With King Morsi-Tut to vote for!
Almost two years after Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak was removed from power, Cairo’s Tahrir Square is still an epicenter of protest and violence. It’s an epicenter of protest and violence because Egypt is again ruled by a man who has declared himself dictator. The country’s new president, Mohammad Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, announced that “constitutional declarations, decisions and laws issued by the president are final and not subject to appeal.”
He’s already being called the new Pharaoh. It makes no difference that he was elected. Democracy isn’t just about getting elected. A democratic election is not a one-time plebiscite on who the next tyrant is going to be. Democracy requires individual and minority rights and the separation of powers. Winners cannot oppress losers, nor do losers get to wage war on the winners.
On the other hand, the pharaohs were able to get Egyptians to show up for work, which is more than any modern government has managed to do.
Could be that slaves don’t have a choice.
Wow. Who could have predicted this? Our Prime Minister.
On September 25th, 2007, Harper spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations, and fielded a question from the late Ted Sorensen about what the world could learn from Canada’s experience. Harper said,
“I think that there’s, first of all, a lesson that comes from all democratic societies, and that is that the process of democratic government is not about final victory. It is a process. And it’s about not just the legitimacy of this year’s election, but the legitimacy of the next one as well, where the same people will air many of the same issues over again and may get a different verdict.
One of the problems in pre-democratic or non-democratic societies is that the political culture of leaders of all factions is aimed at total and complete domination forever. And you don’t just win an election; you then figure out how you’re going to wipe out your opposition for good, through any means necessary. And I’m concerned about this. I’m concerned that as Western nations, we don’t fully understand this.
And you know, I think we often rush into certain types of democratic processes in non-democratic societies where the outcome will not be a free and democratic society. The outcome will be the majority outvoting the minority or some group, and Im — if I can speak bluntly, thinking of Hamas and Hezbollah, who see the vote as only one of a number of tools to pursue their political objective, not as a commitment to the democratic process inherently.
So I think, all countries — all of us as Western countries need to think carefully about how we project and what we understand about our democratic values and how we project those abroad, so that as we promote democracy, we get democracy, not something else.
In terms of Canada, I think Canada’s unique experience is the reasonable — it’s not problem-free, but the reasonable accommodation of major cultural and linguistic differences in the country.”
“One of the problems in pre-democratic or non-democratic societies is that the political culture of leaders of all factions is aimed at total and complete domination forever.”
I disagree that the final and permanent condition of a Country is democracy. As in our own “natural governing Party”,who if given the opportunity would rule forever. I doubt any other Party would be different. Societies evolve,we’re in a state of slow conversion to …what?
We’re trying to promote democracy to people around the world who just don’t understand the concept,and frankly, half our own population don’t either and crave a government that is Nanny,Mom and Dad, with cradle to grave security.
Egypt will probably be under the rule of the latest “strongman” to emerge from the ongoing conflict only until the next one unseats him and carries on the tradition. Why is it not considered possible that a middle class can develop under a dictator,is it just past experience?
The West developed into a democratic form of government,but Western political operatives have been trying to subvert that for the last fifty years. Lately,they’ve been a lot more successful.
In the Muslim world,the mindset of the masses is stuck in the 7th century, held there by a religion that hasn’t evolved. There seems to be no Muslim philosophers to lead intellectually,a Voltaire, Rousseau,Mill,etc., just a bunch of Imams content with the status quo.
Democracy is held up to be this shining utopian ideal to which we’re all supposed to genuflect,but with some cultures,maybe it just isn’t the best system.
I object to the Media Party’s hijacking the term ‘pharaoh’. That applies to the rulers of Egypt when it was a civilized part of the Greek world before it was overrun by a pack of savages storming out of the desert to loot and plunder. The Copts are the remains of that world and the savages are attempting now to finish them off. Maybe the term ‘caliph’ would be more appropriate.
Looks like Arab spring has sprung – right up their buttholes.
