Erdogan Says Democracy Has 'No Value', Vows to Crack Down on Opposition

[Purveyor]

06:59 18.03.2016(updated 08:08 18.03.2016) Get short URL
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In the wake of a recent bomb attack in Ankara, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has declared that the fight against terrorism is above the “rule of law” and vowed to hit his enemies, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in particular, with "an iron fist."

Amid a sharp escalation in the conflict in southeast Turkey, Erdogan stated in a televised address that “democracy, freedom, and the rule of law” have “absolutely no value any longer,” DPA news agency reported.

Erdogan’s speech appeared charged with hatred as he called for a line to be drawn between his friends and enemies, and promising war against the latter.

"Those who stand on our side in the fight against terrorism are our friend. Those on the opposite side are our enemy," he said, referring to the conflict with the PKK.

Erdogan also threatened to turn his government’s military against the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), the majority party in the nation’s parliament.

"Wherever you run, our soldiers, police and village guards will find you there and do what is necessary," the embattled president said.

Earlier he called on the parliament to lift immunity for HDP party leaders, allowing his security forces to arrest and detain legislators for proposing the creation of an autonomous Kurdish territory within the country

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160318/1036498299/erdogan-democracy-kurds.html#ixzz43EWqXU9m

[jakeXT]

1. You are either with us or against us, I've seen that somewhere before /nt

[Igel]

3. Yeah.

Bush II.

Many here.

Putin.

I think I've heard Obama say it.

Common enough expression. It's the varying responses to it that show the problem.

"That's a horrible thing to say, how dare he say it!" Then, a few months later, a different person says it and the response is, "Yup, couldn't have said it better myself." It depends entirely on the "us" and the "you."

[cprise]

2. K&R

[Igel]

4. The Levada Center did an interesting poll perhaps a year ago.

Perhaps a bit more than a year.

The question set off stability versus democracy.

Stability was economics, law and order, that sort of thing.

Democracy was freedom of speech, assembly, civil rights. You get the picture.

Think of it as asking to decide between freedom of speech and worship versus freedom from want and fear; Constitutional rights versus what a lot of advocates want in a second set of human rights, income and social services.

Most Americans when polled put Constitutional rights (mostly negative rights) above positive rights, the "freedom from want" kinds of rights or law and order.

Most Russians, by a wide majority, wanted income and law and order. "Democracy" came in a very weak second.

This was an interesting poll because it made a distinction in definitions that had been reported widely in the media but only tacitly and covertly. In the Arab Spring, people said they wanted "democracy" but most of the signs were for jobs, income, subsidies; the expection was that democracy would immediately translate into better material well being for the populace. Most democracies are prosperous, and abductive logic allowed people to assume that one entailed the other. Had they looked at democracies in 1933 they may have drawn a rather different conclusion, but we're talking low SES historical memory about things not directly relevant to their personal narratives.

I suspect that a preference of one over the other is more widespread than we like to think, given that we often assume that our values are the ones shared everywhere. It's responsible, I think, for the foolishness of the idea that prosperity leads to democracy that was kicking around in the 1990s and 00's but which flopped horribly in the case of Russia and China and other countries. But even if you look at Western sounding advocates in lesser developed countries, often they smack of tinpot dictators dressed in leftist clothing. Same attitudes, different goals. Which misses the point, IMHO. And the preference for negative "let me and mine be" rights over positive "give me mine" rights is hardly clear in all subpopulations in the US.

[Herman4747]

5. Ataturk gave Turkey Democracy; this fool is trying to take it away.

“My people are going to learn the principles of democracy the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go." -- Ataturk

[highoverheadspace]

6. I can't believe the EU have just paid the Turkish dictator 6 billion euro.

Its insane. He has them completely over a barrel while he supports ISIS.