Speaking of EU standards:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

So, evidently Turkey deciding to revert to Kemalist routes shows it's not a proper EU state.

Meanwhile France ensures that it can strip nationality on grounds that are presumably no more consisently enforced in La Belle France than here in the poor benighted backwards USA.After all, the heartland of the Reign of Terror, the Vendee, the Paris Commune, and Vichy France would never, ever abuse this kind of power and it's purely representative of democracy at its finest.

http://neurope.eu/article/valls-leans-on-the-right-to-amend-the-constitution/

Poland likewise is following a Putinist path to dictatorship with someone redefining the constitution on a whim. Since Poles proudly define themselves as more civilized than Germans and Russians (at least every single fucking one I've met on the Internet has. Granted, they may not be representative of Poles that don't type in English on the Internet), it's kind of bitterly ironic that this is happening with all of zero attempts at stopping it by the EU or any reason to believe such should be the case.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/11628799/Poland-on-the-velvet-road-to-dictatorship-after-Andrzej-Duda-wins-presidential-elections.html

Hungary, of course, is also the most triumphant example of an EU dictatorship

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/hello-dictator-hungary-orban-viktor-119125

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-04-07/is-hungary-the-eu-s-only-dictatorship

Now, I do enjoy seeing people declaiming that dictatorial methods in Turkey prove it not worthy of EU entrance. If these standards, so-called, had the least shred of substance, Paris, Warsaw, and Budapest should all be peremptorily demoted to candidates unless they make serious changes away from a path that has never worked well in Europe any time it's been tried.

When shit like this is happening in both Eastern and Western Europe, the claim that the backwards Turks and Russians aren't right up there with Europe (if a bit more prone to extremes than the rest) does tend to wear a little thin. How is it OK for Putin to invade neighbors on a whim and poison people with polonium in their tea, for the leaders of Poland, Hungary, and France to revive traditions best left dead, and none of this depict European values? If values are held in a purely nominal sense, of what worth are they?

Now you could say that this applies equally to the USA with our nullification of the Voting Rights Act leading to exactly what anyone familiar with what America actually is as opposed to what it says it is and the growth of a de facto police state with prison populations of parity with Soviet-era statistics (meaning probably more people than officially admitted to in both states):

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/01/30/the-caging-of-america

And that would be true, and as the Vietnamese General said to the American general, irrelevant. Either the people who wag fingers at bad behavior apply good behavior or they don't. It does no good to proclaim archly the virtues of democracy if demoracy gets kicked down the road at the first opportunity in unstable states incapable of sticking to a valid system of government for more than a generation or two at most (France) or tinpot mini-states that still whine and bitch and howl about injustices they really can't change and didn't and don't affect the people actually living in the same way they used to.

As I've said before, half of the USA remains in a situation where rule of law would be a good idea. So why is Europe, where this same practice leads invariably to far more openly brutal results than in the USA wanting to go back to that model? Is the EU a democracy, or is it going to be a League of Extraordinary Dictatorships as all the little subsets of the grand leaking ship keep adding more and more despotic processes to their legal systems? Can the EU in fact proclaim the virtues of a system if member states can strike it down whenever they so please?

Comments

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

I'm liking how this is becoming an indirect debate between people who won't talk to each other. No, actually I lied. I'm not liking it.

It's not a Kemalist route. It's a neo-Ottomanist route, i.e. the exact opposite of Kemalist. What Erdogan is doing is exactly what Ataturk resented. The blending of state and religion, removing the military as a political factor, expansionist foreign policy, etc, etc.

You could've added Denmark seizing property from refugees upon arrival and made your point just perfectly, by the way. ;-)

Ps. (Sorry for the several edits). You could use a LJ cut.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

IKR. I cringe every time I hear the words "some people". Which people?

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

It's the polite way.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Eh, I was intending to write this regardless once I read a bit more about what's been going on in Poland and Hungary. The French reaction to the Paris attacks still rubs me wrong and does so even moreso in the wake of the shifts of Poland and Hungary. It might be unsporting but truthful to dismiss former Soviet bloc states as taking these steps as not the 'real' Europe but when *France* codifies the same element, then it becomes a bit more problematic than it already was, both that it happens and that Brussels doesn't care any more about France than about Hungary or Poland here.

I do admit that seeing posts about democracy as European/Western values irks me when my country's become a police state and I'm watching European countries slide down those same lines.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

No one wants no one to slide to totalitarianism or authoritarianism. The problem with Turkey is that it's becoming a norm. With Europe, it's rather an exception. When too many exceptions pile on top of each other that becomes a trend, granted, but Europe is still nowhere near that. Turkey, on the other hand...

