Until today Libya was on UN Human Rights Council.

[Black Wolf]

http://pewglobal.org/files/2010/12/Pew-Global-Attitudes-Muslim-Report-FINAL-December-2-2010.pdf

Good lord, are we watching the same newscasts?

See, that's the problem. You're watching newscasts, I'm looking at sources that are based on statistics.

If you want to know how much Islam is important to everyone, CTRL + F "Islam's Influence" and "Support for Severe Laws" after clicking on the link above. You will find that Egypt ranks very high on the Islam-based dictatorship concerns. Libya and Tunisia, probably not so much. It's unclear with them.

Also, Iranian ships are sailing up the Suez Canal for the first time in decades.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/news.aspx/142433

Edited March 3, 2011 by Black Wolf

[SapereAude]

Au contraire, mon frere Grimes: it MAY BE a positive development, long term, if it wakes the honest folk out of their slumber. The world wars were awful, but as they were unavoidable, they did provide an excuse to blow up the fascists -- and to this day, European politicians are wary about being labeled fascist, which is a good thing.

Actually I would say that it is a bad thing.

Your wording is telling. You are correct. Leaders are wary of being labeled fascist. The problem is that they are not wary of behaving as fascists or implementing and promoting fascist policies.

They simple avoid the label and in doing so do what all who want to bring the frog to a boil slowly so to speak: they start messing with defintions. Fascism amongst the newer generation of voters tends to mean "anyone whose politics I don't agree with but most especially if they are pro-capitalism". And these aren't uneducated people either- these are college graduates and students.

[CapitalistSwine]

Foreignpolicy.com has actually written a nice article as of just recently on the utter hypocrisy of the UN Human Rights Council's continuous blasting of Israel whilst it has the likes of Libya on its board:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/03/02/the_inmates_are_running_the_asylum

[SapereAude]

Good lord, are we watching the same newscasts? The Islamist movement has been, at best, on the sidelines of the revolts in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.

And I love the dismissal of any potential progress, because of the fact that the protesters haven't been calling for a laissez-faire capitalist economy. You're setting up a very dangerous false dichotomy, where a country is either Singapore or North Korea, with no intermediates. Toppling dictators and installing accountable government is a step in the right direction.

Wrath, I understand your desire for optimism in light of these protests but past history of other such events is the evidence many of us use when formulating shall we say, "a less rosy outlook" when we see angry mob uprisings in volitile regions.

Thomas Sowell touches on the matter a bit here:

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell030111.php3

Let us say that Islamic extremists won't hijack these revolutions, lets pretend that for a moment. Despite the fact that these kinds of disruptions are the exact kind of crisis people & groups seeking power exploit.We're still looking at an angry mob.

I have to take some offense at your dismissal of the tone of the conversation on this topic (or was it of the board overall?).

Those who are taking a pessimistic view of the situation do so with historical precedent to back up their misgivings.

[The Wrath]

But if history has taught anything, it's that what we expect to happen almost never actually happens. Who could have foreseen that a senseless act of terrorism on the part of a 19 year-old Serbian national would be the spark needed to topple the monarchies of Europe and redefine the nature of global power for the whole 20th century? Perhaps the self-immolation of this young Tunisian man was the spark needed to topple the old order of the Middle East...

Then again, perhaps not. Time will tell, and I still remain cautiously hopeful that this will result, at least, with the installation of government that has to answer to the people. Whether the people in general want Islam to take a role in politics, it can still be a step in the right direction. Most people in the US want Christianity to play a role in politics, and the Islamist party is currently in power in Turkey. Despite that, imagine how great a leap forward it would be if Egypt wound up looking like Turkey.

[SapereAude]

Then again, perhaps not. Time will tell, and I still remain cautiously hopeful that this will result, at least, with the installation of government that has to answer to the people. Whether the people in general want Islam to take a role in politics, it can still be a step in the right direction. Most people in the US want Christianity to play a role in politics, and the Islamist party is currently in power in Turkey. Despite that, imagine how great a leap forward it would be if Egypt wound up looking like Turkey.

I assume you don't live in Turkey? A great many people would probably beg to differ with you on how wonderful it would be if Egypt ended up like Turkey (if Amnesty International is to be believed). Not all, I grant you, just the ones who have been tortured.

