International Day of Democracy in Thailand

The UK Ambassador to Thailand has blogged to mark the International Day of Democracy; here's an excerpt:
Following last yearтАЩs military coup in Thailand the UK and other members of the international community, including the Secretary-General of the UN, called for the early restoration of democracy. That seems even further away now than it did then. But whatтАЩs so great about democracy? We donтАЩt support it because we want to impose a western, political system on everyone. We do so because a genuinely democratic system brings with it tremendous benefits.

In a democracy, everyone has equal right and opportunity to participate in the political process, and even stand for election. So democracy gives people some control over the decisions that affect their lives. People are less likely to resort to violence to resolve their differences or make their voices heard if they can participate in credible, fair elections, which allow for the peaceful and periodic transfer of power. Where democratic values are upheld, prosperity flourishes, and the risk of instability is minimised.

In a democracy, the people get to choose their leaders. So democratic governments have to respond to peopleтАЩs needs and aspirations if they want to get re-elected. In countries where there is no democracy it is all too easy for governments to focus on their own self-interest, rather than governing in the interests of their citizens. So democracies provide fairer distribution of resources and access to power.Makes you proud to be British. The full post (http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/markkent/2015/09/15/international-day-of-democracy/) can be found online here

[bruce_nyc]

Politicians in democracies also only look out for their own self-interests. They're just more secretive about it. Corruption is universal.

[bkkguy]

the inherent flaw in this article and all the other calls from the UK, the US, the EU, the UN etc for the restoration of democracy in Thailand is what they really mean is the restoration of elections so we can all claim Thailand is once more a friend of like thinking we can trade with and play war games with and at least pretend to have a clean conscience

read the rest of the Kent article and what he thinks democracy entails and tell me when since the 1930's Thailand could even remotely have been called a democracy that we can now restore, or indeed has been seriously moving towards becoming a democratic society

yes I know all the mature western democracies have their problems with corruption, abuse of the electoral process, popularity policies, abuse of rule of law etc, but there is a significant difference between societies that have developed democratically over hundreds of years now/still facing such problems and a society like Thailand today that is still so toxic to the roots of democracy that it will take multiple generations of mindset change before any real democratic development is even possible and the "reforms" being talked about currently are no more likely to guide Thai society towards democracy than having an election tomorrow, next year or in 10 years time!

bkkguy

[cdnmatt]

I love it. The US is supposedly the bastion of freedom and democracy in the world, right? Yet, they just simply legalized corruption and called it lobbying.

heh.

[christianpfc]

While the quote in the op sounds reasonable on first reading, I find myself more agreeing with this statement:


A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

From Bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."
Read more at http://www.snopes.com/politics/ballot/a ... 2pIJiLc.99 (http://www.snopes.com/politics/ballot/athenian.asp#FvlHqYqPV2pIJiLc.99)

I consider attempts to bring democracy to other countries like attempts in the past to bring Christianity to other countries. How great did dictatorships work in Iraq, Libya and Egypt, and now it's all chaos!

Dictatorship in it's many forms has been tested for millennia, whereas modern age democracy is only about 200 years old.

Our democracies work because we have material wealth, which comes from exploiting other countries' natural resources and labor force, and these countries are dictatorships! (Unfortunately, I can't quote any facts or sources to support this view.)

Democracy means equal voting rights for everyone. Now look how stupid the average (insert country of your choice) is, and half of the population is even more stupid.

All major democracies are deep in dept

voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury
Read more at http://www.snopes.com/politics/ballot/a ... 2pIJiLc.99 (http://www.snopes.com/politics/ballot/athenian.asp#FvlHqYqPV2pIJiLc.99)
without even a hint of reversing this. This can't go on for eternity, and will probably be solved with a bang (sudden devaluation of money with large parts of the population thrown into poverty, breakdown of social services, civil or external war).

[bruce_nyc]

I agree with you, Christian.

Cdnmatt, it's much worse than only lobbyists. Candidates are owned and groomed way before they're ever elected.

The usual arguments about democracy = elections and politicians are always corrupt trotted out by those who have benefitted from being raised in democracies but believe that they (being white) are entitled to make decisions on behalf of other races. This paternalistic mentality used to be known as "colonialism" and is still alive and well

[cdnmatt]

Who do we have in line for the next "leader of the free world"? From the looks of things, it's Donald Trump vs. Hilary Clinton.

Democracy, baby! heh.

