polite_gandalf wrote on Dec 7^th, 2014 at 8:55am:


polite_gandalf wrote on Dec 5^th, 2014 at 9:31am:

polite_gandalf wrote on Dec 5^th, 2014 at 9:31am:


The west has brought freedom and democracy to plenty of places, including countries that are not dominated by Europeans or Christians. We did not "seek out" a third world to take advantage of. Prior to Europe's rise, the third world was the first world and Europe was the backwater. Nor was freedom and democracy and human rights a reward for the nations that helped to "create it". It was a reward for those countries that managed to gain and hold on to freedom and democracy, and they became the first world, not by exploiting the third world, but because they maintained that freedom and democracy. The modern first world is not a conscious creation, but a collection of countries that came out on top.

To a large extent, our 'success' in bringing freedom and democracy beyond Europe depended on the extent to which the local people already granted each other freedom. The most brutal post-colonial regimes tend to be in places where the most brutal pre-colonial regimes existed, and the most free tend to be in places where the pre-colonial societies were most free.

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Not out of goodwill, but out of incompetence, an incompetence that you frequenctly use to defend them. BTW, who was it that actually did all the genociding in the Congo?

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So we are even more greedy and brutal and uncivilised?

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Being able to pick counter-examples to a trend does not disprove the trend. In fact, some of the examples you cite actually support my argument, and you efforts to characterise the outcome of centuries of history by a single event just prove how choosy you are with the evidence.

Tell me Gandalf, have you ever asked yourself why some countries remain free despite herculean efforts to destroy and oppress them, while others appear to become oppressive overnight because some foreign country intervenes, and still others seem intent on discarding any freedom and democracy they are given no matter how much outside help they get?

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I am not ignoring them. As I pointed out, some of them even back up my argument, if you abandon this naive strategy of trying to characterise several centuries of history by a single event.

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Actually I was referring to one of the overthrows you mentioned. But I also think that stopping the spread of communism has done more good than harm to the world. Not that I would call it a single event.

Just as you insist we cannot hold a single election in Iraq and walk away claiming to have established a functioning democracy, overthrowing a South American government does not mean the US turned a society that had fully embraced freedom and democracy into a dictatorship. The South American basket cases are that way because of a long history of oppression and an exclusiveness that has been built into the society from the ground up. This history started before Europeans turned up. When the Spanish arrived, they did not seek, as you imply, to destroy civilisation, nor did they achieve this. They sought to put them selves on top of existing civilisations, and that was easiest to do in the ones that were already built on oppression. The diseases they brought with them did not destroy the social institutions that already existed, and those ancient institutions (I use the term broadly) are still having an effect today.

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Quote me. Having an election is not the same as embracing freedom and democracy. had they actually embraced it, external interference would not have changed that and they would be emerging economies. South Africa and Botswana are good examples of this.

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I didn't say it was. What I said was that it had a big influence on how they ended up. I did not claim this was somehow orchestrated out of a sense of fairness on the part of all-powerful European Empires. Old habits die hard.

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The same thing that made them prone to soviet influence also made them prone to western and all other sorts of influence. A desperate dictator (even an elected one) will prostitute himself out to anyone to maintain his grip on power.

freediver wrote on Dec 7^th, 2014 at 4:08pm:


Laughable. The Incas and the Aztec civilizations ended because of the arrival of the Spanish. The Aztecs were near the peak of their power at the time the Spanish arrived. Nor was it unintentional: the Spanish raped and pillaged their way across society, destroying the people's livelihood, and converting much of the population into a forced labor force to enable Spanish pillaging of their resources. In the case of the Incas, this was the first they ever saw of enslavement. This really has to be the most breathtaking case of spineless apologism for one of the worst atrocities the world has ever seen.

freediver wrote on Dec 7^th, 2014 at 4:08pm:


When it wipes out up to 80% of the population - yes it does.

freediver wrote on Dec 7^th, 2014 at 4:08pm:


The key word I used was perceived. More often than not the regimes in question were just as averse to falling under Soviet influence as they were to falling under western influence. I don't think there is much evidence that Chile under Allende or Nicuragua under the Sandistas were in danger of "falling" to Soviet control - but they certainly were in danger of breaking free of the US sphere of influence, and pursuing their own economic and political development. This is what the US found unacceptable, not socialism per se. And South and Central America is the best case study to demonstrate that pursuing independent economic development that the US vehemently opposed - and regularly opposed with violence - was frequently an expression of genuine democracy.

freediver wrote on Dec 8^th, 2014 at 12:29pm:


It does if you intend to import African slave labour - which is what the British did in North and Central America.

Or Indian indentured workers and Chinese coolies - South East Asia.

Or convict labour - Australia.

Are you really suggesting the Spanish did not destroy the Aztec and Incan empires? You'd have to be the first.

The Spanish were not originally there for settlement. They were there to find gold.