Israel as a pariah would turn into an authoritarian religious regime, that would simply expel all Palestinians from the whole land.

Unfortunately, that’s looking like it may happen anyway.

I support Israel‘s existence and their right to defend themselves. I don’t support their government or many of the policies and actions.

Not you personally, I mean that as in “The option is for the US to stop supporting Israel”

Violent resistance has failed for decades and only made the situation worse for Palestinians one defeat after the next.

I would disagree strongly - Fatah leveraged violent resistance into a near-victory, shot down only by a hair’s breadth in an assassination and Israeli internal politiking.

Hamas, which has been supported by Israel since the start, on the other hand, has not been able to leverage violent resistance into any sort of improvement in their situation.

The issue is not violence - it’s doubtful that anything other than violence could stop the Israeli state’s genocidal ambitions. The issue is that Hamas is incompetent at (or uninterested in) anything other than chest-thumping and suppressing internal Palestinian opposition.

Unfortunately, the immense corruption of Fatah and likewise the discrediting of the PA by Israeli bad-faith negotiation means there are no good options at present. All that can be done is to support the least-bad of them - and, of course, to stop fucking supporting Israel.

“Everyone is revisionists except for me”

The term is ‘representative democracy’.

A ‘republic’ is any formal state that isn’t a monarchy.

Not willing to say straight out what your definition is.

I literally defined it, and you acknowledged it as tightly defined before reversing course.

Anyone reading this can see very clearly what you’ve outlined.

Yeah.

Yeah I’m not entirely sure there should be any voting age whatsoever. Yeah I don’t believe only citizens should vote. I find the concept of citizenship in general troubling . These are all arguments I would entertain seriously. The fact that you think they were too absurd to even mention shows how far apart we are.

Yeah. It does. If you think that any polity that doesn’t allow children and non-citizens to vote isn’t democracy, you’re so far from seriousness that there’s no point in continuing.

You said earlier it doesn’t matter if entire swath of the population are excluded, apartheid sites count. If all black people are not allowed to vote you still think it’s democracy. If all women aren’t allowed to vote you still think it’s a democracy. If all Asians aren’t allowed to vote you think it’s a democracy.

Yes, there are democracies which included those aspects. Apparently, no democracy existed before women’s suffrage.

Conversely, your point being that exclusions from participation are apparently disqualifying from being democracies, any polity which does not allow non-citizens to vote is not a democracy. Any polity which does not allow children to vote is not a democracy.

After all, apparently, participation of the population must be total, or it’s not a democracy. You can’t exclude members of the population and be democratic, according to your clear implication.

Either that or your definition of democracy is “Democracy is when I like the policies, and non-democracy is when I don’t like it >:(”

Why then is an oligarchy not a democracy? It has citizens voting.

No, in an oligarchy, the rulers vote.

You seem to have an inconsistent definition.

No, you’re just doing your best Ben Shapiro impression in repeatedly rapid-fire rephrasing your points and ignoring any objections.

If it’s any citizens voting at all as you mentioned multiple times then why is an oligarchy not a democracy?

Because the point of a democracy is the participation of the citizen body, guy. I don’t know how much clearer you want me to phrase it. Do you not know what a citizen is, or what citizenry are?

Am I the one that expressed an extremely strong opinion?

Yes, considering that you expressed that genocide and democracy were incompatible.

A position which you can’t seem to clarify.

I actually clarified it quite clearly from the start. Which you acknowledge, as you describe my position as both “definitive” and with “set limits”.

Conveniently, you seem to reverse your position in this same comment, which reeks of tossing shit at the wall to see what sticks.

What level of participation of the citizen body?

Voting is generally agreed to be a minimum.

If the citizen body is eliminating part of itself is that really still democracy?

Yes. I struggle to think of any democracy which does not eliminate any of its citizen body.

Is it apartheid state democracy?

They can be, theoretically. Democracy regards the participation of the citizen body in the polity’s decision-making. Whether the citizen body or the polity is racist is not really relevant to this.

How can it be?

In the same way that any state is a democracy. There are always limits to both the citizen body and the polity. The more limits, the less democratic; yet no democracy is without limits entirely.

For that matter by your absurd definition an oligarchy is a democracy isn’t it? That’s participation of citizens. Not a lot of them. But you don’t need any limits as long as anyone participates it’s all you care about right? That’s the logical conclusion is it not? Seemed self-evident.

fucking what

You’re the one with extremely strong opinions on what makes democracy not democracy beyond non-participation of the citizen body, I would expect you to have answers to those questions.

My answers are self-evident in principle - that participation of the citizen body is what defines democracy, and everything else is question of degrees or of morality outside the question of democracy. Your answers, on the other hand, are not self-evident, since you think a democratic polity which kills other people is not a democracy.

What are your answers to those questions?

Considering the meaning of democracy is just that decisions are made by the will of the polity’s population, gonna go with ‘yes’.

If you try to think of democracy as some perfect decision-making machine that will decide in accordance with your moral code, the only democracy you’ll find is autocracy.

Democracy results in decision-making that is neither inherently good nor inherently bad. It results in decision-making with broad consensus or acquiescence by the polity’s population. That’s all.

Kind of. There are a lot of serious threats to democracies around the world, but so far most seem to be holding out fairly firmly, if not necessarily ideally.

Serious question, what truly successful, stable and properly representative democracies are there?

Most of the EU. Aussieland and New Zealand. Canada. Taiwan. Mongolia. Mexico and Brazil, if you’ll allow a little wiggle room in ‘stable’. Possibly SK and Japan, depending on your definitions of ‘properly representative’.

There are way more alternatives to capitalism than just Soviet style central planning, man.

More “At that point, we’re discussing moral issues OTHER than democracy” rather than “We shouldn’t try to stop this”

You are right in that I wouldn’t consider the US system as bad at giving individuals a voice as the Chinese/Russian systems.

I mean, that’s my main point of contention. Beyond that I’m not trying to say much.

Independents are allowed to run without the approval of the party, as are third parties in the US system. Furthermore, the two party ‘central committees’ choose the candidates through primary votes. That’s a pretty vast fucking difference.

I’m sorry, did we redefine democracy to mean “Democracy except when the vast majority of the population is in favor of supporting a genocidal state”?

Fuck off, this is a leftist comm.