From Amnesty International reports:

"The widespread and systematic use of torture in Turkey was first observed by Amnesty International (AI) after the 1971 Turkish coup d'état.[34] Until 2002 the organization continued to speak of systematic torture in Turkey.[35] Günter Verheugen, Commissioner for Enlargement of the European Union went to Turkey in September 2004 and maintained that torture was no longer systematic practice in Turkey.[36] The Human Rights Association (HRA) protested against this evaluation[37] and pointed at recent figures and definitions of systematic torture by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and the UN Committee against Torture.[38]

Since 2005 incidents of torture seem to be on the rise.[39] According to an October report by the Prime Ministry's Human Rights Presidency (HRP), the number of torture and cruel treatment cases reported in the first six months of the year surpassed the number reported in the first half of 2007. The HRP reported that, in the first half of the year, 178 persons reported cruel treatment and 26 reported torture, up from 79 reports of cruel treatment and 17 reports of torture during the same period in 2007.[39] In the report on progress of November 2008 the European Commission stated, "the number of applications to NGOs in relation to cases of torture and ill-treatment has increased, in particular outside official places of detention, notably during apprehension, transfer, or in the open with no detention registered... There is a lack of prompt, impartial and independent investigation into allegations of human rights violations by members of security forces."[40] In the 2009 annual report Amnesty International stated: "Reports of torture and other ill-treatment rose during 2008, especially outside official places of detention but also in police stations and prisons."[41]"

[CapitalistSwine]

Thomas Sowell touches on the matter a bit here:

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell030111.php3

Everything else aside I have to question why you are looking to an economist for their opinion on matters of regional culture, religion, and relatively in-depth foreign policy matters. I don't exactly ask my pool boy to code me something in C++, but rather to clean my pool.

Edited March 5, 2011 by CapitalistSwine

[Zip]

Amazing that the only comments on this forum about the ongoing Arab Revolutions are cliche conservative talking points about the UN. Not that they're inaccurate, but can't you people come up with something more substantive to say about a popular movement that could wind up modernizing large swaths of the Muslim world? This is why I rarely post here anymore.

Actually I've worked for the UN (as a peacekeeper).

I was in Bosnia when the Muslims went "Over the top" in true WW1 fashion against the entrenched Serbs and their machine guns. After a series of huge bombardments of Bosnian artillery against the Serbs followed by wave upon wave of Muslims going (and losing) in the face of Serbian machine guns (it really was reminiscent of WW1), when the Serbs finally retalliated with only 6 rounds of howitzer fire against the Muslims the UN called in Ground attack Jets against the Serbs. At that moment I knew exactly what the UN was up to and just what the UN was worth.

Bulldoze the entire works into the ground and cover it with a nice landfill or something.

As for the uprising... Wait till you meet the new boss. If he isn't just a shadow of the old boss (as has happened without so much as a peep out of the UN in Egypt) I'll eat my words.

[SapereAude]

Everything else aside I have to question why you are looking to an economist for their opinion on matters of regional culture, religion, and relatively in-depth foreign policy matters. I don't exactly ask my pool boy to code me something in C++, but rather to clean my pool.

Erm.... I'm not sure you're following.

Wrath was waxing optimistic about "the people" taking control of their government while many more here (myself included) are seeing little more than mob mentality.

The column is a matter of questioning whether democracy being a good thing is just a given- as so many have been taught.

As to whether Mr. Sowell's opinions shouls be taken seriously- well, you respond to many issues on these forums not the the ones pertaining to your specific academic sphere don't you? Would you prefer your opinions to be always brushed off? I find your "pool boy" remark to be disturbingly elitest. Your "pool boy" could be a brilliant mind whose reasons for cleaning a pool you may never know. If you somehow found out that your "pool boy" was a brilliant carpenter would the collectivist thinking you are using in this regard have such control over you that you would not let him design something for you? I suppose since you are insisting on thinking of him as "pool boy" instead of an individual perhaps you would never notice if he had great skill, potential or abilities elsewhere.

"Pool Boy" happens to be first and foremost an individual. It can become all too easy to forget that. Why not go all the way and just call him a peasant?

I consider myself an intelligent and rational individual with a good base of life experience as well as study in the things I choose to comment on- however I currently bartend for a living entirely by choice. Does that invalidate my opinions, my accumulated learning, my ability to reason and answer questions posed by others on topics not related to gin&tonics?

Let us put aside what I'm sure was an unintended snub against Dr. Sowell and look at your questions from another point of view.

Dr. Sowell is an economist. A very respected one.

Are you trying to say that in our global economy "regional culture, religion, and relatively in-depth foreign policy matters" do not have a symbiotic relationship with economics? That all of these things effect the economy and the economy effects all these things?

Does the question of democracy and its inevitable debased form of mob rule not effect the economy? Do wars effect the economy?

Should I even be asking or answering these questions since my paid position is not economics, or poli-sci or philosophy?

Who is John Galt?