In stark reality though there is little difference in what Morsi is doing and what Bush and Obama have done in making the presidency an uber-office above constitutional, supreme court and congressional constraint.
At least Morsi hasn’t signed proclamations saying he can summarily kill any citizen he wants without trial, or that the Military can be used in domestic policing (NDAA), neither does he sign agreements with the UN in secret handing over control of the domestic internet to ITU – like the the last two POTUS have.
But hey, it’s “different” when they do it eh?
Looks like Arab spring has sprung – right up their buttholes.
In stark reality though there is little difference in what Morsi is doing and what Bush and Obama have done in making the presidency an uber-office above constitutional, supreme court and congressional constraint.
At least Morsi hasn’t signed proclamations saying he can summarily kill any citizen he wants without trial, or that the Military can be used in domestic policing (NDAA), neither does he sign agreements with the UN in secret handing over control of the domestic internet to ITU – like the the last two POTUS have.
But hey, it’s “different” when they do it eh?
One man, one vote, one time.
Poor Occam: If you can’t see the difference between North American government and Egyptian government, you should take a long vacation on the Nile.
At least the slaves had enough food to eat.
Watch out for the foreign crisis to take people’s minds off the domestic crisis in Egypt.
http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2012/11/06/egypt-food-crisis-update/
The pyramids weren’t built by slaves. And at 4,600 years old, they remain the most recent of Egyptian “world class” accomplishments.
Democracy isn’t just about protecting individual and minority rights, though that is an aspect, because democracy is a political mode that rests power in the people.
The people develop a constitution and make rules within their own legislature. They are elected to this legislature and it makes the rules. Elections are for limited terms. These are key criteria for an operating democracy.
dmorris, you ask: Can a middle class develop within a dictatorship? Yes, it can, understanding the definition of a middle class as a set of people who operate, economically, within the private small business aspect of the economy.
BUT, eventually, this middle class must assume political control; that’s what politics is all about. It gives legislative power to that sector of the population who produce the greatest wealth for the nation.
Once that private capitalist small business class, the middle class, reaches a critical threshold in the economy, it MUST assume political power.
I agree that the socialists try to subvert the conservative agenda, and as we’ve seen in the recent attack on Rob Ford, mayor of Toronto, the left has thrown out, via a judge and an irrelevant statute, a duly elected leader. The people have to resist this attack on democracy.
Occam, Morsi doesn’t have to sign any proclamations that enable him to behave as does Obama. As a dictator, above the law, he just does whatever he wants.
Understanding the meaning of democracy doesn’t mean that then, and then only, will you develop and live in one! Democracy has nothing to do with understanding it…such analyses come after it has developed. Democracy is merely the action of empowering that set of the population responsible for the wealth of the nation.
I have had discussions with a few people who have worked the diplomatic circuit in the Middle East – guys have considerable respect for – who think that the islamization struggle in egypt may be where the radicals get turned back. Unlike any other country in the ME Egypt has a massive population and is oil resource poor. The wahabist (sp) radicals in Saudi and the shiites in iran don’t have enough money to pay for all the food that the starving egyptians will need once their economy, such as it is, collapses under fundamentalist rule.
Egypt has been more westernized than almost any other ME country and there is a bit of a TECH industry etc. So their is some logic in the argument that it is the one muslim country that could throw back the fundamentalists.
That’s their theory, not necessarily, mine. What does seem clear is that the Western world is going to stand to the side and let this struggle play itself out. Though I do wish that we would act to prevent Iraqi and wahabist meddling.
I think Morsi greatly overreached. He and the MB are in a bit a trouble now.
Hey Pok – maybe you should get out more – say goe through a YS airport and take offence to the several violations of individual and constitutional rights – no different than an arbitrary pat down in some Muzzie backwater.
– and if you can’t see the similarities in tyranny throught ALL governments in all ages, our species is doomed to eternal servitude to slick poitical tyrants. – give your head a shake, America’s constitutional republic is largely gone. The last 3 administrations have indulged in unilateral war declaration and signed much of the power of congress over to the executive office as well as systemically suspended much of the bill of rights where the police state is concerned. Read the NDAA with some lucidness and critical reason – it has destroyed the old US.
