Turkish PM: "To Me, Social Media Is the Worst Menace To Society."

PolygamousRanchKid writes "Turkey's prime minister on Sunday rejected claims that he is a 'dictator,' dismissing protesters as an extremist fringe even as thousands returned to the landmark Istanbul square that has become the site of the fiercest anti-government outburst in years. With Turkish media otherwise giving scant reports about the protests, many turned to social media outlets for information on the unrest. 'There is now a menace which is called Twitter,' Erdogan said. 'The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society.' 'The people are finally standing up, speaking up and fighting for their rights,' said Hakan Tas, a deputy for the Left Party in Berlin's local assembly, who took part in the protest."

Comments

Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dictators don't like free speech for many reasons. Someone else would do a better job of listing them than me.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically he's not a dictator, just trying to take the next step to become one.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not a dictator. He is just sort of an asshole--kinda like Bush. The democratic process can still remove him. Turkey isn't falling towards a dictatorship. It is almost a member of the EU, for fuck's sake.

Let me guess, you're an American who doesn't know shit in the world outside of your borders? Not every Muslim country is a dictatorship.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean islamic dictator ... Turkey has been a secular country since Ataturk, the people see this moron trying to re-islamicise them and don't want to give their freedoms up. The islamic leaders know that the inevitable outcome of freedom means that their influence wanes - they them try to brutalise the people back into line... hardline islamic scum - the biggest threat to world peace that there is

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[interval1066]

No, just most of them.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Darkness404]

The greatest threat to world peace is and has been the USA. Sure, the US isn't going around blowing up its own people, instead it prefers to play drone target-practice with civilians in Pakistan, create mass chaos if people grow plants (drug wars) and invade other countries just for the hell of it (Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.). While undoubtedly Islamic dictators are bad people, I wouldn't say that they're the biggest threat to world peace since most of their brutality starts and ends within their own country while the US has managed to screw up peace in several regions by trying to act like the world's policeman.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[terjeber]

Not every Muslim country is a dictatorship

Most of them are, and Erdogan is trying to follow the lead of the other dictators and make Turkey a dictatorship. Thankfully there is the Turkish army, which is famously sektarian and weary of muslim extremists. Hopefully Erdogan will be "dissappeared" soon.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[sanman2]

Erdogan already took care of any disloyal generals by putting them in jail. They're the ones who are disappearing. That's pretty well known.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[MightyMartian]

Because the Serbs were oh so innocent.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

He's not a dictator in any sense. A majority of Turks are very clearly supportive of him. There is very little doubt about this.

The issue here is the conflict between the urban and rural folks in Turkey. Rural areas are not really developed, thickly populated and essentially exist in conditions that modern urban dweller would find atrocious, similar to those found in early 1900s. But to them, that is normal existence and all they know. Also to them islam is the way of life, like christianity was a way of life to farmers of late early 1900s in USA. These people will vote for islamic parties and they are in a clear majority in Turkey. As a result, every attempt to institute democracy in Turkey led to rise of islamist movements. Western dogma has for long been suppression of democratic movement in order to prevent this through installation of various dictators.

Essentially Turkey is going through the same thing that Arab Spring nations went through, but instead of requiring a military/rebellious deposition of installed leaders, they succeeded in stripping power from the guardian of secular society (army) via democratic legislative process after a few tries.

The people protesting are the urban minority who learned to enjoy the pleasures of secular Turkey that doesn't exist outside large cities. Ergodan is representing his constituents in his actions, as a democratic leader should.

That is the reality of democracy: it's the image of the people. If most voting people of the nation are rural farmers that live in a strict religious society, then democracy will eventually evolve into society that favors them over everyone else unless certain safeguards are in place to prevent this. Because in its core, democracy is nothing but dictatorship of majority.

And in Turkey, majority is currently clearly calling the shots and wants secular elements of society that it views as degenerate removed.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[JaredOfEuropa]

Bear in mind what Erdogan himself had to say about the democratic process: "Democracy is like a bus, you ride it until you reach your destination, then you get off". He wouldn't be the first dictator to be elected by popular vote, then use whatever means that lie to hand to stay in power. He has already made the first moves: go after the opposition, jail dangerous opponents (in Turkey, this means army generals who have a strong tradition of keeping the nation secular), and bring the press under even tighter control.

Not all Islamic nations are dictatorships, but most of them are. And almost all of them are distinctly unpleasant places to live if you happen to be a non-Muslim or a woman with liberal ideas. By the way, Turkey is not a Muslim country, not all of it. You'll see more headscarves and burkas in London or Amsterdam than some of the large cities in Turkey.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[seyyah]

He's not a dictator in any sense. A majority of Turks are very clearly supportive of him. There is very little doubt about this.

Very true. Most protestors don't want to admit it, but it is the case (or at least was the case at election time).

The issue here is the conflict between the urban and rural folks in Turkey. Rural areas are not really developed, thickly populated and essentially exist in conditions that modern urban dweller would find atrocious, similar to those found in early 1900s.

This is not entirely correct. A large base of AK Parti support comes from a new weathly ubran elite that has been nurtured by the current government at the expense of both the traditional secular elites and the traditional leftist opposition, who both despise Erdogan. But the AKP has pushed their agenda too far and their crackdown on the media has been pretty atrocious. But they were especially foolish in misjudgoing what the reaction there would be to this particular instance of deploying the always violent police against peaceful protestors. If nothing else, one can hope that all this will result in the police being brought in line since they currently act with impunity.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[rockout]

20+ years ago, they were sneering at Bush Sr for being "too much of a wimp to invade Iraq" ....For those of us who don't have a 30-second memory span like the amnesiacs on the Left, their hypocrisies are plain for anyone to see.

Yeah, like that Leftist Dick Cheney, imagine if he was in a position of power later and had a chance to re-invade Iraq! Things could've really gotten hairy.

Your history re-write is amazing both in its chutzpah and inaccuracy. Please list some examples of prominent, relevant, left-wing politicians that were screaming for an attack deep into Iraq in 1991. I'd be amazed to see any.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the biggest problem with advocating for democracy so hard. Without significant constitutional restraints meant to protect minority rights, majority tyranny will trample anyone not holding the most popular view. Limited government with respect for personal freedoms is needed for any democracy to flourish. Without those protections people will still be oppressed by the government, just not the majority.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

Who said anything about extremism? Erdogan platform is about repelling secular society through legislative means which his constituents view as oppressive towards their beliefs. It's the exact opposite of extremism.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

Erdogan's publicist would want to paint him as someone who isn't getting "middle class vote" when he actually is to Western audience?

I'm intrigued at your logic, or utter lack of it specifically.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[XcepticZP]

What are you on about?

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Mashiki]

He's not a dictator in any sense. A majority of Turks are very clearly supportive of him. There is very little doubt about this.

You mean the same guy who's bulldozing anything relating to "anything he doesn't like" and putting malls on them. While grafting out the contracts to his best friends and skimming money off the top. Or arresting and executing members of the military because they support a secular society.

As a point right now, Turkey is running full on to a theocracy.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[tftp]

He's not a dictator in any sense. A majority of Turks are very clearly supportive of him.

Popular support is orthogonal to being a dictator. Wikipedia defines a dictator in different terms:

A dictator is a ruler who does not rule through democratic means.

This means that if a ruler, who is loved by 99.9% of the population, kills the remaining 0.1% without trial, he is a dictator.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[ShanghaiBill]

A dictator is a ruler who does not rule through democratic means.

This means that if a ruler, who is loved by 99.9% of the population, kills the remaining 0.1% without trial, he is a dictator.

That is NOT what "democratic" means. Democratic just means elected by majority rule. It does not mean "fair trial" or anything else. So if someone is elected by a majority that wants the minority tortured and exterminated, that is the democratic outcome, and he is NOT a dictator, at least by the definition that you cite.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Anonymous Coward]

Who said anything about extremism? Erdogan platform is about repelling secular society through legislative means which his constituents view as oppressive towards their beliefs. It's the exact opposite of extremism.

Not at all. Erdogan is pushing a repressive islamic society which constituents see as being their beliefs. Islam is a law, a total control plan for both state and individuals alike. It is that law first and a religion second, and when people say this, they're not kidding. Of course Erdogan sees this as a chance to become a dictator, but this is Turkey : he'll get shot long before he gets anywhere near it.

But the greater problem is simple : because of technological advancement and job replacement the promise that Turks consider was made to them, a huge middle class supported by low-skill high-wage manufacturing jobs is not available for them. They are being asked, just after the first generation of manufacturers, to go back to the comfort level of the early modern age at best. Or at least, that's what the message of the secular elite is : they cannot, and will not, lift the countryside up, so if they could please hole up and die. Needless to say, the countryside doesn't oblige and unlike in the west, vastly outnumbers the progressives and the liberals (well not all that vastly, about 2-to-1 ratio). Meanwhile preachers provide a "solution", and Erdogan has unleashed them (as the liberals wanted - heh - you have go to wonder what they thought would happen).

As to the long term effect of this, we have history : at the later years of the Roman empire, when both Christianity and islam came to be, they both chose against democracy, something they had seen the effects of, something they both found lacking. They did this with support from the vast majority of the population (and so did several other religions and dozens of more political groupings). Of course the big difference is that Christianity introduced the concept of King, whereas islam went with caliph. Of course there's an important difference being that a king is bound by rules (a sort of basic constitution), whereas a caliph is a dictator, who is the law, free to kill anyone for any reason, ... And of course the other big difference : Christianity chose to introduce equality between people, at least in principle, including between men an women (like in the -then- old republic), and where they could : initially between Christians only (similar to old Roman laws which were different for citizens of the Roman republic versus others). This attitude would lead to the destruction of slavery in the west (and it's replacement by other only slightly better arrangements, feudality), whereas islam chose more inequality and direct ownership of people. This did not even exist in the Roman empire at all. It would not be until the islamic states, a few centuries later, that torturing and killing slaves for sport would become legal (Roman gladiators were volunteers, basic arrangement, you fight to the death with 9 other gladiators, survivor is no longer a slave, gets a million bucks. You die, your wife and kids are free, get $100k to get started. Often victorious gladiators chose, as absurd as it sounds, to do it again the year after. The Champion won at least 11 times before he lost). We now know that slavery allowed them to amass big "muslim" armies at little cost.

Of course saying that this is still part of the islamic religion, and one of the things people like erdogan and muslims in general are trying to bring back, is politically incorrect. Even implying the literal truth said daily at any mosque, that there is no difference between islam and sharia, is sacrilege. We're to deny 1000 years of history to make some people feel good, and of course ignore much of the goings-on in muslim countries. For some reason we have taken the exact reverse of the truth as political correctness, that muslims, who were the main drivers of slavery for 1.5 millenium and were by far the worst offenders when i

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just so you know, most of secular Turkey is generally considered a separate class. In Turkey the same situation exists with muslims as anywhere else : neighborhoods are either 100% muslim, or 100% secular, there is little overlap. In the muslim neighborhoods, girls and women are attacked by ruffians who consider any woman they can see (and regularly ones that do don full hijab of course) "owe" them sex and can be freely beaten.

Why ? They get taught this by preachers. Because in the quran the only reason a woman can be seen is if she's "property of your right hand" (a slave) and can be used (with owner's permission, conveniently left out) as one wishes.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[tftp]

That is NOT what "democratic" means.

But that's what "democratic means" means. Wikipedia is talking about methods of ruling, not about methods of getting elected. Otherwise many famous dictators appear to be democrats. But arbitrary killing of people just because the ruler wants them dead is usually called tyranny.

Besides, the word "democracy" these days is more than just a term for ancient Greek democracy. It includes rule of law, fair treatment of minorities, rules of conduct, and so on.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Smauler]

Almost one fifth of people in Turkey live in Istanbul alone. I haven't had an in depth look at Turkish demographics, but this I find unbelievable on a whole load of levels : "Rural areas are not really developed, thickly populated and essentially exist in conditions that modern urban dweller would find atrocious, similar to those found in early 1900s. But to them, that is normal existence and all they know. Also to them islam is the way of life, like christianity was a way of life to farmers of late early 1900s in USA. These people will vote for islamic parties and they are in a clear majority in Turkey."

One of the heroes of Turkey is Ataturk, whose reforms have a very pro-secular basis.

Personally, I think most of those driving the resurgence of Islamic government in Turkey are similar to those pushing for the same in Western countries - middle or wealthy class, educated people.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Smauler]

Hitler and Stalin were both supported by the majority - and they were still dictators.

Hitler never got more than about 35% of the vote in free elections.

However, the last time the party that got into power in the UK got most of the votes cast was in the 70's, IIRC. Most people have voted for someone else in every election since, until the recent coalition (if you include both Tory and LibDem votes as a block).

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[dryeo]

Democratically elected does not mean majority, sometimes you get the tyranny of the minority. This currently the case in Canada as an example, our majority government was elected with 38% of the people who bothered to vote and having a majority means they can do whatever they want for up to 5 years unless the Supreme Court strikes down a law as unconstitutional and before 1981 Parliament was supreme and could override the courts as we had no written constitutional bill of rights.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not a dictator in any sense. A majority of Turks are very clearly supportive of him. There is very little doubt about this.