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

So trends are only worrisome when backwards Russia and Turkey do them and not the supposedly more civilized EU? The USA's already a police state and people here are too fat, stupid, cowardly, and lazy to do anything about it. I don't want the EU to follow that same trend as I would like to believe being across an ocean means people somewhere actually are as civilized as they talk about being.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

But that's the point here. Is this a trend or a norm with Europe? And is it a trend or a norm with Russia and Turkey? How do you think? Are Russia and Turkey democratic or authoritarian societies? And, is the EU a democratic or an authoritarian society? If you could put those things on a scale, how would you rate democracy/authoritarianism in Europe, in Turkey, and in Russia? That's the point.

No one has said anything about civilized, civilizing, or civilization. This is about a few rules that the EU has put for entry. And any EU member like Hungary which ventures across that line, starts to receive warnings. If they double down, penal procedures follow. As for Turkey and Russia, they're so far beyond the line, we're not even talking of occasional crossings of it - we're talking something entirely different as a political system.

You can't honestly argue in good conscience that Turkey or Russia is anywhere near the EU in terms of democracy.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I never said they were, I just said that Yeltsin-era Russia was a democracy, it just was a very bad one. Plenty of the Versailles-era Democracies didn't last very long either, but is lasting long and being a good one all it takes to disqualify a state from being democratic? I'd say it is a trend and now that it's spread to France it's no longer limited to the former Soviet bloc. That does raise questions about how sincere the proclamations of democracy in the EU are. I've seen my country degenerate into a police state in the last two decades, I don't want that to happen to EU countries.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

If Turkey wasn't being considered "European enough" at the time it did have something resembling a pluralistic democracy, now it has strayed even further from that recognition.

Oh, and you're presenting the occasional glitch in European democracy as if it's the norm that it has become in Turkey under Erdogan. Well, it is not.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think that a group of 'glitches' that extends to the heartland of Western Europe and to Eastern Europe, as well as Belarus and Russia is a was bit more than a glitch. Turkey was never going to be considered European until Russia got to be a scarier boogeyman, if then. Europe needs its big scary not-us to be sufficiently liberal, white, Christian, and European. Without one its civilization disintegrates. The USA has an underclass for that. We don't need foreign Others, though we have them.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Belarus and Russia are not EU members and will not be such any time soon either, exactly because what can be considered a glitch in Poland (much less in Hungary, where it's becoming a dangerous trend at this point) has been the norm for, like, forever. That's the whole point.

Your simplistic interpretation (Christian, white, etc) of a rather complex problem has been noted, though - although not that much appreciated.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Simplistic? The EU admitted known basketcases like Greece and pleaded disingenuous ignorance after the fact purely to avoid allowing a non-white Muslim state with equal potential power to France or Germany to be involved. If it was willing to admit basketcases for no good reason, why precisely else would it have admitted them? It certainly wasn't that Greece was anything but the backwards Third World appendage to Athens and it's not like it being so was a unique discovery springing like Athena from the head of Zeus.

What did Greece, Spain, Romania, and Hungary have that Turkey did not? What does the EU see in them now that it can't in good faith not extend to Turkey if it did that?

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

I've always known that, while Europe cites various cultural and political reasons for not accepting Turkey, the main reason is the economy. Europe is concerned that Turkey with its huge and booming economy would take over the rest of Europe. Another issue is the fact that opening the borders for Turkish citizens would make the current refugee flood pale in comparison (no surprise that Davutoglu put the immediate removal of all visa regimes for Turkish citizens among his five demands yesterday). There is an economic and geopolitical game being played here, and democracy is only a pretext.

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

Geopolitics is a factor, yes. If the EU can be viewed as one geopolitical player and Russia as another player, Turkey is yet another. I'm guessing it is neither in Turkey's nor in EU's interests to be fused together, because their geopolitical interests often differ, and if these interests begin to clash within the EU, that would create two power centers within the EU, which would ultimately lead to the EU's collapse. And Russia would be the winner from it all.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Ah, so it's basically that Paris and Berlin want to retain hegemony and are terrified a third state would disrupt it. Well that does make sense. Either way, if European values are democracy, inaction in the wake of steadily advancing tides of dictatorship does make that particular value appear to wear a little thin.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

Is that news to you? It is all about economic and geopolitical domination.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

No, I'm just appreciative that you admit it straightforwardly. Thank you. :)

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

As usual, and not surprisingly, you're telling only half of the story (not to mention your outdated references that you're so fond of). When Poland attempted to redefine its constitution and make it less pluralistic, the EU threatened with retaliatory actions, penal procedures, etc. When Hungary's Orban embarked on a Putinist path, there were even calls in Brussels for excluding Hungary from the EU. Hell, even when my country steps over the line it gets instantly scolded, and threats about cutting our EU subsidies are short to follow. While all this remains just in words and little actions, at least the EU is being consistent there.

So yeah, you're only telling half of the story. Which is the very definition of manipulation. As to how someone who deliberately uses manipulation is called, I leave that to you.

