| Tyrone Slothrop |
07-15-2005 04:07 PM |
Quote:
Originally posted by Spanky
They author is an idiot because he says that Yemenis don't want or don't need democracy. Who is he to say what they want. Until he conducts a poll that sort of statement makes him an idiot.
I believe that the United States should encourage human rights through out the world.
I believe democracy is a basic human right.
Do you agree with the above statements?
Do you not think that that article was arguing against both those points?
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The author said Yemenis don't want democracy, and note that Sullivan disagreed in part, pointing to the Iraqis who voted last January. For the umpteenth time, no one -- no one -- said that Yemenis don't "need" democracy. This is your own little canard.
The author -- who may be a woman, I don't know -- lives in Yemen right now, and that qualifies him or her to describe what he or she sees there. Many people have offered astute political commentary without taking opinion polls. Indeed, I suspect that if you ask Yemenis whether they "want democracy," they would say yes, and yet they might generally act in ways that reflects other priorities.
You are not paying attention to what I am writing, so I will say it again. I believe that democracy is a human right -- grammatically poorly put, but a shorthand I think we both understand -- and that the United States should promote human rights around the world. I do not think Sullivan or the author of that e-mail to him -- it wasn't an article, it was an e-mail to a blog, so you should consider that it was perhaps more anecdotal than the sort piece that might be based on opinion polling -- indeed I suspect you have formed opinions about, say, California politics and what Californians want, in the past without taking a poll, and might even have posted on a chat board or sent a friend an e-mail about them -- what was I saying? -- neither Sullivan nor his correspondent disagrees with me on those points.
I think the fear is that the U.S. policy is not helping us reach those goals. We used to be a beacon for Yemenis -- they envied us -- and now they increasingly hate us.
And perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that this is happening, given the number of conservatives on this board who advocate nuking Mecca, etc. |