The issue here is the conflict between the urban and rural folks in Turkey. Rural areas are not really developed, thickly populated and essentially exist in conditions that modern urban dweller would find atrocious, similar to those found in early 1900s. But to them, that is normal existence and all they know. Also to them islam is the way of life, like christianity was a way of life to farmers of late early 1900s in USA. These people will vote for islamic parties and they are in a clear majority in Turkey. As a result, every attempt to institute democracy in Turkey led to rise of islamist movements. Western dogma has for long been suppression of democratic movement in order to prevent this through installation of various dictators.

Essentially Turkey is going through the same thing that Arab Spring nations went through, but instead of requiring a military/rebellious deposition of installed leaders, they succeeded in stripping power from the guardian of secular society (army) via democratic legislative process after a few tries.

The people protesting are the urban minority who learned to enjoy the pleasures of secular Turkey that doesn't exist outside large cities. Ergodan is representing his constituents in his actions, as a democratic leader should.

That is the reality of democracy: it's the image of the people. If most voting people of the nation are rural farmers that live in a strict religious society, then democracy will eventually evolve into society that favors them over everyone else unless certain safeguards are in place to prevent this. Because in its core, democracy is nothing but dictatorship of majority.

And in Turkey, majority is currently clearly calling the shots and wants secular elements of society that it views as degenerate removed.

First of all, I am Turkish and I have been living abroad for longer than 10+ years. What I am telling you here is probably not even mentioned in the Western media which is just as crooked as the Turkish media is right now. You have no knowledge of the facts and what you are saying does not even make sense.

RTE not a dictator "in any sense"? Give me a break. This is a ruthless dictator who had so many reporters, university professors and high command of the Turkish Army/Air Force/Navy arrested and jailed with frivolous lawsuits all the while telling people that he "would be the prosecutor of these lawsuits" (in his own words).
To give you an idea, more than 50% of the Navy high command is in jail. There's about 100+ reporters in jail and the professors in jail are too numerous to name one by one. Two of the accused (one was the editor in chief of a major newspaper and the other one was a professor of medicine) were elected as Members of the Parliament (for whom there is immunity with the exception of murder) and despite that they are still in jail after 5 years with no proven guilt whatsoever. The prosecution is asking for a lifetime sentence for almost all the accused and all they can present as evidence is a bunch of fake CDs with totally inconsistent bizarre documents (already proven to be fake) allegedly proving that there was a plot to overthrow the ruling government and these folks were the masterminds of it. To top it all of, they were given a mere two hours to defend themselves for the final "closing arguments". Think about it: someone is asking you to be thrown to jail for life and all you've got is a mere two hours for your defense!

Just search for "Ergenekon" and/or "Balyoz" on Google and you will see what I mean. Before becoming the mayor of Istanbul (which was a long time ago), RTE and his family was just another low to middle class family and now he is richer than the Queen of England. Of course, that must all be by the sweat of his brow ;). How else would that be possible? Before being elected a member of the parliament, there were s

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Smauler]

Besides, the word "democracy" these days is more than just a term for ancient Greek democracy. It includes rule of law, fair treatment of minorities, rules of conduct, and so on.

Yeah... that's not actually what the word means, though. If you include all that, it becomes a social contract (rules of conduct), and that's not what democracy is about at all. I personally am for some kind of democracy almost universally, but completely against universal rules of conduct. Also, the only major country close to a true democracy is Switzerland - everyone else is representation. There's no technical reason why we all can't get more democratic now.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[tftp]

There's no technical reason why we all can't get more democratic now.

True democracy, the one that you describe, requires educated population that votes according to knowledge, not by emotions, or fears, or empty promises.

Greek democracies were small in scope (such as a single city.) It was easier to keep the demos informed. Today, on scale of the USA or a similarly sized country, it is all but impossible to educate every voter on every small issue. Just consider the waste of time! Instead of a hundred hired administrators we have to have a hundred million! Voting on most issues would become nearly automatic, and most people would defer to the position of their party - who does the thinking for them and tells them how to vote. How would that be different from what we have today, modulo the dumb button-pushing?

The complexity of governing is well illustrated by about any law that is adopted today. Obamacare stands out, of course - even the elected congressmen haven't read it. How would anyone be able to keep up with changes that are checked in by tens of teams? When Pelosi said "âoeWe have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it" she meant that only the final law can be meaningfully studied. It also highlighted the absurdity of the lawmaking process, that is so much out of control that were it C code, the tree would never compile. You can always ask millions of voters what they think about the law that changes as they are reading it, but you won't be able to print the answers. The legalese would fly over the heads of at least 100% of the population. (Those who can parse it are the rounding error.)

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Anonymous Coward]

Greek democracies were small in scope (such as a single city.) It was easier to keep the demos informed. Today, on scale of the USA or a similarly sized country, it is all but impossible to educate every voter on every small issue. Just consider the waste of time!

yeah, you're clearly better off watching American Idol/The Voice/Killer Karaoke/the latest pop-star drama etc etc than getting educated about the world around you and how it really works. If Fox/CNN/MSNBC etc etc suddenly became true investigative journalism channels, things would change for the better, but i'm not holding my breath

The way most people spend their lives these days on ephemeral thrills is the real waste of time as they leave the world a slightly worse place that it could have been.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not a dictator in any sense. A majority of Turks are very clearly supportive of him. There is very little doubt about this.

There is a lot of doubt about this. He first came to power with a minority vote. The next election was about 50% but with numerous voting irregularities.
Not to mention tactics like handing out food and goods to the rural poor near election day. Our banning books that are critical of his party. Or jailing investigative journalists that uncover his parties corruption.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Anonymous Coward]

Plenty of Turkish citizens think he is a dictator, regardless of what you, or any Americans, say.

The democratic process can theoretically remove him, but in practice, as we saw in the last election, he controls the police, the judges, the election system, the government contracts, the media, and the money, so it's not easy even if he doesn't have a majority.

His latest gambit is to change the constitution from a parlimentary to presidential system... with himself as president.

Turkey is not almost a member of the EU. The EU doesn't want Turkey, and Erdogan doesn't really want the EU. He played the EU card to get the votes of moderates early on. What he really wants is to be the leader of a Middle East Union, a return to the Ottoman Caliphate.

But what do I know, I'm just a (Turkish) American.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[kbonapart]

Couldn't that quote also mean, "Once you have reached your goals, you get out of politics?"

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

You are going way off tangent to show that any religious movement is essentially "extremist". It's not. Extremist is a word with a clear set of definitions. Just following religion in governance is not any of the definitions.

At worst you could reasonably claim he's building a theocracy. But theocracy isn't incompatible with democracy in any way - if majority of constituents want a state with legislation based off any set of ethics, including religious set of ethics, they are fully within their rights to implement such a state while remaining democratic, provided majority of constituents support such a state. For example the birthplace of modern democracy, Greek Polis city states were more often then not theocratic in nature due to the fact that religion was a major power and driver in everyday life of any human being living in organized societal structure. This not only didn't prevent them from being democratic, but in fact essentially gave birth to democracy as we know it.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[tftp]

yeah, you're clearly better off watching American Idol/The Voice/Killer Karaoke/the latest pop-star drama etc etc than getting educated about the world around you and how it really works.

You say that in jest, but as matter of fact every individual, within a limited time period, is better off pleasuring himself rather than doing hard work for betterment of the society. That's how Roman Empire fell, and many other empires, before and after. This is what the USA is doing currently, gorging on credits that will never be paid back. Sticking the children with the bill is the way to go today, as it seems.

It certainly doesn't help that MSM provides only those opinions that they want you to have. If you want to become educated about how the world works, you have to read subversive literature, such as Federalist Papers and the US Constitution. Then you should read far more to understand what's the difference between "then" and "now." Exposure to foreign cultures and political processes is highly desired, otherwise the chickens will be eagerly voting for Colonel Sanders. (This process can be easily demonstrated by stepping on a garden rake, repeatedly.)

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

Majority refers to those who are allowed/bothered to vote for obvious reasons. Else you could easily claim that a government in ancient greek city states was not democratic in spite of them being the birthplace of democracy, as due to high birth/infant/childhood mortality rates of the time, majority of the people did not in fact vote, as children formed the bulk of the population.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

You are referring to concept of modern freedoms. These have nothing to do with democracy. If majority views that a type of freedom is offensive to them, they can vote to repel it, or pick representatives that will repel such a freedom. What you're seeing in Turkey is rejection of Western model of secularism which was advocated by Kemal Ataturk (yes, I'm intimately familiar with Turkish history going as far as early Ottoman empire for reasons I would rather not disclose here). Historically, the guardians of these freedoms were the military which had to disband the parliament every time islamists got majority and started to repel secularist freedoms, until recently when majority that didn't want these freedoms voted Erdogan's party into leadership yet again (after it was disbanded several times by military and reformed). Such parliamentary disbands were essentially anti-democratic military coups where democratically elected government was overthrown by powerful military.

Example: US and its current ability to imprison people indefinitely under anti-terrorist laws. After 9/11 enough US people of voting aged judged that freedom to have a fair trial in reasonable amount of time was no longer on the list of freedoms they wish to have. So this freedom was repelled democratically.

There are many similar examples across the world. Turkish situation for last couple of decades at least is essentially a struggle between democratic movement that wants to repel secularist policies and freedoms it deems degenerate and offensive and powerful military that kept overthrowing democratically elected governments every time they tried to repel these freedoms. And now the democratically elected government finally succeeded in reigning military in.

Remember: democracy is not advocacy of freedoms.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

Theocracy is government by religious elite. Representative democracy is government by elected elite.

If religious elite is elected democratically, as has happened in Turkey, theocracy is in fact democratic.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

By this definition, not a single state in the world is democratic. Because that's not what democracy means. You're talking about right to trial.

Many forms of government that are not democratic contain provisions that grant right to trial. These include monarchies, theocracies and so on.

On the other hand most democracies in fact allow for killing without trial. US is one such nation.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

Aye, just like in the bible and torah. And there are plenty of communities in US that live by same rules.

Did you have a point other then that organized religion with roots in judaism is inherently degenerate from secular point of view of a modern Western citizen? Because we're talking about a completely different topic.

That said if that was your point, I do agree completely.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

Not entirely sure how your advocacy of mass murder has anything to do with my post.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

His party has come to power several times before. However military would always stage a coup when his party started to repel secularist freedoms, overthrowing the democratically elected government. Then due to strength of party's base in Turkey, party would reform, get re-elected and try again.

This cycle continued in Turkey for a while until recently elected government got powerful enough (for a number of reasons irrelevant in scope of the issue) that it successfully thwarted military coup before it started by effectively destroying the army leadership through legislative means and is now proceeding to do what it tried to do for decades.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[rtb61]

At it's core democracy only functions when it is based upon truth, else it is an autocracy of lies, with those in power able to maintain power by enforcing public acceptance of those lies. Whether those lies are religious or propaganda as news paid for by the rich, makes no difference. Today the US's democracy is self destructing based upon lies having the same or greater value in mass media than the truth. US politicians routinely spread lies publicly with little or no challenge from corporate owned and controlled mass media.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[XcepticZP]

I really don't understand people like you... You have to turn everything into "Democrat" and "Republican". Meanwhile, both parties are doing the exact same shit constantly, and only mixing it up to confuse you even more. Take your examples as evidence of that. Take Obama and Hillary as further examples. They needed to mix it up a little confuse the voters, move it away from the Iraq Invasion and US war-crimes. Look at the same-sex marriage issue as a way to confuse people instead of letting them see that Obama's hope and change hasn't really meant anything concrete. Because Gitmo's still open, and he promised to close it. But I know what you're gonna say in response to that: Oh but the did this, did that, blah blah. It doesn't matter because you as a voter don't have a say in the matter. Wake up.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[XcepticZP]

Well the American war-machine needed someone to blame/point fingers at. Can't let all them fancy weapons built by the war industrial complex go to waste now, boy.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[228e2]

replying to undo incorrect mod

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[cold fjord]

The people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do. -- Joseph Stalin

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

Because the urban secular minority is unhappy. What, did you think that rioting was a privilege only reserved for majority?

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

Lie of the century. Not a single democracy in history of mankind functioned when based on truth.

Human societies simply do not function very well when faced with nothing but the truth. Lies are a necessary part of base functionality of human society on any level, even as basic as two people who are together for procreating.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

I do live and let live. Read the grandparent post.

