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A comment on Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked. Parent comment

Re:Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked by hx87 on Tuesday July 19, 2016 @12:49PM (#12122857)
> totalitarian

Probably the most misused term/epithet in international relations. At its worst Turkey is no more repressive than Russia or China and less repressive than Iran. Once you use "totalitarian" to describe authoritarian regimes, you run out of room to describe those that actually qualify as totalitarian, such as North Korea or Eritrea.

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Re:Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked by dragonwriter on Tuesday July 19, 2016 @12:54PM (#12122897)
> At its worst Turkey is no more repressive than Russia or China

This is what is called "setting the bar so low that a mouse could trip over it."

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Re:Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked by hx87 on Tuesday July 19, 2016 @01:14PM (#12123068)
This is totalitarianism we're talking about, so the bar has to be very low. Otherwise you're classifying Imperial Germany and Nazi Germany in the same state-repression category, which is ludicrous.
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Re:Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked by morgante on Tuesday July 19, 2016 @12:52PM (#12122881)
I don't think anyone claims Russia or China are democratic. Nor are we planning to add them to the EU or NATO anytime soon.
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Re:Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked by hx87 on Tuesday July 19, 2016 @01:08PM (#12123020)
Democracy and levels of state repression being orthogonal notwithstanding, not being democratic (or a EU/NATO candidate) does not imply that a state is totalitarian.
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Re:Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked by rjbwork on Tuesday July 19, 2016 @01:00PM (#12122952)
> Nor are we planning to add them to the EU or NATO anytime soon.

Well, neither is on the North Atlantic or in Europe.

Okay well, Russia sort of is, but...

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Re:Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked by morgante on Tuesday July 19, 2016 @01:06PM (#12123003)
Russia has just as much claim to being European as Turkey does.
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Re:Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked by venomsnake on Tuesday July 19, 2016 @01:15PM (#12123084)
Sort of? European Russia with Ukraine and Belarus is almost as big as the rest of europe combined
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Re:Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked by bordercases on Tuesday July 19, 2016 @12:54PM (#12122898)
"Very totalitarian" vs "somewhat totalitarian".
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked by hx87 on Tuesday July 19, 2016 @01:01PM (#12122968)
> "somewhat totalitarian"

There's already a term for that. Authoritarian.

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