Democracy rests on the public being informed enough to decide whom to choose in an election. I would argue the recent election in the US fails this test. The morons that voted for barry because he’s cool and gives us stuff, shouldn’t be allowed to vote. In Egypt, they voted for what they thought was a brighter future than they could have with Murbarak, but were lied to by Morsi and now are saddled with the “mainly secular” , to quote James Clapper, and their future is shariah law. And the pyramids? The hard line Islamists want to tear them down the way the Taliban did to the statues of Buddha in Afghanistan. Imagine what they would do in the Louvre?
Democracy rests on the public being informed enough to decide whom to choose in an election. I would argue the recent election in the US fails this test.
~Rick
Yes.
We are witnessing the end of democracy, it’s being killed by the low information voter and low voter turnout.
BUT, eventually, this middle class must assume political control; that’s what politics is all about. It gives legislative power to that sector of the population who produce the greatest wealth for the nation.
Once that private capitalist small business class, the middle class, reaches a critical threshold in the economy, it MUST assume political power.
Rubbish.
This can only be true if the voting franchise is exclusively for the class of people who are the net producers.
No mechanism exists to bring these net producers to power if they are not empowered above the rest of a nation.
OZ:
I must sadly agree.
With the gold coin standard only a small percentage of depositors who were displeased with fiscal/monetary policy could remove their coins from the bank vaults and thereby force a change of policy (a reduction in an inflated money supply). This was a kind of voting no longer existant anywhere in the world.
This can only be true if the voting franchise is exclusively for the class of people who are the net producers.
BINGO!
But that would be UNFAIR, eh?
Denationalize money! (my money crank version of the beauty pageant candidate expressing a wish for world peace).
Oz,to add to to your comments,democracy requires effort, keeping informed, and vigilance,because every politician will overstep his mandate if left in Office long enough.
I believe that’s why so many young people today prefer the siren call of socialism,they can sit on their asses figuratively and literally,and someone else will do all the thinnin’ for them.
As long as they’re comfortable,they’ll see all their freedoms removed without a whimper.
Guess I’m getting cynical in my old age,but seeing the destruction of a great Country like the USA by communists and their sheep doesn’t give me much hope.
In this small venue,Canada, we can do better, but we have to be on guard.
oz, the middle class, the sector of the population who produce the most wealth, are therefore by definition, the MAJORITY of the population.
Democracy empowers this majority.
Now, tribalism also empowers that sector of the population who produce the most wealth. In the 17th century, it was the hereditary landowners. There simply weren’t enough small businesses, producing enough wealth, to move to democracy.
In the MENA, it’s tribalism and the ones in control are the hereditary rulers who control the oil production. There aren’t enough small businesses for democracy.
BUT, in the MENA, the problem is that the old economic method of state control of a basic resource isn’t capable of supporting the population. They have to move to a small business economy. This will grow a middle class. And they must control the political institutions, which means, democracy will develop.
And no, you can’t, as tribalism has done, confine voting privileges to the net producers. Voting rights used to be confined to landowners. Remember? And to men. Remember?
But the nature of a middle class is that its capital is not land or oil. It’s ability to make things happen; therefore, anyone can move into the middle class. So, you can’t confine voting privileges to a set amount of capital ownership.
The separation of church and state has never had much currency in the world. Many Muslims say they yearn for a new Caliph, a new Deputy of God who will be both religious chief and head of the civil government. In those parts of the world, of course, the Eastern Roman Empire did not unite the roles but the Emperor and the Patriarch worked closely together. It has been said that the central political thought of Byzantium was the unity of church and state.
As for the Pharaohs, they were religious chiefs and secular chiefs simultaneously, and as godlets themselves were even higher than the much later Caliphs. So this well may be what Morsi is aspiring to – not poor doomed Tut-ankh-Amon though, but perhaps Senusret III of the Middle Kingdom.
oz, the middle class, the sector of the population who produce the most wealth, are therefore by definition, the MAJORITY of the population.
