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Lessons in democracy

Russian Elections have led to the biggest protests seen in years in Moscow. The BBC is on the case, sure that democracy thing has not worked too well in Russia. Mind you it is not going that well in Greece or Italy right now either.

And DPF evokes the Arab spring in his post on the matter - I'm not entirely sure the outcome of that is all that positive.

I was reminded of the time George Bush gave Vladimir Putin a lecture on the workings of Democracy

In any case the protesters in Moscow did their thing and may do it some more, perhaps not always entirely sure what it is they seek.

One summed up his reason for protesting thus
I didn't vote for those bastards, I voted for some other bastards
And those are sentiments that many living in democracies whose functionality perhaps lies in they eye of the beholder can relate to.

Comments

  1. I think Democracy only ever worked because of the culture of the West in general and the Anglosphere in particular. Hard work, faith in god, respect for your fellow man and a strong sense of honour. And since the post-modernist assault on these values began, we've been focusing on those aspects of democracy that don't require hard work: voting, freedom of speech and freedom of association. And we are genuinely surprised when we force another society to implement these things, and nothing substantial changes.

    Across the whole third world, bribes are the real currency of Government officials. How can one ever hope to progress in such a society?

    More and more I believe there must come structural changes to the franchise, that discourage free-loading values.

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  2. Si I went to a meet the candidates meeting Moneo.

    There were eight, nine shiny eyed individuals there all eager to make their case and answer questions from the floor.

    But the fix was in - there were two of their number on their way to Wellington, the others were window dressing, and everyone in the room knew it - we were all going through the motions of democracy but the outcome was certain.

    Hey ho

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  3. It struck me that these protests bore a remarkable similarity to the Tea Party...

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