Unless you view "stating the obvious but inconvenient truth" as "not letting live". In which case, I can't really help you. You need men in white kind of help.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

Start with amish. Continue toward bible belt. Finish in various cults that are now largely left alone in spite of mass rape of little girls because police fear that they will mass suicide in a very public fashion if bothered.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

Irrelevant in the scope of the argument. Erdogan's policies are widely supported by islamist voters, who view secular society as the oppressor and Erdogan as leader that is setting them free of those shackles.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[mrvan]

Of course, you could also say that Athens (as most greek city states were not democracies at all but rather dictatorships or oligarchies) was not a democracy because they didn't give the vote to either women or slaves. In fact, most "western" democracies only had universal (including female) suffrage for the past 50-100 years or so, with the last swiss canton finally joining ranks in 1990 (!). Before the first world war, every democracy that I know of had various restrictions on suffrage based on race, gender, and/or property.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[mrvan]

Political Science is divided on how to define "democracy". At the minimum, it has some reasonably level of suffrage to elect the body or bodies that make generally binding decisions (aka laws). However, many scholars argue that a democracy also requires

This does *not* mean that a law is necessarily based on the (represented) consent of the majority of the population or even of the voting population, as all electoral systems have some sort of misrepresentation of the population, going from the extreme of single member first-past-the post districts (USA, UK) to the most proportional representation of single district PR systems (Netherlands)

Note that democracy is a separate concept from "rule of law", but it is hard to imagine democracy functioning without the rule of law. In essence, the rule of law means that the law also applies to the rulers (and hence to the enforcement agencies). So, the example of a ruler killing people without trial is more of a breach of rule of law than of democracy. Obviously, it is possible to make a law that allows certain people to be killed without a (civil) trial, as is not uncommon in military law or slavery systems, and apparently American citizens with foreign sounding names in the wrong place at the wrong time are also subject to this process...

*) even the Netherlands (generally regarded as the most proportional electoral system) has some misrepresentation because of the granularity of MP seats: votes for parties that don't get a single seat are 'wasted' entirely, and remainders are distributed in a complicated way that can in principle allow a majority in parliament to represent a minority of votes. However, this is nowhere near the level of misrepresentation that can occur in SMD systems (where 26% of the vote can capture 51% of seats) or even worse in multi-party SMD systems with first-past-the-post (plurality), where in theory an infinitismal small amount of votes can capture the majority given infinite contenders -- and in the UK the majority party in parliament frequently had a minority of votes cast for it.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

It has been made pretty clear by historians that everyone was guilty. Serbs were picked as a primary target because of the realpolitik issues - namely weakening Russian influence in Balkans.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[dejanc]

What you're seeing in Turkey is rejection of Western model of secularism which was advocated by Kemal Ataturk (yes, I'm intimately familiar with Turkish history going as far as early Ottoman empire for reasons I would rather not disclose here).

Knowing who Ataturk was and basics of his policies doesn't make you intimately familiar with Turkish history, it makes you well informed/educated (e.g. I know who Pinochet was, but know very little about Chilean history).

I am not disputing your knowledge, but your remark made you look a little full of yourself.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

You are disputing my knowledge based on the fact that I didn't go in depth on Turkey's history about what led to Ataturk's rise to power, his policies, reasons for his policies and how his legacy lived on in a slashdot post... yet you are making an effort to look like you're not disputing it?

Is that supposed to make you look less hypocritical? Because if that was the intention, it failed in a spectacular fashion.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[gtall]

The Head of Jordan, King Abdullah, said pretty much this statement when referring to how Erdogan thought of democracy. That was the first instance I'd heard it. I don't know if Erdogan said it first. I cannot imagine someone as slimy as Erdogan would say something like that although I think that is precisely how he thinks.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[gtall]

I think you are correct he wants to be the leader (Supreme Leader in his eyes) of a modern Ottoman Caliphate. I don't think the other mid-east countries will be so accommodating. Sooner or later I expect he'll have another row with Israel figuring that will raise his standing among Arabs...but they still won't trust him further than they can spit a two-headed rat.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[gtall]

Nonsense, Tito did this all by himself after WWII when he put down all the other partisans (the Croats were Nazi sympathizers, the Islamic parts were...well...Islamic). He ruled with an iron fist with Serbia always first among the rest. When the old fart died, the rest saw their chance to break their chains...it wasn't pretty, but they did it. And Serbia will never forgive them for it. And as long as Serbia feels this way, the World should never forgive Serbia.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[rich_hudds]

People forget that the rule of law, a free press and an independent judiciary are all pre-requisites to a functioning democracy.

I'd rather live in a non democratic country that had all of those, such as 19th century England, than in a supposedly democratic country which didn't.

Installing democracy without the necessary counter balances is dangerous.

Re: Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Fished]

Dude, I could drive a bus through the factual errors in your post. By the fifth century, the Roman Empire had no trace of democracy, it was a brutal dictatorship. Nor did kings have any real restraint in medieval Europe. Not did Islam have its origins in the late Roman Empire - Byzantine, MAYBE, but by the seventh century their control if Arabia was sketchy at best. Nor was Byzantium remotely democratic.

That dog won't hunt, and it's amazing to me that people are actually agreeing with you!

Sources: phd in New Testament and early Christianity, university of Virginia.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[dywolf]

Not a dictator, and he is right in many ways.

so many people use facebook and twitter as an echo chamber, only associating with those with similar views and beliefs, much like normal life, but to a far more extreme degree. in real life you still must interact with those of more rational, or different views. in FB/Twitter you can completely tune it out, and all you get is a constant feeback loop of BS and deception. its actively helping people to become MORE partisan, MORE extremist, LESS rational.

so really, i think he's right.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[bluefoxlucid]

The side-effect of free speech is people are gullible and stupid, and so you can spread lies and half-truths. Manipulation of how you cover issues is a good way to confuse people.

For example, here in my city we had a mayor hire a contractor to run business process analysis on the school system and figure out how they can spend $13,000/student/year and yet have half as many books as they need, no technology in classrooms, decaying desks, underpaid teachers, and a 50% graduation rate. When it came time to elect a new governor for the state, his opponents came out and told everybody that he dared to pay a commercial institution to address the city's school system issues... instead of what, exactly? Bringing in the experts is a bad thing?

Online, free and anonymous speech lets you start slanderous rumors about your government founded on lies and half-truths without paying the price of outright slander. Even offline, you're pretty much allowed to say whatever the hell you want about government in most free-speech nations; that includes slandering your leaders. People take the bait hook, line, and sinker. Now what?

Nothing is without consequence. The consequence of freedom is nobody takes care of you; the consequence of liberty is people do terrible things.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[sociocapitalist]

dictator /dikttr/

Noun
A ruler with total power over a country, typically one who has obtained power by force.
A person who tells people what to do in an autocratic way or who determines behavior in a particular sphere.

source: http://www.google.com/

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[sociocapitalist]

Example: US and its current ability to imprison people indefinitely under anti-terrorist laws. After 9/11 enough US people of voting aged judged that freedom to have a fair trial in reasonable amount of time was no longer on the list of freedoms they wish to have. So this freedom was repelled democratically.

I have to disagree as there was no referendum and the people did not vote for self-repression. Additionally, there is a good chance that voting was manipulated to put and keep the purported author in the President's chair.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[dwpro]

At worst you could reasonably claim he's building a theocracy. But theocracy isn't incompatible with democracy in any way

It doesn't matter the form of government if the controls for power are circumvented and the government can impose its will with impunity. Violent repression of dissent, absolute gagging of the media and halting of communications, blatant disregard for equality and minority rights all bear witness that this isn't the will of the governed.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

(yes, I'm intimately familiar with Turkish history going as far as early Ottoman empire for reasons I would rather not disclose here).
Congrats, unfortunately, you are not very familiar with US history otherwise, you would have known that Korematsu v US had already settled the matter of indefinite detention back in '44(that's 1944).

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[poetmatt]

lol what?

anytime the statement is "the left", or "the right" - it's only guaranteed to be one thing: "the Wrong". If you can't see past the party line then you've effectively told us that you should not be associated with political analysis on any level.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

There is no chance of that any more than there is a chance of that in US. Turkey is a democratic country and proud of it. Islamists are proud of the fact that in spite of being dispersed by West-supported military in multiple coups, it always came back to power because of democratic forces, and this time it managed to successfully sever the army's power by imprisoning certain key generals who were planning the next coup.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

You mean like we could claim has happened in US in case of "we are 99%" movement?

Do continue with that train of logic to the end please. Don't just apply it to the mosquito on the wall and ignore elephant shitting in the room.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

Are you sure you want to lock that answer? Because if you bother watching news, you'll see plenty of people who are genuinely convinced that these things are good. It may not be your opinion or mine, but it most certainly represents enough people in US so that representatives who vote for this are not voted out of office next term. And plenty who are getting elected are campaigning on the platform of security over freedoms.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

And was successfully circumvented, like most such precedents, later on?

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[dwpro]

I'm ashamed to say there is a shocking similarity. Regardless, arguing semantics and interpretations of governmental philosophies to defend a religion that has tyranny virtually baked in does little to correct either the elephant or the mosquito.

Re: Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Sique]

Agreed. Basicly, the last traces of democracy in the Roman Empire were gone with the Diocletian restauration and the foundation of the Tetrarchy. This was late in the 3rd century AD, and when Constantine the Great proclaimed Christianity to be the official religion of the Roman Empire, he had long adopted the persian court protocol including the genuflection. And when Muhammad created the Islamic religion in 622 AD, the greek speaking Byzantine Empire was all what was left of the former Roman Empire.

Re: Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[stdarg]

By the fifth century, the Roman Empire had no trace of democracy, it was a brutal dictatorship.

Anon's post did not claim the Roman Empire was a democracy.

Nor did kings have any real restraint in medieval Europe.

That's not true: During medieval times who constrained the political power of the kings and great nobles?

The popes could and did excommunicate kings, and when they did it often gave licence for other people to overthrow those kings, and certainly meant that the kings' supporters were no longer obliged to help or support them.

I think maybe you're thinking of one of a handful of really powerful kings or emperors and ignoring most of the time period and most of the nations. You know Italy by itself had dozens of small kingdoms. There was a king of Naples for instance. You think he was some kind of all-powerful dictator?

I think one of the big differences between Christian kingdoms and Islamic kingdoms was the scope of their goal. Islam has always tried to be universal in both religion and state. There was only ever supposed to be one religion and one state (the caliphate), whereas in Christianity there was supposed to be one religion but having many kingdoms was perfectly fine.

The separation of Church and State in Christian lands made kings less powerful, but it also made religious leaders less powerful. (By separation I don't mean the modern idea, but simply the idea that they were separate authorities.. your regional Bishop or Cardinal didn't impose taxes, and your king didn't tell you how to pray. The Church and the State were otherwise very intertwined, of course.)

There were other constraints on the kings of Europe, of course, but they were non-religious (such as pressure from the nobles, Magna Carta, etc) and probably had some impact on Islamic rulers as well (though not as strong of an impact).

Not did Islam have its origins in the late Roman Empire

Hmm, did you reply to the wrong post? Out of your points, only 1 (constraint on kings) really makes sense as a reply. I don't see where Anon claimed Islam originated IN the Roman Empire. The closest statement is "at the later years of the Roman empire, when both Christianity and islam came to be" but of course that's referring to the time period.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[ylouis2]

Technically he's not a dictator, just trying to take the next step to become one.

Technically he's not a dictator, just trying to take the next step to become one.

He is a modern Dictator. They know how to hide all signs. Now when a politician says he hates social media that is one of the signs that they don't like free speach.......that is the road towards dictatorship. ...and please let Curpus free. You don't belong there. It is a Greek Cyprus and will always be.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[persicom]

Except that when you vote away your right to vote, if you change your mind, your screwed.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[dwpro]

Certainly democracy isn't and needn't be freedom rainbows and liberty lollipops. However, I would argue that if the citizens vote for widespread censorship, they effectively lose the knowledge of what sort of government they have, and it can't rightly be called a democracy. Given this issue, it is difficult to say whether the affiliated actions are sanctioned by the authority vested in the people or not in this case.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

Then according to your unique interpretation, there isn't a single democratic society in existence, and there has not been one in existence at any given point in human history.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

I'm not defending religion. I'm merely arguing that Erdogan is a democratically elected leader pushing for what his constituents want. In fact, if you search for my responses in this very thread, you'll find me damning all Judaism-based religions rather harshly.

Many people here in the West are inherently programmed by propaganda that "democracy" is a driving force for good, rather then simply a form of governance that grants majority control. In this regard, it could be said that "belief in democracy" is just another religious movement.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

Air. You on the other hand appear to be either indeed smoking hallucinogenics or refusing to see the reality that people around the world are very much willing to sell freedoms for sense of security, be it real or false.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

By this definition, every single society that has ever existed has been a dictatorship. Because rule of the law by definition requires a man who will interpret the law and how it should be applied to any given case.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

Cite actual numbers with sources please. Kroats were butchering almost as many, and Bosnians were butchering less simply because they were losing. It's usually victors that do the butchering.

NATO for example had to threaten kroats with bombing them after they successfully suppressed serb military and kroats basically took over as the biggest butchers of the region.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

That is far from the only instance where you can vote to damage yourself severely. You can also vote for things like starting wars, or implementing policies that will take resources from you and give to others.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[dwpro]

Even if the majority agrees with the broad goals of Erdogan, his censorship and lying about the scale and nature of the protests seem to be clear indicators that there is not broad support for his methods.

