Please learn the definitions of those words you use; I don’t think you are purposely doing this. It’s simply ignorance. “Tyranny of the majority” (often termed Ochlocracy) is opposite of “Tyranny of the minority” (oligarchy). Do not use a mix of these terms to describe South Africa. 1. They’re all incorrect. 2. It’s simply confusing.
Thanks, but I’d rather not play Alice.
I don’t understand you. I never said South Africa is a failed state. I may argue for ogliarchy, though.
Tyranny of the majority? I said it could happen — just like tyranny by the majority is happening now.
You can say, “It’s a democracy!” all you want, but that doesn’t mean state policies aren’t racist or elitist or corrupt.
shrug
I see you have had nothing to say on the proposed bills by ANC. 
You can fight over semantics all you want with ‘neener neener’ and ‘not uhhhh’ but that doesn’t mean anything. Show cites. Make a case. At least I’ve done that. But the pro ANC-ers in this thread? Nah.
You want to support a racist and corrupt government, be my guest.
Right. Okay. So, one party has the majority of the state’s wealth (and that includes their party operatives.)
They advocate violence against whites.
They have racist policies.
They have yet to fix things, so they keep blaming it one white people.
Anyway, can you get me some cites on what other governments have a government like South Africa’s? I’ve never heard…but again…I’d like to see how they run it.
…and I demolished that argument with concrete numbers that you didn’t actually adequately respond to.
South Africa is a successful democracy just as much, if not more so, than the US or any other democracy you care to mention.
“Going on” is right.
Our system is even better. We have reps from more than just two parties in parliament, for instance. Could you say the same?
And call me when gays have the same rights as straights, nationally. Then you can tell me about who is getting squashed.
In South Africa? You have numbers on that?
or are you referring to all those Black farmers who were driven off their land? Because they didn’t get any money AFAIK.
“Blame it on some whites”, sure. That’s not the same thing as your hyperbole.
Yes. Definitely several legacies of Apartheid there. South Africa is measurably better-off economically than it was at the end of Apartheid, and things had been going downhill for a while there, at the end.
No-one in this country has seen no change. No-one!
For one thing, they can vote now. For another, they can live where they want.
100% of the people, not 9%
Sources for what? I can back up anything you care to question.
You could emigrate here, and then vote against them. That’s kind of how *we *do it. You know, in a democracy. I’m afraid we leave the regime change to…other countries nowadays.
The ANC doesn’t make a habit of “terrorizing” anyone, actually. Sure, Malema has some rhetoric, but really - he’s hardly “the ANC”, he isn’t even in elective office.
Ever heard of the tyranny of the majority? Democracy!
Liberty and democracy are not synonyms. White farmers used to have the “liberty” to have entire productive swathes of the country declared white-only. That wasn’t democracy, though.
Ummm, are you aware how insane you sound in this little paragraph?
Anyway, as I’ve already said, I don’t support the ANC, and I encourage people to vote for other parties. Because that’s how we democracies roll.
Interesting factoid: the White ethnicity is currently thefastest-growing one in South Africa.
Tcha - the same rating as Brazil, a better rating than India or China, Mexico or Turkey. Hell, the only countries that make it to “sustainable” on the failed states index are Canada, Australia and a bunch of Euro-states like Denmark and Norway and Finland.
You do realise that the FSI is a risk indicator, not a descriptive classification of current status, right? I mean, the USA is at “moderate” risk there too.
Prove it. Prove they didn’t take over simply by outcompeting for resources (which is not the same thing as conquest).
Noooo! Never! :rolleyes: You just the word “failed” in relation to it several times, then pointed at its staus in the FSI with a knowing wink.
Let me ask you a question: have you ever been to South Africa?
I agree that there’s a very clear qualitative difference between a slow progressive migration down the continent over the course of centuries, and a sudden settlement carried by sea from another continent. I would call them both conquests, though of different type. But it’s really a semantic issue, and I certainly wouldn’t ascribe to them the same moral status or acceptability.
That’s because economic sanctions were lifted.
This happens all over. Minorities are always trying to breed themselves into a position of power. 
Economic sanctions only really kicked in from mid-eighties. The Apartheid economy was going down before that. From at least 1980, more likely from the '76 uprisings.
Not that that’s relevant, as the economic sanctions were as a result of that government’s policies, so definitely counts.
Look, as I understand it, there are really only three things wrong with South Africa today: AIDS, poverty, and crime. The crime problem stems partly from the old police forces having been disbanded after Apartheid was abolished, so it took time to train up new forces; but mainly from post-Apartheid SA having become such an attractive destination for immigrants, many of them dodgy, from all over southern Africa. (Because SA is a poor country by Western standards but a rich one by African standards.)
Is there a fourth?
And what does any of this have to do with Zimbabwe?
Is this a serious question?:dubious:
Only after a fairly long period of decline proportionally and possibly even numerically. A similar trend it should be noted was seen in Russia’s population.