That said, the bigger problem here is EU's double standard. A Two-Europes plan has been long in the making, and now with the agreement with the UK it's effectively been put into action. It will create a core Europe, a protected Europe, and then a buffer zone of second-class EU members like my country, who'll remain on the outside. Outside of Schengen and outside of the Eurozone. It'll be meant to take the first blow whenever some trouble emerges from the East (and yes, Turkey is still considered the East). We'll be treated as geopolitical cannon fodder, so to speak. While some call that inevitable damage control which could yield some safety for Core Europe in the short run, I call it a suicide in the long run. Because countries like mine could get fed up with it, say enough is enough, and decide to look for other options.

The bad thing is, the other options are always worse: either Russia or Turkey. And they're preying on the weak like ourselves - always have. We'll again be put in a situation where we'll have to choose sides. And we've always paid dearly whenever we've unequivocally chosen one side over the other. Blame our geographical location, our ineptitude to defend our interests, or the big games of the big players - your choice. But there's that. But that's another story.

The point is, are the occasions that you listed singular glitches in the democratic fabric of European societies, or is it rather the norm. And where does Turkey stand in all this. Well, I'd say that while it used to be in the former position at the time it had pluralism, many parties competing, free speech, separation of state and religion, and the military as a guarant for pluralism - NOW it is fast moving into the opposite direction. It's making authoritarianism its norm. Which is exactly what Europe, despite the occasional glitch, has been trying to run away from ever since the world wars. There's the difference that you're deliberately omitting. So, like I said, manipulation.

Now, as for the double standard that the EU is displaying in treating its own members, I do detest that, and I do think it'll be EU's undoing. Not that I mind such a development, but I at least can see where Core Europe's concerns regarding the current Turkish political system are coming from. But do YOU? By the looks of the parallel that you're trying to craft here - more likely not.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I would say that it's the norm and it was the 'getting along' for fear of a Soviet invasion coupled with nukes that was the aberration. Not sure what parallels you see, I see more of a parallel to the early 1920s. Democracy, put to the test of an economic crisis, starts creaking and disintegrating with fairly trivial effort. It's an ideology of wealth and taste, if it's asked to support people in a time that may be less harsh than its predecessor but no less real to the people affected, it starts to fail and fail rather readily.

So no, I think it is a reversion to the Old Europe of swaggering brutes and thugs whose idea of rule of law is tenuous at best. What analogy did you think I was making?

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

OK, you say it's the norm. I say it's not. Let's leave it at that.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And I say that if it's a trend and a growing one, then it's not an aberration and the EU clearly is quite content to accept it, and thus that those who live in glass houses don't get to throw stones.

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

OK then, Hungary, Poland and France should be excluded from the EU and everything will be fine. I agree with you. In fact, the EU shouldn't exist at all - especially in its current form.

But that's another story.

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

You know what? I saw what you said in the other thread about me, and I think indeed it's best that we ignore each other from now on. My interactions with you have only caused me frustration, and that's not a sensation that I tend to often experience online, and not one that I enjoy.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Welcome to my world.

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

Should Putin's Russia be put in the same pot with the EU, though? Can the EU be blamed for what Putin is doing in his empire, and be labeled "European value"?

I do not know what "European value" exactly means, but I do know what "democratic principle" means. And what Erdogan has been doing since day one is none of that. Are Poland, Hungary and some others crossing a line in that regard sometimes? Yes. Sometimes they are. As for Erdogan, he has not only crossed all lines, he has kept marching way beyond them.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I've said before that I see Russia as being European as much as Turkey and Britain. Russia was a democracy (of sorts) in the 1990s, so the slide into dictatorship just happened earlier and more spectacularly. I do think that it's true Turkey has fewer lines than other states but I don't recall Europeans caring too much about Franco or Salazar or how Spain and the UK handle their own domestic insurgencies intent on dismantling the state.

And to me it's a bit more than sometimes. Unlike Turkey, Brussels has at least nominal ability to rein it in if it really gave a damn. That it doesn't indicates that Europeans only care about democracy as a club to beat Turkey over the head with, thus far and no further.

Which to be fair is no different than the USA piously preaching democracy in the Middle East and sucking up to the Saudis.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Only someone who never knew a thing about Russia would say that the mess that Russia was in the 90s was something like democracy.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

If that someone lives in Louisiana, where people like Huey Long, David Duke, and Edwin Edwards are considered 'democratic' leaders, I don't see any real difference between the chaos save a measure of scale and that Russia has much cooler architecture.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

We're still talking about Russia here, right?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Yes, we are. I'm being perfectly serious, my own state in the USA has a problem with being a monocrop economy and having an illiberal political system and yet few people apply (though perhaps they should) these terms to say, the USA. The only gap between say, these local aspects of the USA and Russia really is scale and pretty buildings. Not even vodka these days, we have shelves of that stuff.

Russia is an extreme case by European standards, perhaps the most extreme. But it is very much part of a spectrum and not something wholly different, even if Russian dictators try to rationalize their actions by resurrecting those old chestnuts and Russian people long accustomed to kissing the ass of the autocrats that misrule them tell their rulers what they wanted to hear. How many of the people who tore down the USSR in 1991 were talking like convinced Communists in 1981?