I think you may be oversimplifying democracy. By the standard of "form of governance that grants majority control", North Korea appears to be a democracy. I hear they only get to vote on one candidate per seat, but they do get to check a box (or choose not to, and perhaps face death). It seems to me that democracy must mean more than the ability --or the appearance of the ability-- to affect who is in power by voting. The voter must be in a position to make a reasonably informed assessment on the actions of their leaders come election time, otherwise it's just a charade.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[persicom]

But you can recover from those by voting the other way, in theory. Voting to go to a non-voting system is the last vote ever.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

Exactly the same argument is usable against:

US and it's handling of "we're the 99%" protests.
UK and it's handling of London riots.
Etc.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

In most cases, while you can vote a war into existence, it will end when someone loses. Not when you vote it out of existence.
Financial policies are similar. Once things like controls on capital movement have been lifted, it's essentially impossible to vote them back.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Hatta]

He's not a dictator in any sense. A majority of Turks are very clearly supportive of him. There is very little doubt about this.

That's what happens when you ruthlessly suppress your opposition. How is the general public supposed to oppose their leader when all the bad information about that leader is hidden?

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Hatta]

Is that so hard to believe?

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Hatta]

Remember: democracy is not advocacy of freedoms.

They are one and the same when functioning properly. By which I mean when the electorate is well informed and actually votes for their own interests. e.g. even the most religious electorate, properly enlightened, would vote for religious freedom because that freedom protects their own right to practice. This is why Jefferson said "The cornerstone of democracy rests on the foundation of an educated electorate." Without that electorate, you don't have a democracy.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

Not only is that a blatant lie, but he has actually done the exact opposite. He's improved conditions of various minorities (mostly with guidance of EU), including but not limited to right of kurds (government TV actually broadcasts in kurdish language now) and so on. In general, the whole EU process has worked to improve Turkeys conditions dramatically under Erdogan. And Erdogan had to push hard for it, as many Turks, especially the intelligencia has been traditionally opposed to even recognizing that they have a kurdish problem.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

If you truly believe that, you need help. Psychiatric kind.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

We are talking about humans. Not imaginary ideal beings. It is well documented throughout history that beings you describe have little in common with humans.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[spongman]

If you don't respect the rights of the individual then you are a fascist regardless of how you rose to power.

Democratically elected fascists are the most dangerous. It means the brainwashing is already entrenched.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

This is a very dangerous line of thinking, and one that most cruel and horrifying tyrants throughout the course of human history used to back their arguments. That they are the right ones, and the rest of the world that disagrees with them is "brainwashed". It essentially removes human value from people you believe to be "brainwashed" and assumes that they need protection from whatever it is that brainwashes them. And logically, as someone who is "not brainwashed", your kind should be the one to "protect" them.

This line of thinking has been used in pushing both pretty much every single instance of major war between two countries, as well as most civil wars. If you truly think this of any single nation, or large voting block, you're likely living in a country with significant propaganda machine effective "brainwashing" you into thinking this.

Because if you ever bothered to actually listen to what these "brainwashed" people say, in most cases except some fringe extremist ones, their opinions are understandable. Often very much disagreeable, but understandable from point of view of person expressing them.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[sociocapitalist]

There is no chance of that any more than there is a chance of that in US. Turkey is a democratic country and proud of it. Islamists are proud of the fact that in spite of being dispersed by West-supported military in multiple coups, it always came back to power because of democratic forces, and this time it managed to successfully sever the army's power by imprisoning certain key generals who were planning the next coup.

You misunderstand. I was saying that there was a good chance that voting was manipulated to put and keep George W. in power.

The problem with democracy (or one of the problems with it anyway) is that voting can, and is, manipulated. Islamists tend to put varying levels of pressure up to and including the threat of violence to 'encourage' people to vote for them.

Is it any surprise that the islamist government consolidates it's power by putting down those who threaten it ?

The military was given a duty to follow - to keep the islamists from turning Turkey into a religious state. They have indeed overturning previous islamist regimes...and then giving the power back to the people of the country.

In the current situation, the islamists in Turkey have taken those in charge of the military and put them in prison to stop them from doing exactly what they are supposed to do while trying to turn Turkey Sharia.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

By this definition, every single vote is "manipulated". Voting manipulation can be basically argued to be distributed on the scale that goes from convincing to forcing. The difference here is akin to difference between seduction and rape, which you classify as one and same thing. The concept is simply too wide to capture the necessary nuances of the situation that make it acceptable or unacceptable.

Drawing the line on what is about convincing, and what is forcing is difficult for cultural reasons. Some cultures are far more accepting of some degree of very forcible coercion, such as for example family forcibly coercing one family member to vote in a certain way through threats of being cut off, or even violence than other cultures.

On a final note, according to the Western standards, it's NOT military's duty to overthrow a democratically elected government. Period. Therefore you come to the choice: Either you accept the fact that every nation has it's own cultural ways of doing things democratically, and you accept both the fact that military is right to stage coups and that current situation is acceptable because the government is legit according to local culture. Or you go with Western values and note that military has been committing illegal coups on regular basis, and that current government's actions while largely unacceptable by Western standards especially in terms of police brutality. But you also are forced to note that government is legit because it was elected democratically and many of its actions were to defend it from yet another illegal coup.

Reality, as it typically is, is a multifaceted gray rather then two sided black and white, and located somewhere between those two points of view.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[sociocapitalist]

Seduction and rape are very easily differentiated. If the person says no and is forced then it is rape.

If people are not free to vote as they want to vote, or if their votes are changed or 'lost', then voting is being manipulated.

Your argument about cultures being accepting of coercion does not change the fact that the votes are being manipulated.

If you have a village who is going to vote and every family is told "Vote for our candidate or we will kill you and your children" then you have voting manipulation and I don't really give a shit if it's acceptable in the culture or not. The end result is not democracy.

I am not talking about western standards. This has nothing to do with western standards. I'm talking about the military being charged in Turkey with making sure that the Islamists do not violate the Turkish constitution which states that Turkey is to be a secular country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Turkey#Military_Factor

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

What about cases when person says no, is then orally talked to and then convinced to do the act? If this is still rape, I'm guilty of rape. As are most men in the world. Granted, essentially no law except perhaps Swedish qualifies this as rape.

What about person who like to be forced a bit, say "no", do it anyway, and then tell you how wonderful it was and tell you to call him/her and leave his/her number?

What about perosn that are into the act but get another idea after or even during the act?

What about countless other shades of gray?

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[sociocapitalist]

What about cases when person says no, is then orally talked to and then convinced to do the act? If this is still rape, I'm guilty of rape. As are most men in the world. Granted, essentially no law except perhaps Swedish qualifies this as rape.

What about person who like to be forced a bit, say "no", do it anyway, and then tell you how wonderful it was and tell you to call him/her and leave his/her number?

What about perosn that are into the act but get another idea after or even during the act?

What about countless other shades of gray?

No as there is no obligation, no threat of violence. If you can talk the person into changing their mind in this fashion then no I do not see it as rape.

If a girl (for me it's girls but whatever) says no then it's no. I have lived my life like this (I am not young) and have no regrets.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

Ah, and there we come to the heart of the issue. "In my mind" are the key words. Look at case of Julian Assange as a great example of how there are other opinions on the issue.

There's an old saying. The main reason why there are wars in this world is because the amount of different concepts of justice equals the amount of people.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Mashiki]

Yep, and look at how well that worked out. Case in point: Egypt.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

We have plenty of cases where democratically elected leaders led to pretty horrific outcomes, no need to single out theocratic leaders for that one. You should start in Ancient Greece if you're into listing failures of democracy.

To quote Winston Churchill "democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried".

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[sociocapitalist]

Ah, and there we come to the heart of the issue. "In my mind" are the key words. Look at case of Julian Assange as a great example of how there are other opinions on the issue.

There's an old saying. The main reason why there are wars in this world is because the amount of different concepts of justice equals the amount of people.

If what you're saying is that we disagree and that's that then there's not much point in your point, if you get my point.

Forcing people to vote one way is different than non-violent and non-obligatory discussion that gets someone to change their mind.

You can ask anyone you see on the street for money and they can choose to give it to you or not.

If you convince them to give it to you without resorting to coercion (ie please I need it to call my family to come pick me up or whatever), you have done nothing wrong in getting them to give you the money.

If you tell them that you will hurt them or someone they care about if they don't give you money then you breaking the law.

The differentiation between the two is very clear.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

1. Begging is illegal in many places.
2. If it is illegal, and if promoting begging by giving to beggars is illegal, you have committed a crime.
3. Beggar has committed a crime if begging is illegal, or if money collection without permit is illegal.

You're yet again attempting to paint a black and white picture, and yet all that comes out is countless shades of gray.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[spongman]

i think you must have hit reply to some other comment, because yours certainly makes no sense as a reply to mine. read it again.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[jwhitener]

Example: US and its current ability to imprison people indefinitely under anti-terrorist laws. After 9/11 enough US people of voting aged judged that freedom to have a fair trial in reasonable amount of time was no longer on the list of freedoms they wish to have. So this freedom was repelled democratically.

Enough people judged...? No, enough people didn't care. That, thankfully, is why there is a balance of power between our judicial, executive, and legislative branches of Government. Eventually our judicial system will (I hope) declare certain executive and legislative overreaches on the war on terror to be in conflict with our constitution.

Occasionally our Supreme Court really does make decisions that go against what the majority want, and what those in power want.

Re: Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[jwhitener]

I just wonder who is modding up AC posts that are so full of errors. You don't even need anywhere near a phd to see the errors. 1 'history of middle ages' or 'history of the near east' type survey course in undergrad would suffice.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

My reply was to your message. If you do not understand the reply, your problem is likely too deep to allow you to understand it.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[spongman]

Ah ad-hominem. Nice try, troll.

Re:Dictator hating free speech, news at 11.

[Luckyo]

I'm sorry that you opted to go down that road.

To me...

[AliasMarlowe]

For me, Ergodan sounds likes a real menace to turkish society.

Re:To me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Attacking the man rather than the message. Fail!

Re:To me...

[Samantha Wright]

He was once jailed for opposing religious extremism (albeit somewhat crudely), ended a war with the Kurds by enacting laws encouraging tolerance, opposes the Syrian regime, and improved relations with Greece. Turkey is bizarro land: the conservatives are interested in relatively secular Westernization, and the force of change it opposes is religious. Even if he's forceful or brutish, I think most people here would actually support him.

Re:To me...

[Somebody Is Using My]

He's just saying aloud what a lot of world leaders are thinking.

The internet has created a revolution in information dispersment. No longer do the the Powers That Be have a lock on the news. Even before the Internet, of course, people could bypass the regime's total control of the media (e.g., Soviet samizdats) but even then distribution issues limited how widely alternate views could be spread. Now, thanks to the Internet, it is cheap and easy for anyone to post information onto the internet, and even easier for other people to read it. This isn't without its own problems - both in the flood of available knowledge and the lack of fact-checking - but on the whole it has radically challenged how regimes control what their populace knows and thinks. And this frightens them incredibly.

Ergodan is just voicing what many other rulers - be they third-world dictators or first-world politicians - believe in their hearts. If they had their way, they'd roll things back to the 1980s, before the Internet revolution threw everything into flux.

Re:To me...

[Samantha Wright]

...nevermind; total mixed bag. Still, he's done a couple things right.

Re:To me...

[auric_dude]

Going the way of Egypt, but what or who will follow if and when he falls?

Re:To me...

[interval1066]

Thats what happens when your a country who serves as the gateway between modern, progressive, secular and enlightened thought, and backward, conservative, theocratic, & medieval thought.

Re:To me...

[Anonymous Coward]

He's an Agent Of Wahabism and you better get rid of him quickly. Or have your sister being put under a black potato sack.

Re:To me...

[Samantha Wright]

I apologise for saying that actually; I misread what appeared to be a criticism of radical Islam but was actually an even more extreme endorsement of it:

He was given a ten-month prison sentence (of which he served less than four months, from 24 March 1999 to 27 July 1999)[19] for reciting a poem in Siirt in December 1997, which, under article 312/2 of the Turkish penal code was regarded as an incitement to commit an offense and incitement to religious or racial hatred.[20] It included verses translated as "The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers...."[8] The aforementioned verses, however, are not in the original version of the poem. The poem was from a work written by Ziya Gökalp, a pan-Turkish activist of the early 20th century.[5] Erdoan claimed the poem had been approved by the education ministry to be published in textbooks.[21] With the conviction, Erdoan was forced to give up his mayoral position. The conviction also stipulated a political ban, which prevented him from participating in parliamentary elections. He completed his sentence on 24 July 1999.

It sounds like a condemnation, but was actually in support of such things.

That all being said, his other policy stances are sufficiently strong that there are apparently many conservatives who support him, but don't fall for the "these are minority groups who are just mad democracy didn't take their side" shtick: he got 34% of the vote, resulting in more than a two-thirds parliamentary majority. Sounds like some serious gerrymandering to me.

Re:To me...

