Which is preferable? A peaceful dictator or a warlike Democracy?

You are absolutely right...for a change

 

That's like asking me if I'd rather shoot myself in the head with a .50 desert eagle or a .44 magnum

 

I really do love the conspiracy theories of the loony Right that Obama or some other 'Leftist' President will somehow successfully suspend the Constitution without provoking a response from either Congress, the justice system or a generally right-wing military. The Left doesn't have an army of Brown Shirts (as a matter of fact, virtually all the heavily armed civilians are right-wingers) so such fears are completely baseless.

Democracy in America is undermined by much more subtle methods than an overt political coup of the sort deanberryministries suggest is going to happen. I guess this is a case of simple terrors for simple minds.

 

It is undermined in the most simple way possible. Give everyone in America with an IQ of 100 or less or any other factor that prevents them from properly competing in a technologically advanced society a government subsidy of some kind, or make them dependent on the Government for their job.

Then the people will gladly vote for whatever the pol wants, as long as they can keep their subsidy/job.

This is what we see from Democrats and that is a far greater threat than anything Corporations are doing.

 

We essentially had both during the Bush years. Neither worked very well...

 

As opposed to what many people say, I feel we still keep some of the ideas of our founding fathers at heart.
One of them said, "Give me liberty or give me death."
Truth be told this peace comes at a price that many people aren't willing to pay, the price of having our freedom taken away.

 

well. Looks like we can all sit here in awe of the fantastic job the US educational system has done on our kids.

 

Ahhh.... that's not necessarily true.

 

The same could be argued about America.

 

Democrats are doing the bidding of corporations. One in the same. I don't think America has been a democracy for a long time. We live in a Corporatocracy.

 

Never thought I would agree with anything SiliconMagican said but he's right the peaceful dictator is better. The two examples I can think of are Egypt and the former Yugoslavia.

 

Then you'll be asking the authorities how far they'd like you to bend over to please them. Detainee Security Act. This suspends the Bill Of Rights. Why would any woman in her right mind think that's a good idea? Only a confused flake-a-zoid would believe you can get rid of THE VERY PART OF THE CONSTITUTION THAT MAKES AMERICA A FREE COUNTRY and still be a free country. Do a little research before you pop off, don't just kneejerk.

Obama's already began assassinating those he considers his enemy:

"A Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) report circulating in the Kremlin today states that the top US Federal Judge for the State of Arizona was assassinated barely 72-hours after he made a critical ruling against the Obama administrations plan to begin the confiscation of their citizen’s private retirement and banking accounts in order to stave off their nations imminent economic collapse, and after having the US Marshals protecting him removed.

According to this SVR report, Federal Judge John McCarthy Rollwas the Chief Judge for the United States District Court for the District of Arizona who this past Friday issued what is called a “preliminary ruling” in a case titled “United States of America v. $333,520.00 in United States Currency et al” [Case Number: 4:2010cv00703 Filed: November 30, 2010] wherein he stated he was preparing to rule against Obama’s power to seize American citizens money without clear and convincing evidence of a crime being committed.
The case being ruled on by Judge Roll, this report continues, was about bulk cash smuggling into or out of the United States that the Obama administration claimed was their right to seize under what are called Presidential Executive Orders, instead of using existing laws. The Obama administration used as support for their claim before Judge Roll, the SVR says, the seizing of all American citizens’ gold, in 1933, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signing of Executive Order 6102, which was ruled at the time to be constitutional." http://getdclu.com/archives/3038

Or is all this just coincidence? Sort of like Hitler declaring "jews" Germany's enemy, then all of a sudden they're disappearing.

Hmm?

 

LOL! Those were not democracies...they actually had slaves. Almost all of your examples try to portray slave states as democracies.

The remainder are mostly states where one party is not really a democracy. Just because a nation allows people to vote does not necessarily mean it is a democracy. Do you really believe that Saddam got 99.99% of the support of the Iraqi masses? LOL!

 

So, you are suggesting America pre-1865 was not a democracy??

Remember in those ancient Greek democracies that among the citizenry, all voices were equal.

I guess its all about how you define a democracy.

 

Duh. Yes, I am suggesting that a state where human beings are owned as property is not a democracy. LOL

I love the double question marks at the end of your quote...as if it should be obvious to anyone that the fact that some people cant vote doesnt mean a state is not a democracy. Have you bothered to actually read the definition?

...unless those voices were from people owned by other people.

Using your logic, every state is a democracy. If only five people in the US were allowed to vote, we'd still be a democracy as long as all five of those voices mattered equally, right? Your logic is retarded.

Most of us use the dictionary nowadays.

 

Not really. Our elections when monitored are almost completely free of corruption. The Georgian elections were rated as some of the biggest shams in history by observers.

