News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:The decline of Turkish schools by te_chris on Saturday September 30, 2017 @09:32AM (#15372783)
Democracy is more than just casting and counting votes. It's the biggest trick of tyrants to convince the people that so long as they can vote they're free (see: Putin, Erdogan). Full functioning democracy requires a strong, independent media, quality institutions, an independent judiciary, all of which are accountable and responsive to their constituents. It also requires eternal vigilance because these conditions are vulnerable to despotism, so you always need to be on the lookout (see: Trump, UK tories and the repeal bill, Poland, Hungary)
Re:The decline of Turkish schools by mengibar10 on Saturday September 30, 2017 @11:13PM (#15376159)
Very well said. However a true functioning democracy require more than these unfortunately. At least in order to have those well functioning institutions you need an entity that can expose groups who have hijacked them.

Countries like Turkey who have been on the losing side of power game for at least couple of centuries, or countries like Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Greece that were non-existent before but either their borders drawn with a ruler on the map or too weak to stand alone are under heavy influence of foreign agents/powers. Heck, even US is under heavy influence of interest groups to the extent that public was sold on to the idea of Iraq's invasion. Even then most Americans opposed the Iraq war but their voices were drowned by heavy media bombardment.

Take Iran. Once they had their own elected government but CIA staged a coup [1] and installed Shah. Think for once, if a country is run with democracy, but a real one, would they throw a democratic country and install a dictator instead? US is a very strong country in many respects and hides many large cracks. Don't be fooled by its looks.

You need more than institutions to have a real democracy. It is not easy to have people's voice heard.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/19/cia-admits-rol...

Re:The decline of Turkish schools by nine_k on Sunday October 01, 2017 @04:35PM (#15379656)
CIA might have installed a different Shah, but the Iranian republic existed since 1906 till 1921, and the new Shah was a son of the previous one.

At least, so says Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran#From_the_1800s_to_the_194...

Re:The decline of Turkish schools by aaron-lebo on Saturday September 30, 2017 @10:06AM (#15372895)
The usual distinction is "democracy" vs liberal democracy. The first is illiberal and the second places an importance on the rule of law.
Re:The decline of Turkish schools by QAPereo on Saturday September 30, 2017 @02:44PM (#15374369)
By that fairly holistic definition, I wouldn't particularly call the UK or US democracies. At the very least, not healthy and thriving ones.