[Samantha Wright]

Pretty much, although note that the Turkish definitions of "conservative" and "liberal" are almost opposites of the values implied by such labels in the US. The Turks are trying to conserve their secular, inclusionist democracy.

Re:To me...

[icebraining]

Uhm, the last link is a story from the AFP; it doesn't get more mainstream press than that, along with Reuters and AP.

Re:To me...

[Smauler]

he got 34% of the vote, resulting in more than a two-thirds parliamentary majority. Sounds like some serious gerrymandering to me.

It's not necessarily gerrymandering - If you're from the US, you're used to a 2 party system. In many countries, there are 4 or 5 parties that get a significant share of the vote. With a representative system, this leads to very skewed results, in some cases. In the UK (and we've only had 3 parties with a decent share for a while), we've had majority governments with about 34% of the vote relatively recently - it's not because of gerrymandering, it's because of representative democracy.

Re:To me...

[Samantha Wright]

Good point—although it still discredits the statement that his opposition is a minority.

Re:To me...

[Samantha Wright]

You're late to the show; I already apologised and corrected myself. Sorry!

Re:To me...

[Samantha Wright]

He added a verse onto the poem that was not in the original. The author of the poem, Ziya Gokalp, opposed Islamism.

Re:To me...

[khallow]

How many fake pictures can be passed around before people get that those things can be faked? I see such things greatly diluting the value of propaganda.

Re:To me...

[ameen.ross]

In every other scenario the Slashdot hivemind would be up in arms about someone being jailed for using their freedom of expression. I guess that doesn't apply to Muslims though.

Re:To me...

[Xest]

Erm, the BBC has reported all the things you mention so your suggestion that it's one-sided flies in the face of your own post.

I read the BBC as my primary news source with Al Jazeera now and then and the BBC's reporting has been plenty enough to realise that Erdogan is a horrible, horrible, wannabe dictator.

Re:To me...

[Samantha Wright]

There are several things wrong with your statements:

1. A politician is not subject to the same liberties. If you are serving the people, you have a duty to adopt a more neutral stance. He read the poem during a speech when he was a mayor.

2. Not being an American, I'm used to the idea of laws against hate speech. I don't believe anyone should have the right to publicly denounce another group of people, encourage others to, or claim supremacy of their ethnic group or religion.

3. "Freedom of expression" is a legal right. Under Turkish law, what Erdogan said did not qualify as protected speech. While the UN does not require member states to be very stringent about what is banned (Article 20(2), ICCPR), it does recognize and oppose other forms.

4. Neither I nor anyone else in the comment chain you replied to either endorsed or condemned his actions, although I admit that I initially misunderstood them, so you have no way of knowing whether or not anyone is "up in arms." That being said, neutrality is the most appropriate response when dealing with a clash of cultures far removed from one's own experience to avoid bias caused by hasty conclusions, as I've already demonstrated. You may want to be slower to label people part of "the Slashdot hivemind."

Re:To me...

[ameen.ross]

1. Are you kidding me? Define "more neutral", and what politician is in your opinion "more" neutral in such a way that he doesn't make biased statements?
2. So you equate uttering my belief - that for example my religion is the religion God wants us to follow - is hate speech?
3. Yeah, and when a mayor is jailed in North Korea for things which are not considered "protected speech" in that country, will you act the same? Or is it that you, personally, find that it is OK to put someone in jail for 10 months for what Erdogan said? Which, by the way, I don't find "extreme" in any sense. It's metaphorical. If a metaphore is hate speech because it contains words that correlate to military/war, then the saying "being up in arms" is equally hate speech.
4. Exactly. In every other case I would expect a full thread about freedom of expression, or at least one +5 (Insightful) comment. I don't see anything of the sorts here.

Re:To me...

[Somebody Is Using My]

It isn't as simple as that. During the protests, a lot of fake pictures (of people being run over or killed) were passed around. There were even (again, fake) reports of people being killed by the police etc. This sort of freedom to incite people to raise the level of violence doesn't exactly help.

Freedom of information is not without its problems. But previously, this sort of misinformation campaign was solely in the province of a select few - the rulers - and they also controlled the methods to out their lies. Now, everybody can spread lies, but at the same time, everybody can also find out the facts as well.

Yes, incentive propaganda is a problem but it is a problem whether it comes from on high (the ruling party) or on low (the people). At least the Internet provides a method that can possibly cut through this web of lies (sadly, not used as often as it should be), which is not an option when information is strictly controlled by the elite. This is its advantage to the people - and its threat to the ruling party.

Re:To me...

[Samantha Wright]

Define "more neutral", and what politician is in your opinion "more" neutral in such a way that he doesn't make biased statements?

"More neutral" relative to one's own opinion. It is important for a properly functioning democracy to tolerate all beliefs and ethnicities, and as a representative of that democracy, a politician has a responsibility to act on behalf of the state as long as he or she holds public office.

So you equate uttering my belief - that for example my religion is the religion God wants us to follow - is hate speech?

It is inappropriate for a politician to do so in the course of his public duties, but those words verbatim do not constitute hate speech.

Yeah, and when a mayor is jailed in North Korea for things which are not considered "protected speech" in that country, will you act the same? Or is it that you, personally, find that it is OK to put someone in jail for 10 months for what Erdogan said?

That quite honestly depends on what has been said. I was pointing out a technicality in your word choice, not passing judgement over the morality of what happened.

Which, by the way, I don't find "extreme" in any sense. It's metaphorical. If a metaphore is hate speech because it contains words that correlate to military/war, then the saying "being up in arms" is equally hate speech.

Exactly. In every other case I would expect a full thread about freedom of expression, or at least one +5 (Insightful) comment. I don't see anything of the sorts here.

What I've read suggests that it is generally agreed by the Turkish of all beliefs was that the punishment was inappropriate and built on a flimsy premise to put him away. This is not really a matter of free speech rights, but just conventional corruption.

I am guessing that no one here has ventured to comment on the topic because the text of the poem itself is hard to understand without doing a great deal of research into the context of the matter. The statements are very simple and straightforward, but put in different mouths they might mean different things; from an activist opposed to the militancy of a theocracy, for example, it might be an accusation that religion is being abused as a pretense for war. (And when I first read it, I thought that was what it was, making the consequences even more incomprehensible.)

just let them have the park!

[hxnwix]

Forget the plans to replace the park (the last remaining public park with trees in the city) with yet another shopping mall. That's all the protesters want! It's all over real estate developers wanting to bulldoze a park.

JUST LET THEM HAVE THE PARK!

Re:just let them have the park!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I have to wonder who green-lighted the plan in the first place. Especially in the summer heat, it's not the sort of city where you find yourself going "Damn, this place is plagued by trees, where can I find a good, soothing mall?"

Re:just let them have the park!

[rvw]

Forget the plans to replace the park (the last remaining public park with trees in the city) with yet another shopping mall. That's all the protesters want! It's all over real estate developers wanting to bulldoze a park.

JUST LET THEM HAVE THE PARK!

GIve them a finger, and they'll take an arm! A real dictator cannot give in. They stepped on his penis, now he needs to show his power. He doesn't give shit about that park. Democracy is just like a busline for him. I don't remember the proper quote, cannot find it, but it's all about playing along till the right station comes along. Hopefully the Turkish people realize that it's still possible to throw him out?!

Re:just let them have the park!

[gl4ss]

but then they have won.

but you know something about social media? there's so many people now who don't read news unless they're on social media as well. it's kinda sad and ridiculous.
but well shown over the weekend when I've seen 20+ posts about how big media is supposedly having a blackout on the turkish protests.

they are not. it's the number 1 international story right now. even fox news has articles about it and everywhere else it's front page stuff.

Re:just let them have the park!

[gl4ss]

I have to wonder who green-lighted the plan in the first place. Especially in the summer heat, it's not the sort of city where you find yourself going "Damn, this place is plagued by trees, where can I find a good, soothing mall?"

the pr.. the dic.. the PM probably saw someone drinking with a blonde in the park..

Re:just let them have the park!

[TapeCutter]

The Turkish media is said to be under reporting it, those 20+ posts just got their facts ballsed up and are now telling everyone how much news they read.

Re:just let them have the park!

[drinkypoo]

Well no. That's what the original protesters wanted. These protesters want something else. Probably for cops to not kill people over a protest about a park.

We should all be so lucky...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Is this magical alternate reality where twitter is the most menacing issue of the day accepting applications? It must be pretty nice to have solved so many actual problems!

American News Outlets...

[CohibaVancouver]

Near-revolution brewing in an American ally, and nearly zero mention on the home pages of CNN, Fox or MSNBC.

We now return you to the Kardashians. Sigh.

Re:American News Outlets...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Near-revolution brewing in an American ally, and nearly zero mention on the home pages of CNN, Fox or MSNBC.

I think you answered your own implied question. Turkey is a designated Good Guy, and therefore this can't possibly be that important. Until and unless they become a designated Bad Guy (which can happen very quickly) in which case this will immediately become a Vital Struggle For Freedom against the Worst Dictatorship In Human History.

Re:American News Outlets...

[Teun]

Just to be sure I checked the Internationaland Europe homepages of CNN and yes, this news is on top.

Re:American News Outlets...

[houghi]

As extra information: going from designated Good Guy to designated Bad Guy does not need any change or adaption from the designated Guy. It just kinda happens.

Re:American News Outlets...

[Anonymous Coward]

Second story on CNN's world news page: For a third day, police, protesters clash in Turkey

Second story on MSNBC's world news page (and shows up on their front page too): Tear gas, pepper spray fired at youths as thousands riot in Turkey

These stories are getting mentioned, mixed in between problems in Egypt and worse problems in Syria. It is not like they are hiding or downplaying such news. At worst, they are simply not spoon feeding you such news, instead concentrating on some other serious issues in the world.

Re:American News Outlets...

[ianare]

I seriously doubt Turkey will be made into a bad guy. They're a NATO member and the only muslim majority country in the region with a healthy economy and political stability. They are also a needed conter-weight to Iran and are crucial in resolving the civil war in Syria. Never mind that Erdogan was democratically elected.

Re:American News Outlets...

[silviuc]

Well, the US gov. sure liked the Egyptian dictator too. At least they are consistent...

Re:American News Outlets...

[icebraining]

Erdogan, supporting Israel? You have no idea what you're talking about.

Re:American News Outlets...

[TapeCutter]

Did you know that celebrating violent conflict makes you a dick in most people's eyes? Besides the protests were originally about crony capitalism gobbling up the last treed park in the city, everybody else joined in because they were disgusted by the way the authorities violently dispersed the original peaceful protest.

Re:American News Outlets...

[reve_etrange]

CNN's front page has a link (under "trends") to a devoted page.

Fox doesn't have any thing on the home page, but it's World page has this.

NBC's home page has a link to its story.

Re:American News Outlets...

[Ryanrule]

Dont be a fuck face

http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2013/05/31/id-watson-istanbul-rioting.cnn

Most people at the moment are more interested in the beast storms that just came through.

Re:American News Outlets...

[istartedi]

At some point, I'm not sure exactly when, a transition occurred in my attitude towards the so called "MSM" on TV. Instead of watching it for information, I watch it to see what the old guard is ignoring, unaware of, or doesn't want to talk about. The Arab Spring had to have gelled this for a lot of people. It seemed like three solid days of non-coverage before MSM on TV got dragged (one imagines kicking and screaming coming from somewhere) to cover it. Conspiracy or incompetance? Who knows? At some point, it'll be moot because news outlets that continue to be that sloppy will become irrelevant to the point of losing viewers, and when the ratings and ads go what's left to support these guys?

Re:American News Outlets...

[khallow]

They are also a needed conter-weight to Iran

And a buffer state for Russia. After all, one of the original Cold War reasons for supporting Turkey was to deny Russia unrestricted access to the Mediterranean.

Re:American News Outlets...

[FoolishOwl]

You're clearly not following the same people I follow on Twitter.

Re:American News Outlets...

[sociocapitalist]

I seriously doubt Turkey will be made into a bad guy. They're a NATO member and the only muslim majority country in the region with a healthy economy and political stability. They are also a needed conter-weight to Iran and are crucial in resolving the civil war in Syria. Never mind that Erdogan was democratically elected.

A counter weight to Iran would be a secular state, not an Islamist state.

Re:American News Outlets...

[martas]

cough cough Iraq cough

Re:American News Outlets...

[stdarg]

Haha, well America and the West in general has never been accused of being far-thinking.

Re:American News Outlets...

[ianare]

Not sure if you're trolling, but Turkey absolutely is a secular state.

Re:American News Outlets...

[sociocapitalist]

Not sure if you're trolling, but Turkey absolutely is a secular state.

Not trolling at all. Turkey's secular status is under attack by the Islamist government running the country. With the military that would normally have been the counter balance against the islamists in jail, it's now left to the people to get out in the streets (which they are indeed doing). We'll see how it goes.

Ah, correction, it is to YOU

[gweihir]

As and deceiver with thirst for power finds out, knowledge and information is the enemy. No surprise.

Dammit...