 

Greek Wars, 5th and 4th Centuries BCE
Democracies: City-states such as Athens, Syracuse et. al.

As SS said, slave states are not democracies.

Punic Wars, 2nd and 3rd Centuries BCE
Democracies: Rome vs. Carthage.

Rome was an oligarchy as was Carthage, neither were democracies.

American Revolution, 1775-1783
Democracies: United States vs. Great Britain

The United States was an oligarchy and Britain a monarchy.

American Indian Wars, 1776-1890
Democracies: United States vs. various Native American Indian tribes.

The United States was an oligarchy.

French Revolutionary Wars, 1793-1799
Democracies: France vs. Great Britain, Switzerland, the Netherlands

Britain was a Monarchy, France a quasi-dictatorship under the Committee of Public Safety.

Franco-American Naval War, 1797-1799
Democracies: United States vs. France

The US was an oligarchy, France a quasi-dictatorship.

Anglo-American War, 1812-1815
Democracies: United States vs. Great Britain

The US was an Oligarchy, Great Britain was a monarchy.

Franco-Roman War, 1849
Democracies: France vs. the Roman Republic.

Napolean III was a dictator, the elections were a sham.

American Civil War, 1861-65
Democracies: United States vs. Confederate States

Civil wars are not between nations.

Occupation of Veracruz, 1861-62
Democracies: Great Britain vs. Mexico

Mexico in 1861 was a military dictatorship, Great Britain was a monarchy.

Spanish-American War, 1898
Democracies: United States vs. Spain

Spain was a monarchy, the US was still mostly an oligarchy.

Anglo-Boer War, 1899-1901
Democracies: Great Britain vs. Transvaal and the Orange Free State

Great Britain was a monarchy.

First World War, 1914-18
Democracies: France, Belgium, Great Britain, the USA, et. al. vs. Germany.

Germany and Great Britain were Monarchies. The Germans turned to a near military dictatorship by the end.

Occupation of the Ruhr, 1923
Democracies: France vs. Germany.

Not a war.

Second World War, 1940-45
Democracies: Great Britain, United States, et al. vs. Finland.

Finland was the ally of the Nazis and went to war with the Soviet Union, a dictatorship. They themselves became a military dictatorship by the end of the war.

First Indo-Pak War, 1947-49
Democracies: India vs. Pakistan.

If you think Pakistan was a democracy, then you have a weird definition of democracy.

Iran, Guatemala and Chile, 1953, 1954 and 1973 respectively.
Democracies: United-States-backed coups in Iran, Guatemala and Chile.

Not wars.

Lebanese Civil War, 1978, 1982
Democracies: Israel vs. Lebanon.

Lebanon was an anarchy state. The democracy there barely had control of the capital, let alone the country.

Croatian War of Independence, 1991-92
Democracies: Croatia vs. Yugoslavia.

Yugoslavia was a dictatorship under Slobodan Milosevic.

Border War, 1995
Democracies: Ecuador vs. Peru.

Peru was a quasi-dictatorship under Fujimori.

Kosovo War, 1999
Democracies: The countries of NATO vs. Yugoslavia.

Yugoslavia was a dictatorship.

Fourth Indo-Pak War (Kargil War) 1999
Democracies: India vs. Pakistan.

Pakistan was a military dictatorship under the de facto control of Pervez Musharaf.

Israel-Lebanon War 2006
Democracies: Israel vs. Lebanon

Israel today is an apartheid state, not a democracy.

 

The other side to this question you have to ask is which would you rather:

Freedom, and the need to fight for that freedom.

or

Peace, and the recognition of the non-individual state without Freedom.

 

Peace will come when every person on the planet all have the exact same amount of everything and everyone is completely satisfied with what they have.

In others words,,,,,,,,,,,NEVER!

 

Warlike democracy. It won't be warlike for long, once their sons start to die. Democracy is always better than dictatorship.

 

America's not free, yet I don't see anybody fighting for that freedom.

 

Free compared to who?

 

Haha if America truly wasn't free, you might be hunted by the government for saying that very sentence. America is free, believe it or not. We have free speech, we can buy guns, we can protest, and we can choose our leadership.

As for fighting for our freedom, I seem to remember a weird thing called the military that tends to do that very thing. On the home front, protests go on daily and forums like this allow us to verbally fight for freedom by expressing opinions.

 

This assumes that a theocratic Democracy actually cares for its son's lives. A culture that believes dying in war is an automatic ticket to heaven isn't exactly a rational democracy.

 

Regardless of its theocratic tone, a democracy is a democracy. If the government doesn't give the people what they want (victory at not too high a cost) the voters will be unhappy. And as for your theological point, don't Christians believe the same thing?