~et
By your definition, yes.
The middle class may be in the middle, but to say they are the majority by virtue of being in the middle and producing the most wealth doesn’t neccesarily follow.
Democracy may or may not empower this middle class, especially if the Army/Police* officers are drawn from the upper class and the soldiers/police are drawn from the lower class.
If the society has no real opportunity for upward mobility than democracy does not MUST(as you like to say) appear or even MUST assume political control if it does already exist.
Your talking points are like those of a Prog.
A) we’re here
>B) magic just because “MUST”
C) we want to arrive here
At point “B)” you have no mechanism except to have your own private definition of middle class and assume that some fair democratic process that won’t be cheated already exists.
*(in many nations, even European nations, the police are a branch of the Arm. In Canada a large percentage of police are ex-CAF)
Oz, you don’t understand what I mean by ‘middle class’. These are socioeconomic terms not terms of linear measurement. The definition is not my ‘private definition’ but is basic in analyses of societies.
The definition of someone in the socioeconomic middle class is they can achieve and own, by their own efforts (not inherited) economic capital.
It doesn’t mean people ‘in the middle of a linear scale’ viewed as midpoint between the lower and upper ends of the scale. It refers to a particular macrogroup of people engaged in a mode of economic activity, self-organized and owning capital.
Economically, the middle class consists of those people who are engaged in private small businesses. When this group reaches a critical threshold in size in a society, ie, when they are the most numerous in the economy, then, the political infrastructure must empower them. The way to do this is democracy.
The amount of capital that a firm, usually in financial services, needs to ensure that the company stays solvent. Economic capital is calculated internally and is the amount of capital the firm should have to support any risks it takes on.
http://tinyurl.com/cs87lsl
Well then by your definition, since the average Canadian household holds at this time 160% debt it’s safe to assume Canada has no majority middle class, unless ‘middle class’ means something different than the definition of ‘economic capital’ would suggest.
Sorry, ET, your private definition of ‘middle class’ is a FAIL.
It’s still not clear to me who is demonstrating or why.
In the same breath, we are told that the demos are against Masri and that the US embassy is attacked. It could be that the democracy-loving Arab street is plssed-off with the apparent US support of this dictatorial takeover, but it could be something else.
Does anyone have better info than I get from Reuters and CNN?
(the other) James
Its why I call Harper the Fox.
Oz – google the term. My definition of ‘middle class’ is not private but a basic definition.
“The chief defining characteristic of membership in the middle class is possession of significant human capital.” That is, the individual can, on his own, not via heredity, acquire and invest capital. This person is ‘middle class’.
Your mention of national not personal debt, considered by you to be privately owned by the individual, is a red herring.
My definition stands. What this ownership of capital, ie, the ability to invest in production, means is that the individual is free to function in the market place, to produce goods and services and is not dependent on redistribution from the Ruler who alone has access to capital.
No mechanism exists to bring these net producers to power if they are not empowered above the rest of a nation.
Posted by: Oz at 1:38 PM
Please indulge me trotting out my hobby horse.
Neutralize the Idiot Vote through….Proportional Representation™!
Fix the basic flaw in our current version of democracy with these three easy steps;
1. Suck oxygen = one vote
2. Suck O2 AND pay property tax = two votes
3. Suck O2, AND pay property AND income tax = three votes.
Presto, balance restored between the demand for consumption, and the carrying capacity of production.
Rick @ 1:17 p.m.: “And the pyramids? The hard line Islamists want to tear them down the way the Taliban did to the statues of Buddha in Afghanistan. Imagine what they would do in the Louvre?”
Good point. More and more, the Taliban and the Islamists resemble the Khmer Rouge, wanting to wipe the slate clean and slaughter as many innocents as they deem necessary in the process.
People used to call that kind of unrelenting violence “criminally insane”.
The Egyptian people don’t have a hope.