[ArcadeNut]

Now I have to like Twitter :(

If only he'd said "Facebook" ...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

... he'd have had support from a substantial portion of the Slashdot readership.

Re:If only he'd said "Facebook" ...

[Longjmp]

If only he'd said "Facebook" ...

I know you are joking, but he wants to silence free speech and people spreading it.
Maybe even slashdotters would vote for facebook in this case.

Re:If only he'd said "Facebook" ...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Maybe even slashdotters would vote for facebook in this case.

Quite seriously, given the virulent hatred many /.ers seem to have for FB, I wouldn't count on it.

Re:If only he'd said "Facebook" ...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Yes, I do, because I don't share the irrational hatred of it that seems to be so common around here. It's a tool, no more and no less, good for some things and not so good for others.

Every society...

[Eirenarch]

Every society that can be destroyed by social media should be.

Re:Every society...

[gmuslera]

That means every society. Mass media is tied to mass manipulation too. No country is safe from it, sometimes is their government that does it, sometimes the private sector (from advertising agencies to big corporations), and sometimes foreign government agencies. Why waste soldiers if you can make people from the target country do the dirty work for you? Look what keeps happening in most middle east countries for a practical example.

And if you think the US people is safe from that kind of manipulation, or that only follow what is good for them, remember Boston.

Re:Every society...

[VortexCortex]

Every society that can be destroyed by social media should be.

B-but? Isn't that all of them? Moderation is key.... I would revise the statement in the light I think you meant it:
Any power hierarchy that can be destroyed by factual information should be.

Re:Every society...

[LordLucless]

You're actually arguing in defence of Eirenarch's point. The reason social media can destroy a society, is that it provides so many independent channels of information, that the authorities cannot monitor/manipulate them all. Manipulation requires the state (or other manipulative party) to be able to influence the information people receive.

That's easy when all you have is two or three companies controlling the major news outlets, but when your people have access to a hundred thousand different people, it's not so easy. Social media undermines the easy-to-dominate, single-channel mechanism that allows for mass media manipulation.

Re:Every society...

[gmuslera]

In normal mass media you can see who you have behind, or at least have a hint, like i.e. Fox News or CNN, that could have ties with government put things in their light. In social media you get "normal" people, or at least what you think that they are, and naturally don't think in conspiration, if a lot of people agree in something, your gregary instinct will make you follow their point of view. And you see what "expresive" people do, what they say or what they vote so you see it. They give relevance to things, with their likes, +1, slashdot moderation, etc. Have enough coordinated fake profiles and you can drive public opinion, at least in zones where a particular social network is prevalent.

Re:Every society...

[femtobyte]

That's easy when all you have is two or three companies controlling the major news outlets

Note, there are only a tiny handful of corporations controlling the major social media sites, too; with the power to scan/filter/block/report/infiltrate communications as they see fit (including, as will be profitable to them in dealing with other repressive governments). The "social media" network is not currently robust against interference/control from this handful of corporations. Become too successful at undermining their sources of profit and control, and I'm pretty sure you'll find yourself on the wrong side of an account ban (or CIA watch list). Unless a lot of decentralized, non-corporate, peer-to-peer mechanisms replace Facebook/Twitter, you're quite vulnerable to centralized control/manipulation (but don't expect to hear about it on Twitter).

Re:Every society...

[LordLucless]

Note, there are only a tiny handful of corporations controlling the major social media sites, too; with the power to scan/filter/block/report/infiltrate communications as they see fit (including, as will be profitable to them in dealing with other repressive governments)

The thing is, they can't do it transparently. If a social network starts blocking/filtering users, it's generally immediately apparent to that user, and the people that user is connected to. If someone suddenly gets banned from Twitter for their political views, it's likely to go Streisand.

It's also much harder to inject content, which to my mind, is the more effective method of manipulation. Sure, the network can post ads; hell, they could even hijack accounts and post false stories under them - but again, it's much easier to uncover in a social network, and the backlash is likely to be huge.

Compare this to a traditional newspaper, where the owner speaks to the editor, and the editor tells the journos what stories they need to write. If the editor cuts certain stories, or inserts stories slanted to one side or the other, who's going to know? Many if it was egregious enough, someone might turn whistleblower, but even then, it's hardly a scandal when an editor exercises editorial control.

Re:Every society...

[femtobyte]

Can't block users/content transparently? I bet "subversive criminal terrorists" or "copyright violators" or "child pornographers" can be shut up without too much complaint --- so it's just a matter of claiming what you wanted to block was a gross violation of national security or basic public morality. And, once Twitter/Facebook wants to block you "transparently," where are you going to go complain? On Twitter?

Anyway, the corporatocracy doesn't even need to directly ban users. Only make sure that social network data mining is available to employers to help assure people with subversive views can't get things like decent paying jobs. Consider how many employers now check Facebook information already --- just wait as this process becomes ever more automated and centralized to serve corporate needs. You'll be given a nice "social media employee reliability rating" in some database that your next employer can buy into to make sure you'll be a "team player" who's a "good fit for the company" (e.g. unlikely to be connected with any workers' rights groups or other undesirables). And your credit rating and insurance premiums can also be tied to "perfectly fair and nondiscriminatory" social media datamining (so long as they redact the "gender," "race," and "religion" fields, everything else will be up for grabs... including plenty of information to highly reliably infer the prior three).

Re:Every society...

[Tom]

Be careful what you wish for. There's no reason to believe that social media, like any other tool, can not be used both ways.

He does have a point there - social media gives a voice to those who don't have one right now. But unlike an election, we have no assurance that these are representing a majority opinion. We all know how loud and apparently widespread a dedicated minority can appear online. Sure, thousands of people on the street sounds impressive, but Turkey has 75 mio. people.

Let's see if you're of the same opinion when the radical islamists use Twitter to organize themselves.

Re:Every society...

[jwhitener]

Hmm... why is this insightful? I am not seeing it.

Mass media is tied to mass manipulation too

Mass media is not social media. A Government or Corporation cannot produce 50 million tweets. That is the 'social' part.

Now, can a Government, Corporation, or influential Private group spread rumors, misinformation, or lies that the population at large begins to believe or at least parrot? Sure. That has been happening since the first 'representative' of 'group X' stood on a box in the public square and delivered a message.

The only difference now is the speed at which misinformation can be transmitted. On the flip side, truth and counter-facts to misinformation can also spread rapidly.

Yeah...

[Greyfox]

Dictators don't like it when people can communicate.

Twitter a menace?

[Anarchduke]

Ha, wait till he visits 4chan

Re:Twitter a menace?

[Kjella]

4chan is only a threat to your sanity, and there's good reason to lock up insane people so I'm sure Erdogan would approve.

Social media photos of what's happening

[fantomas]

I suppose its only fair to link to some of the social media photos.

Re:Social media photos of what's happening

[sociocapitalist]

I suppose its only fair to link to some of the social media photos.

Thank you for posting the tumblr link - really gives an idea of the scope of things (which is, of course, exactly what the Turkish government wants to avoid at this point).

Me too

[n3r0.m4dski11z]

Obviously for different reasons.

It creates zombies.

Re:Me too

[GigaBurglar]

Actually.. you're thinking of television - Facebook is just where they defecate in public.

Dark days coming for modern Turkish people..

[Anonymous Coward]

Last week, at a metro station in capital city of Turkey, a couple who we were hugging and kissing, warned by officers. Next day, about 50 people protested it, one of them injured with a knife by an extreme islamist.
Today in the same speech with his comments about twitter, to a question about this incident, he replied as "yes, i support officer; people must obey moral rules!"

Re:Dark days coming for modern Turkish people..

[cold fjord]

It is likely that Turks will come to rue the day they departed from the principles of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Kemalism.

In many parts of the world...

[3seas]

Social Media could be considered the serving back to the politicians the medicine they been dishing out to the people.

Yeah but..

[GigaBurglar]

..Only if you're a fascist c*nt.

Re:Honestly

[Longjmp]

If you disagree, feel free to abuse the mod system and mod me down.

If I hadn't commented already, I would mod you down as troll.
Not because of your opinion, but because you fail to explain why you feel he's right.
Using your karma cushion is a poor example of expressing your opinion.

To be fair, this is out of context

[tlambert]

To be fair, this is out of context... the Berlin Left Part member Hakan Tas is not even Turkish, participated in the protest, and wasn't arrested. How many countries allow foreign nationals to protest against the government of a country for which they are not a citizen?

In addition, the thing that's pissing most people off there is not that they are removing trees, it's that they plan to build a mosque in the area.

Re:To be fair, this is out of context

[prefec2]

He is born in Turkey and migrated to Germany at the age of 14. No doubt he has still strong ties to his old country and feels as much to Turkish as German. Actually why make a big fuss about it? And especially about his nationality. If German laws would not prohibit double nationalities (there are some exceptions), he would be most likely still Turkish and German.

Re:To be fair, this is out of context

[Teun]

How many countries allow foreign nationals to protest against the government of a country for which they are not a citizen?

As long as it is peaceful all civilised countries will allow such or any other protest.

Re:To be fair, this is out of context

[Chris Mattern]

How many countries allow foreign nationals to protest against the government of a country for which they are not a citizen?

All of the free ones. Including the US.

Re:To be fair, this is out of context

[drinkypoo]

All of the free ones. Including the US.

Especially the US, which sees the right to freedom of expression as a human right — which contrasts with some of those supposedly "free" countries. Sedition is still illegal in the UK for example, if you are not a citizen.

Re:To be fair, this is out of context

[Teun]

Quite the contrary, a nation or society with a strong identity is not easily shaken by some dissent, especially in this case where the protest is not against German institutions.

Only when there are fundamental weaknesses in a society dissent can cause a change in it's functioning and there are chances such change would be for the better.

Re:This is a viral marketer honeypot. Downvotes=pr

[GigaBurglar]

"Nowadays, "news" means Slashdot, Reddit and other blogs and aggregators.
Sadly, they also are overrun by the industry, pushing their designed realities into everything."

True story..

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[prefec2]

I do not understand your logic. His family might be still there. He could have many cultural ties to Turkey. And he could have a German and a Turkish passport and therefore be Turkish and German. BTW: There a many bonds between Germany and Turkey, because of the numerous Turkish immigrants in Germany, all the Germans going to Turkey for their holidays, and in addition a lot of economic and trade connections. Turkey is almost a EU member state.

Missing Option: Willful Ignorance

[TheRon6]

Social media is a tool no different than any other tool. People who go out of their way to understand the tools they use rarely encounter problems with them. But like an inexperienced driver climbing behind the wheel after having "only a few" drinks, too many people browse social media sites as if every word is fact, unaware that nearly everything written online should be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism. But there's no helping people who will believe a FB group about the moon landing being fake while dismissing contradicting posts like this as part of the government cover-up. As long as there are people who thrive in the social experience of collective willful ignorance, every tool can become a menace to society. That doesn't mean we should take them all away.

Re:Missing Option: Willful Ignorance

[chrismcb]

Social media is a tool no different than any other tool.

I would argue that social media is a tool that is obviously different than any other tool. You know, the "pen is mightier than the sword." As a tool, social media is much more powerful than say a screwdriver. And that is why people in control don't like it. The difference is, there is only so much damage one person with a screwdriver can do... But one person with a twitter account can help bring down a government

The Truth is out there

[Chucky_M]

Social Media is a tool that can be used by both sides.

What this guy has done to stop a bunch of people defending a park from destruction deserves prison time but a bigger offense is how little western media is reporting on it as they could have stopped this already. Because of this he will win this battle through force of arms alone, already a number of his people have died hopefully the number will remain low but 1 is already too many.

He will in the end loose the country and be forced to answer for his crimes, the west needs to distance itself from people like this now as perception of full support is a big part of the worldwide problem when it comes to dictators.

It wont happen of course, we great at repeating old mistakes.

Something lost in the translation?

[bertok]

I'm sure that what he really wanted to say was: "Social media is the biggest threat to my government".

Because in that case, I agree.

Conservatives loath social networking

[Pecisk]

Because it destroys artifical fabric of society they try to create - as they would have any chance in this. In same time they enjoy their social networks (trough websites and tv) which allows them to live in bubble of selective memory.

Also for what I have heard for last five years, quite big part of Turkish society has all reasons to hate current goverment. Yes, they are democractically elected, but that doesn't mean they can't listen to opposition. They have to - if they want to stay longer in their place.

And using full blown police against peacful protest will fireback any time. Trust me.

Re:Conservatives loath social networking

[manu0601]

Yes, they are democractically elected, but that doesn't mean they can't listen to opposition

It is much easier to ignore, fight or repress opposition when being democratically elected, we know that since Adolphe Thiers crushed the commune de Paris in 1871

Re:Conservatives loath social networking

[dywolf]

its not a conservative/liberal thing. but you just had to bring that into it. as if there arent leftist pages on fagebook just as full of it as the birther movement pages.