From a piece in Moneyweek (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-fiorinas-failure-as-a-ceo-ensures-shed-fail-as-president-2015-09-17) about the USA
Our government is a messy mix of oligarchy, democracy, republicanism and federalism that guarantees that almost nothing can get done. At least, not without a huge struggle. That is not a bug of our political system; itтАЩs a feature. ItтАЩs the way our founding fathers planned it. They didnтАЩt want a king, or a queen, not even a steely-eyed former CEO. Barack Obama was elected in 2008 primarily because he persuaded us that fixing our problems would be easy. All we needed was hope and audacity, and we can do it. Yes we can! But when Obama got into office, he was quickly schooled.

[frequentfliers]

Surely its not April 1st yet.

[Smiles]

" ... a society like Thailand today that is still so toxic to the roots . . . and the "reforms" being talked about currently are no more likely to guide Thai society towards democracy than having an election tomorrow, next year or in 10 years time! ... "
Bkkguy puts it in a nutshell.
I think 10-years-waiting is not nearly long enough.

[Up2U]

PM upset over remarks by ambassador
THE NATION September 18, 2015
Urges Thais to not allow foreigners to interfere in domestic affairs
PRIME MINISTER Prayut Chan-o-cha yesterday hit out at an unnamed foreign diplomat for "reporting wrongly" about Thailand.... (read more).... http://www.nationmultimedia.com/politic ... 69042.html (http://www.nationmultimedia.com/politics/PM-upset-over-remarks-by-ambassador-30269042.html)

I tend to believe that those in power (even in a democracy - that's why we have an Opposition) make self-serving remarks more often than not. In the Generalissimo's case a useful rule of thumb is that if he says something's wrong it must be right

[Up2U]

While the quote in the op sounds reasonable on first reading, I find myself more agreeing with this statement:

[quote]A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

From Bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."
Read more at http://www.snopes.com/politics/ballot/a ... 2pIJiLc.99 (http://www.snopes.com/politics/ballot/athenian.asp#FvlHqYqPV2pIJiLc.99)

I consider attempts to bring democracy to other countries like attempts in the past to bring Christianity to other countries. How great did dictatorships work in Iraq, Libya and Egypt, and now it's all chaos!

Dictatorship in it's many forms has been tested for millennia, whereas modern age democracy is only about 200 years old.

Our democracies work because we have material wealth, which comes from exploiting other countries' natural resources and labor force, and these countries are dictatorships! (Unfortunately, I can't quote any facts or sources to support this view.)

Democracy means equal voting rights for everyone. Now look how stupid the average (insert country of your choice) is, and half of the population is even more stupid.

All major democracies are deep in dept

voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury
Read more at http://www.snopes.com/politics/ballot/a ... 2pIJiLc.99 (http://www.snopes.com/politics/ballot/athenian.asp#FvlHqYqPV2pIJiLc.99)
without even a hint of reversing this. This can't go on for eternity, and will probably be solved with a bang (sudden devaluation of money with large parts of the population thrown into poverty, breakdown of social services, civil or external war).[/quote:36ktdkkl]
I hope Christian is aware that the snopes.com website debunks Internet rumours, inaccuracies, etc. that go unchallenged and accepted as truth. (Perfect example was the Republican debates where inaccuracies were constantly repeated, went unchallenged and accepted by many in attendance.) The website takes source of the article from which Christian quotes to task for its inaccuracies. Consequently, any conclusions based on the article are in itself questionable.

I hope Christian is aware...Sadly Christian's self-awareness is fairly limited. In another thread he's been venting about the evil airlines and their "unfair" rules and how the European court system will hold them to account without any realisation that it's only in a democracy that he can say such things with impunity and, moreover, it's a democracy's use of the court system as a wholly independent arbiter that gives democracy its "edge". Courts in Thailand are simply instruments of one sector of society - the royalist establishment

As for the missionary position I wonder how the members of the populist uprising in the Philippines in the Eighties, Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma or Mohdi in India would feel about Christian's assertion that they are Western missionaries fucking over their own countries. Mohdi's address to the Australian parliament a year or so ago pretty much summed it up:
democracy offers the best opportunity for the human spirit to flourish

[bruce_nyc]

There's nothing wrong with democracy. I just wish it existed somewhere. The US system of government is definitely not a democracy.

There's nothing wrong with free market capitalism. I just wish it existed somewhere in the world. The US system of global corporate crony capitalism is definitely not free market capitalism.

In both cases..... They give a *bad* name to democracy and capitalism..... unfairly..... since they are not *real* democracy nor capitalism.