There are two essential parts to any democratic system and those are that
(a) The people can vote for whomever they want (within some limitations on parties advocating violence against other citizens), and
(b) People who exercise their vote, do so with the knowledge that they are responsible for the end results.
Tunisia is the first of the "Arab Spring" countries to vote for a new government and has just voted for the Islamist party 'Ennahda' as the biggest party in its constitutional assembly, how this turns out will become clear in the coming months. It may be a mistake that just leads to Sharia law and an Iranian style regime.
The people of Gaza voted for Hamas, and then complained that because they had democratically elected an terrorist organisation as its government, then the rest of the world should accept that this legitimised them and their policies .... wrong.
If Hitler, or Stalin were 'democratically' voted into office today, would this mean that we should all accept that the 'holocaust', or 'the Purges' were legitimate policy goals, or treat them as pariah states? Well most Hamas supporters believe in much the same policies towards the Jews as Hitler (who is popular in the Muslim world) ....
As discussed earlier, having a democracy make you responsible for the standard of the government you have voted to represent you. The Tunisians are responsible for what they may end up getting by dabbling with Islamic politics, and the people of the Gaza strip have to live with the results of voting for a terrorist group as their government.
Too many of the deluded apologists for these nasty little regimes in the West forget this second responsibility when they bleat on about the democratically elected groups of the Middle East, and it might be better if responsible democracy rather than oil supplies governed US and Western policies in the Middle East.
(a) The people can vote for whomever they want (within some limitations on parties advocating violence against other citizens), and
(b) People who exercise their vote, do so with the knowledge that they are responsible for the end results.
Tunisia is the first of the "Arab Spring" countries to vote for a new government and has just voted for the Islamist party 'Ennahda' as the biggest party in its constitutional assembly, how this turns out will become clear in the coming months. It may be a mistake that just leads to Sharia law and an Iranian style regime.
The people of Gaza voted for Hamas, and then complained that because they had democratically elected an terrorist organisation as its government, then the rest of the world should accept that this legitimised them and their policies .... wrong.
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| Voting For These, Is Hard For Democracies To Digest |
If Hitler, or Stalin were 'democratically' voted into office today, would this mean that we should all accept that the 'holocaust', or 'the Purges' were legitimate policy goals, or treat them as pariah states? Well most Hamas supporters believe in much the same policies towards the Jews as Hitler (who is popular in the Muslim world) ....
As discussed earlier, having a democracy make you responsible for the standard of the government you have voted to represent you. The Tunisians are responsible for what they may end up getting by dabbling with Islamic politics, and the people of the Gaza strip have to live with the results of voting for a terrorist group as their government.
Too many of the deluded apologists for these nasty little regimes in the West forget this second responsibility when they bleat on about the democratically elected groups of the Middle East, and it might be better if responsible democracy rather than oil supplies governed US and Western policies in the Middle East.