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[Darkness404]

You should have the right to protest whatever regardless of your citizenship. Human rights are still human rights, this idea that we shouldn't care about and we shouldn't (peacefully!) try to do something about X has lead to some of the worst abuses in power in history. We are all humans and it is in all of our best interests that basic rights to self-expression, freedom of religion and the right of self-ownership are protected. Why should I care about sex-slavery in Africa? After all, I don't live in Africa, I'm white and I'm also male. Why should I care about what's happening in Syria? After all, I'm not Islamic and I'm not middle eastern and don't live in Syria. Heck, we can go even further, why should I care about the holocaust? I'm not Jewish, I don't live in Germany. Why should I care about the civil rights movement? I'm not black.

Rights need to be protected no matter who is violating them. The protection of human rights in Turkey is a cause that all liberty-minded individuals need to take note of and support no matter where their geographical location is, what race they are and whatever country you "legally belong to", because what happens to one human, affects us all.

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[Teun]

Why not? The man is of Turkish decent, has lots of friends and family in Turkey and he has every right to voice his opinion.

Re:Honestly

[Teun]

Then please explain why you feel the opinion of large swaths of the population is bad?

The value of opinion does not change depending on the media used to convey it.

Re:Honestly

[Darkness404]

I sincerely believe he is wrong.

There, just added exactly the same amount to the conversation as you did.

Re:Honestly

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you, mostly because I've seen how the opposition parties in my home country use social media to report incidents.

Or better yet create them.

I'm talking about a extreme left opposition which barely attains 10% of the votes in the country's legislative elections, and some decades ago were behind a coup attempt to overthrow a democratically ellected government.

They have people on their payroll assigned to follow around government members and cause public incidents supposedly demonstrating popular opposition, and they allways bring their camera crews with them. One time they tried to pull a propaganda stunt while the health minister was making a public appearance on a medical school, and the protest which was supposed to look as if medical students were protesting the government ended up looking like a half dozen guys tried to crash the event, due to the fact that all medical students happened to be wearing white lab coats and the professional protesters, which they were not.

Another time, a few months ago, there was a nation wide protest and these propaganda professionals placed the party leaders in the croud giving interviews about how the people supported them and wanted the government to be overthrown, and while they were stating that the entire nation was supporting their extreme left party and their policies, in the background the passer by's were screaming that they were worse than the government, that no one wanted to have anything to do with them and that they should leave.

So, propaganda now has become cheaper to produce and cheaper to distribute. If even small companies have enough resources to mount PR campaigns to manipulate the public perception towards their product, imagine what an unscrupulous political party can and does do.

Islamist hating free speech, news at 11.

[sanman2]

And the next step beyond dictatorship will be a Caliphate

Re:Islamist hating free speech, news at 11.

[gtall]

Precisely. The head of Jordan, King Abdullah, gave a wide ranging interview not long ago. He said Morsi of Egypt had no depth (no shit, Dr. Obvious). But he also said Erdogan thinks of Democracy as a bus ride. When he reaches his destination, he'll get off. My guess is that Erdogan will continue to use Democracy to push Turkey into a religious nutjob state, and when the final rebellion takes place, he'll be no better than Assad claiming outside terrorists are undermining Turkey, hence the special Gestapo tactics he'll employ will have been made necessary. History will have produced yet one more religious zealot who thinks everything he does is an extension of the hand of G-d....or Allah...whatever...it doesn't matter which one he invokes...I just hope it isn't the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I don't want to believe His Noodliness would condone that sort of behavior.

IT IS ON THE MEDIA FUCKING NIMBWITS

[gl4ss]

Near-revolution brewing in an American ally, and nearly zero mention on the home pages of CNN, Fox or MSNBC.

We now return you to the Kardashians. Sigh.

front page of cnn.
front page of bbc.

picture galleries on foxnews. THIS IS THE BIGGEST FUCKING LIE OF THE WEEKEND! THAT THE MEDIA WASN'T COVERING IT! THEY FUCKING ARE!!
the only place where they aren't covering it as much is inside turkey, though even there pm has made statements about it to media.

you know what happens? dimwits read on social media that it's not reported and they don't even fucking check the news! because they don't read the news!

Re:IT IS ON THE MEDIA FUCKING NIMBWITS

[Uberbah]

front page of cnn.
front page of bbc.

Whoop de fuking do. Media outlets duitifully mentioned that there were protests against the Iraq war, but that doesn't change the fact they paid less attention to 200,000 people protesting war than 200 teabaggers showing up in goofy hats.

Just as they spent more time hyperventilatting over the IRS than Obama planning a new domestic NSA spy center, signing the NDAA, or waging drone wars against countries that never attacked us. The media is shit and they are softballing what's happening in the region.

What is happening...

[Fuzzums]

The police is reacting extremely violent in the protests against Erdogan, the Turkish prime Minister. Streets were littered with tear gas canisters. Several people have been killed or shot and who knows how many people are wounded.
In the mean time CNN Turkey is showing a documentary about penguins and also other news organisations in Turkey are ignoring the protests.

Facebook and Twitter do indeed play an important role in the protests. For instance it helps organize medical aid for wounded and communication about the severe cases that need urgent help and need to be transported to a hospital.

Re:What is happening...

[drinkypoo]

In the mean time CNN Turkey is showing a documentary about penguins

Thanks for putting me (us) up on that. Sharing that one around. I'm using http://www.dailydot.com/news/cnn-turk-istanbul-riots-penguin-doc-social-media/ because it thumbnails well on social media sites.

Re:What is happening...

[Fuzzums]

Nice one!

Btw: it is more "ownership" than censorship. Like every good dictator Erdogan has put his men in important positions, like the media and hey, as media, you want to stay friends, so penguins it is, because they're sweet and fluffy and who doesn't like that...

Re:What is happening...

[Ryanrule]

whats this? potatoes?

http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2013/05/31/id-watson-istanbul-rioting.cnn

Why?

[VortexCortex]

Say what you will about reddit, they're just another community information outlet. This post explains what's going on pretty well, and gives insight as to why the issue won't easily be resolved.

See, it's not all idiots. There users have the capability classify and sort and let good discussions and explanations bubble up, without the daft as rocks editorial approval required (like here), but you have to know where to look.

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[seyyah]

I do not understand your logic. His family might be still there. He could have many cultural ties to Turkey. And he could have a German and a Turkish passport and therefore be Turkish and German.

Just one correction: Germany doesn't allow dual citizenship, so if he has a Turkish passport and Germany finds out, his German citizenship would be revoked.

Now, he's leaving the country

[erenthegreat]

The Turkish PM is leaving the country, for an official visit to Morocco. Leaving the country in the middle of conflict - and he will probably try to get support for invading Syria. This attitude is what protesters are protesting, and that's why the guy marks social network as a "menace".

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[Chris Mattern]

You should not have the right to protest against a government unless you're an eligible voter.

So, then, those below the age of 18 have no right at all to protest?

No kidding

[asmkm22]

I imagine most dictators don't like any tool which gives people the power of communication.

What he doesn't want to hear

[Fuzzums]

Having elections doesn't mean you have a democracy if your elected representative behaves like a dictator.

repost

[Anonymous Coward]

Gladly. I should really start with a brief commentary on the Turkish military's political role. It sounds appalling to Europeans and Americans without proper explanation.

So Turkey is founded as a secular democracy. We're constantly under religious influences because of our geopolitical location, and the military's "unofficial" role as the guardian of these secular principles is frankly the only reason why we haven't descended into Sharia law like most of the Middle Eastern Islamic nations. Due to some archaic law that nobody wants to repeal, politicians in Turkey have legal immunity. This used to be necessary to ensure that politicians are never persecuted for their ideologies, but since then it has devolved into a shelter to hide in for crooks, criminals and Islamists. So whenever there's a government that oversteps its bounds and either infringes upon these secular principles or abuses the legal protection bestowed upon them, the military stages a coup, kicks the government out, holds elections and put in place a new, democratically-elected civilian secularist government before retreating back into its corner. This has happened twice in the past, one of which ended with abuse of power for a while on the part of the military. It's far from ideal (as is many other things pertaining to the Turkish brand of democracy) but in the current state of things, the threat of this has become a necessary evil. Just wanted to detail it because it's relevant to the rise of AKP over the years.

Anyways, year 2002, these AKP idiots come out of nowhere. They're all proteges of past Islamic governments that the military has ousted. They manage to win the elections with a ridiculous parliamentary super-majority out of only 34% of the vote, simply because the remainder was so fragmented and opposition parties were stagnant. Testament to how broken the system is. Either way, they come to power and for their first term, their only real sin is that they basically sold off a ton of national assets for outrageously low prices (obvious corruption). There was some outrage but people are apathetic just as they are in the US and more often than not don't care.

Fast forward to year 2007, opposition parties get together on secularist principles for the sake of defeating AKP. At first, it's a pretty close race (2-3%). Then YSK's (supreme election board) servers crash. Power outages in key districts in Istanbul and Ankara, followed by ballot boxes getting "lost". YSK then finds a conflict of data on their servers in recovery and deletes an entire chunk of the votes to resolve it. What was a close race before suddenly turns into an AKP win with 51% of the vote. How? The voter participation allegedly rose by an unprecedented 20% since 2002 and AKP got just about all of it. Any sane person should at the very least be skeptical about this stuff.

They grow bolder. Out of nowhere, they conjure up this investigation into a clandestine ultra-nationalist secularist organization that allegedly has been plotting a coup against the government. They call it Ergenekon, and then proceed to imprison quite a number of high ranked, decorated veteran military officers with accusations of conspiracy against the government. Journalists start speaking out and publishing contradictory evidence, and then they get thrown in jail alongside the officers with the exact same accusations. AKP appoints sympathizing judges and police chiefs to head the investigation (read: witch hunt). Evidence gets regularly mishandled. Instead of making copies on the spot for both the defendants and persecutors, police confiscates entire computers and then mysteriously comes out with incriminating documents that simply cannot be verified. Courts accept what is obviously questionable/shady evidence. No real convictions are made, but military officers and journalists are kept imprisoned nonetheless. Stripped of its top tier officers, the military is naturally now in disarray. AKP appoints sympathetic replacements. Mission accomplished. The one thing that protected Turkey fro

Re:Opposition to centralized power is demonized

[drinkypoo]

Ever wonder why the Fox News is vehemently demonized even for telling the truth?

No. No, I haven't. I haven't because that doesn't happen.

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[loufoque]

You have no business invoking rights to demonstrate a protestation in a country whose you're neither a citizen nor a resident.
That's just stirring trouble.

Why should I care about sex-slavery in Africa? After all, I don't live in Africa, I'm white and I'm also male. Why should I care about what's happening in Syria? After all, I'm not Islamic and I'm not middle eastern and don't live in Syria. Heck, we can go even further, why should I care about the holocaust? I'm not Jewish, I don't live in Germany. Why should I care about the civil rights movement? I'm not black.

You can care if you want, just don't go demonstrating it in public and disrupting public order because of it.

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[loufoque]

Voice an opinion and taking part of a protest are very different things.
A protest disrupts public order. It is fundamentally different from free speech.

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[loufoque]

Yes, definitely.
By protest here, we're talking about some public demonstration. Not just saying "I'm against this" to whoever may listen to you.

Well, Turkey's prime minister is correct

[gestalt_n_pepper]

Twitter is a threat. To repressive government and corporate oppressors everywhere. Other kinds of social media too. And that internet thing. Big threat. Also, telephones, computers, pens, pencils, paper and talking.

But oh yes. Quite right. That social communication thing. Very dangerous.... to government and corporate dictators.

Re:Well, Turkey's prime minister is correct

[femtobyte]

Twitter is a threat. To repressive government and corporate oppressors everywhere.

That's why, following the introduction of the internet, and later Twitter, we've seen the reversal of upward wealth accumulation and increasing consolidation of corporate power. Oh, wait, that didn't happen: the rich today are richer than ever, and a smaller number of huger than ever global megacorporations control a larger than ever share of everything. Twitter might be helpful in speeding the demise of government oppressors --- but corporate oppressors are their revenue stream and purpose for existence. I wouldn't trust the megacorporate Facebook/Twitter centralized controlled "social media" to be a trustworthy ally against growing corporate oppression --- they want to turn all interpersonal relations/communications into things amenable to profitable megacorporate control.

Social media is awful and dangerous.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? Because its open to anyone and its completely anonymous. Those two things alone mean you are going to see a metric shit ton of skewed information, bad information, outright false information, opinions from small minded people, people who contribute that don't know the whole story or even have any real first hand knowledge of it.

People absolutely love to complain and search out for things to cry foul on and they will ignore facts and blindly rush to assume and judge anything they possibly can in the way that suits their personal mindset.

It is just a deluge of information from allover the globe constantly streaming in with no kind of qualifications or anything. What makes it even worse is no one knows who is telling the truth, who is lying or who really has no idea what they are talking about.

All of those especially count when it comes to negative things. I saw someone post a video of a white cop yelling at this black girl and roughly arresting her. Everyone, thousands of people on reddit were all raging at the police. Calling them racist, the cop should lose his job, he should be arrested, how the police are corrupt and all this other garbage. It wasn't till days later someone showed the entire video showing the officer calmly starting out talking to the girl because she was causing a commotion screaming in her phone in a bus station and upsetting people. She started talking back to him, cursing at him and when he tried to take her outside to calm down she started pushing and hitting him. Anyone can make anything they want seem bad and everyone else will automatically jump on board with negative reactions online regardless of if they know the real truth or not. And that's just an example of how if you show a video or picture you can show or not show anything you want to support yourself. A simple edit and a brief comment can drastically alter its perception.

The problem with social media is its completely free to be used by anyone for anything they want regardless of if they are a real reporter stating facts, or just some kid who wants to start some big flame war and stir up trouble just for entertainments sake.

And its awful because everyone else that ever see's it, those billions of people online around the world never, I mean ever question the material. They read some stupid post and see some pictures and automatically assume it is 100% fact.

Social media is a very dangerous thing.

Re:Social media is awful and dangerous.

[nathan s]

And its awful because everyone else that ever see's it, those billions of people online around the world never, I mean ever question the material. They read some stupid post and see some pictures and automatically assume it is 100% fact.

Social media is a very dangerous thing.

I wasn't going to post on this thread, but this is different from mainstream media how? I don't see a difference. You could say the exact same thing about your local or national news.

Re:Honestly

[Anonymous Coward]

And you would be misusing the moderation system if you did. A "troll" moderation should not be used in place of "I disagree" or "you haven't given me the information I wanted". In those instances you should not use any moderation points and save them to promote other more deserving posts. If you don't understand how to use the moderation system, you have no place telling others how to author their own posts.

Re:Opposition to centralized power is demonized

[superwiz]

I hope you sarcastic. Otherwise, you'd be simply insane. No news organization, however biased, could ever stay in business if it NEVER told the truth.

Re:Democracy and Republic

[ShanghaiBill]

You have just hit the difference between a democratic regime and a republic.

Nope. Any country without a monarch is a republic.

Re:Democracy and Republic

[NeutronCowboy]

Lest someone mods you up - you're utterly wrong. Republic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic. Democracy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy. For some reason, right wingers are pushing this idea, when it is completely, and utterly wrong. Not only that, but it completely muddles the discussion about what makes a dictatorship a dictatorship, what makes a decision by the ruler/ruling party illegitimate but not illegal, etc.

In short, you're creating an ideological environment in which dictatorships are more probably in the US, rather than less.

Re:Democracy and Republic

[Smauler]

That's not the difference.

Re:Honestly

[NeutronCowboy]

You really shouldn't be commenting on the use of the moderation, as you clearly don't have a clue. Trifish's post consisted of one utterly useless and trivial statement that is little more than "Me too!", which is in and of itself reason enough to mod a post down: it contributes nothing and just takes up space. Might have as well posted some frosty piss. On top of that, Trifish tries to goad moderators by explicitly stating that any downmod is the same as a disagreement, and therefore illegitimate and abusive. That is, by itself, also a reason to downmod a post.

In short, we have two statements in his post, each of which merit a downmod for different reasons. Now stop digging before you start to pull out First Amendment and groupthink arguments.

Re:Democracy and Republic

[dryeo]

You can have a constitutional democratic monarchy such as Canada where the governments power is limited by a bill of rights and power sharing between the Provinces and Federal branches of government written into the constitution and you can have a republic such as N. Korea ruled by a leader who can basically torture and kill any one he wants without any due process as well as overrule any lesser government official.
And sadly, even constitutional governments usually have a means of changing the important parts of a constitution given a super-majority.

Hmm.

[Ryanrule]

Yes, I suppose being hung by the neck until dead is quote the menace to totalitarian assholes.

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[Teun]

You are from another world, certainly not from a democratic one.

Protest ,can disrupt public order but as the protests in Berlin and Frankfurt show does not need to.
Besides, a well established democracy is not going to be fundamentally shaken by some protests.

This is contrary to what is happening in Turkey where after years of military influence democracy still has to prove itself.

Re:Honestly

[cheesybagel]

This guy has been a leader in Turkey for a decade already. In many democracies he would have expired his term limits by now.

Oddly, media thinks ...

[kawabago]

society is the greatest threat to the prime minister.

I am glad we still kept Turkey out of the EU

[vikingpower]

Obviously, Turkey still has quite some issues to resolve: the Northern Cyprus problem, and now this. Not to mention the frequent clashes with Greece, and the suppression of the Kurdish minority.

He's not completely wrong

[Crypto Gnome]

Todays "social media" is much more of a bane than a boon, but for none of the reasons given by the Turkish PM.

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[prefec2]

True. If he has it illegally. However, there are a few exceptions to the rule. Most likely, he has still strong bands to Turkey, which is totally understandable.

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[prefec2]

I can protest against any government. That is called free speech. If the politics in France suck and I have time, I could go there and protest. I could also protest in front of the French Embassy in Berlin, if that would be any closer than Paris.

That votes are only limited to those with citizenship is, however, a problem, as not all people living in a country can decide its government.

Its a complicated mess!

[dclydew]

I live in Turkey currently (American living abroad) and its not at all an "Islamic" country. The people are very tolerant of pretty much everything and most (not all) of the Muslims are extremely liberal/secular when compared to many other Islamic social groups. For example, I've seen Imam's, Christian ministers and Jewish rabbis sharing coffee and conversation with each other and a couple of gay men that had nowhere else to sit in the coffee house. Maybe 20% of the women in my area wear headscarves, no burkas or anything like that... and they'll happily have conversations with women in mini skirts and bikinis (hey its a beach town :) ). Most of the Turks drink alcohol, they have some good beers and almost everyone drinks raki (anise liquor). When the mosque calls for prayers, most of the Muslims around here go about their daily life. Many don't ever attend Mosque.

That being said the AKParty acts much like the GOP in the US. They stay in power because there is a strong Anatolian middle class of conservatives and the AKP constantly make noises to maintain their support. A few months ago they made a lot of noise about outlawing abortion, nothing came of it, but the AKP poll numbers went up. The same for the recent anti-alcohol law... "no shop sales after 10 PM and before 6 AM" but you can still go to restaurants and bars with no problem until 5 AM or whenever they finally close.

While the CHP (the left wing, secularist) party is setting itsself up as the 'secular' alternative to the AKP... they tend to be ultra nationalists. The military has, more than once overthrown the government via a coup and taken control of the country, because the military didn't like the way the government was acting. The CHP tend to be Kemalists (following Ataturks views), but they have a pretty poor track record with other kinds of human rights. Kurds, for example, were treated worse under the CHP and military lead governments than under the AKP. The CHP would have no problem jailing people for speaking against Ataturk or Turkey... and actually kicked an author out of the country for writing a book that included support for the claim that the Ottomans in the beginning off the 20th century were responsible for the Armenian genocide (the nationalist position is that it was a war and lots of people on both sides died).

For some the AKP has provided more freedom. For example, until recently, women were not allowed to wear the headscarf in public institutions (schools, colleges, etc.) and women who kept the headscarf had many fewer job options.

Basically the situation in Turkey is a question of balancing extremism on both sides of governance with the more moderate public. There is no simple answer.

Re:Its a complicated mess!

[jwhitener]

The people are very tolerant of pretty much everything

Are your experiences only in the large cities? Someone posted above about how the majority of the population is rural and very religious.

Re:Its a complicated mess!

[dclydew]

I live in a small village, its considered one of the most conservative villages in the Aegean region. The Anatolian region has 'more conservative' people, but they are still very tolerant. For the most part, from my local experience and in my travels around the country, I find that a majority are tolerant people. There are exceptions, in the southeast (near Iraq/Sryian borders) there are still honor killings, for example. However, this country tends to almost worship Ataturk and Ataturk's vision was of a tolerant, secular nation.

There are extremists, but that's far from the majority. even the people that have continually voted for AKP have been moderates, AKP did a lot of good things when coming to power and have only slowly begun to exert more and more authoritarian control... even so, its still tolerant. No one tries to force you to be Muslim, or to wear conservative dress or not drink. The government doesn't tolerate dissent, but it never has under any administration since it became a Republic. Even Ataturk wasn't very tolerant of people that wanted to backslide into a religious/ottoman style system.

The Turkish people just don't have a party that rides the middle... its either religious conservatives, a military coup or extreme secularism/nationalism. Its sad, because the people are really fantastic.

I love the people of this country more and more as I live here. The protests gripping the country now, are really because their fellow countrymen were attacked unjustly (and a litany of other complaints have found a voice in the protests). Here, the language as spoken almost forces a familial connection. People your age are Brother, older men are Uncle, older women are Mother or Grandmother... even if you don't know them. If there's any truth to the Sapier- Worf Hypothesis, the language seems to have a direct impact on how these people feel about each other (or vice versa).

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[loufoque]

If it doesn't disrupt public order then it's not a process. The whole point of protesting is to force people to listen and force the government to negociate.

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[loufoque]

As I already said several times in this thread, the right to protest/manifest and the right of free speech are different things. A protestation disrupts public order, and may prevent people from going to work or get access to some facilities.

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[prefec2]

And I disagree. The right to assemble in groups in public is a human right and therefore is not limited to citizens.
Have a look at Art 19 and 20: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

Straight out of the Dictator's Handbook

[water-and-sewer]

All I can say is, there's a reason chapter 8 (Dealing with uprisings, protests and demonstrations) and chapter 9 (dealing with the media, journalists, and the Internet) are back to back in the Dictator's Handbook. See for yourself at http://www.dictatorshandbook.net/. Autocrats defensively strike to criticise the media when their actions make them vulnerable, and Twitter - being one of the better sources of information during the demonstrations and the whole bulldozer thing (which wasn't a bulldozer, if anyone noticed) - makes an easy target.

I agree Twitter is a menace, but only because their servers crash too often to be considered a standard form of communication. Give me SMTP or NNTP anyday.

But back to Erdogan, good luck buddy - you're going to need it. Check out chapter 7 (managing the military) before you go much further: you're going to need it!

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[loufoque]

It's a different article than free speech, and the declaration of universal rights is not law.

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[prefec2]

It is a signed treaty in many countries including the USA, Germany and if I am not mistaken Turkey. They agreed to make their laws compliance to this treaty. It is not just a pointless declaration. The UN agreed on it and nations signed it.

BTW: The discussion was not about the law, but about the right to participate in a protest in a foreign country. The term right stretches over both areas (declarations/treaties and local laws). However, as already pointed out, the country in question signed that treaty, which subsequently results in local laws, which implement the rights expressed in the declaration.

Take the "Social" out of "Society"

[Rambo Tribble]

Only then will the world be safe for despots, (and forget that etymology nonsense, as well.)

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[loufoque]

The declaration of human rights is very abstract. In practice the laws implementing them have significant restrictions.

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[martas]

Where, exactly, is that written? In the bible? In the Superman comics? In some secret Bill of Rights that God has tattooed on your ass? Where are you getting all of these Rights people do and don't have?

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[Microlith]

That's just stirring trouble.

Protesting abuses of human rights = stirring up trouble. Your masters are pleased.

You can care if you want, just don't go demonstrating it in public and disrupting public order because of it.

Or in other words, "stop caring."

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[loufoque]

Most countries have laws that require the organizers of any kind of demonstration to be resident in the district where they file the protestation permit.

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[loufoque]

Any protest, or even any public demonstration, does bring trouble to the normal society order.
That's why you need to file for a permit before doing one.

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[martas]

Ah, so you were making a statement about the laws of a nation whose leadership is being accused of tyranny. Some countries have laws that require you to be put to dead for touching a person of the opposite sex you're not married to, you know.

Re:Uh, dictators not the only ones.

[Sique]

It's my right of free speech to ridicule this PM's free speech. Nothing to see here. It gets problematic if I want to forbid someone else's free speech.

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[loufoque]

What's your point?
When you're in the country, you must comply to its laws, regardless of whether you agree with them or if they violate some human rights declaration.

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[martas]

Unless you happen to be trying to change those laws, which themselves make such attempts illegal. In that case, complying with said laws is exactly the opposite of what you should to. Well, I guess complying would be fine if you plan on failing...

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[loufoque]

Only the legislative body can change laws.
I fail to see you're point, you're just spouting nonsense.

In a country abiding to even a modest subset of human right, there is no need to commit anything illegal to protest. Doing so only weakens your argument.

Re:Opposition to centralized power is demonized

[superwiz]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKfndgrqHJ4

Re:Democracy and Republic

[manu0601]

For some reason, right wingers are pushing this idea, when it is completely, and utterly wrong.

I suspect you interpret this within a context different than mine. I would just say that I would not endorse a regime as a republic or a democracy just because it claims to be such. For instance, Democratic People's Republic of Korea claims to be both a democracy and a republic, but IMO it is none of both.

they much prefer silent opposition.

[wilfredsatan]

They would like Australia more the government censores the web sites of those it dosent want to hear from .just try and find the twenty +junkies against crime web sites.

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[spongman]

Not if your protesting for free speech.

Re:German guy took part in the protest?

[loufoque]

Yes it is.