If this is democracy what is Tyranny?

[Zebo]

Hell of a read http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?264738-0
Basically whats going on in rural India is to exploit vast natural resources, India has been waging a brutal war against its own people, to include mass rapes, murders, concentration camps all to enrich politically connected corporations, Indian and multinationals. If you protest your centuries old tribal lands being stolen from you to enrich others the best you have to look forward to is life in prison for sedition.

Some excerpts.

“The Indian Constitution, the moral underpinning of Indian democracy, was adopted by Parliament in 1950. It was a tragic day for tribal people. The Constitution ratified colonial policy and made the State custodian of tribal homelands. Overnight, it turned the entire tribal population into squatters on their own land. It denied them their traditional rights to forest produce, it criminalized a whole way of life. In exchange for the right to vote it snatched away their right to livelihood and dignity.“

“Having dispossessed them and pushed them into a downward spiral of indigence, in a cruel sleight of hand, the Government began to use their own penury against them. Each time it needed to displace a large population—for dams, irrigation projects, mines— it talked of ‘bringing tribals into the mainstream’ or of giving them ‘the fruits of modern development.’ Of the tens of millions of internally displaced people (more than 30 million by big dams alone), refugees of India’s ‘progress’, the great majority are tribal people. When the Government begins to talk of tribal welfare, it’s time to worry.”

“The perennial problem, the real bane of peoples’ lives was the biggest landlord of all, the Forest Department. Every morning forest officials, even the most junior of them, would appear in villages like a bad dream, preventing people from ploughing their fields, collecting firewood, plucking leaves, picking fruit, grazing their cattle, from living. They brought elephants to overrun fields and scattered babool seeds to destroy the soil as they passed by. People would be beaten, arrested, humiliated, their crops destroyed. Of course, from the Forest Department’s point of view, these were illegal people engaged in unconstitutional activity, and the Department was only implementing the Rule of Law. (Their sexual exploitation of women was just an added perk in a hardship posting).”

 

[artikk]

This isn't democracy though.

 

[theeedude]

Not all that different than what Israel is doing with Palestinians, except they didn't even get a vote in exchange.

 

[wuliheron]

Native Americans killed = 50-100 million
Slaves = 27-100 million
Land stolen = roughly 1 billion acres

No one ever said democracy couldn't be a tyranny.

 

[RbSX]

Native Americans killed = 50-100 million
Slaves = 27-100 million
Land stolen = roughly 1 billion acres

No one ever said democracy couldn't be a tyranny.

I was gonna say.. the Romans did it, the English did it, the Ottomans did it, the United States, Canada and basically everyone else has done it.

Not saying it's right, but stop pretending like this is something new.

 

[Gintaras]

Hell of a read http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?264738-0
Basically whats going on in rural India is to exploit vast natural resources, India has been waging a brutal war against its own people, to include mass rapes, murders, concentration camps all to enrich politically connected corporations, Indian and multinationals. If you protest your centuries old tribal lands being stolen from you to enrich others the best you have to look forward to is life in prison for sedition.

Some excerpts.

What about US and native americans - indians?

Isn't it a tyranny?

 

[Lemon law]

Maybe we somewhat miss the point, as many populous former third world countries race to become economic powerhouses and first world countries.

The Indian strategy is to empower only its best and brightest, at the expense of the bulk of their population. On one hand we can't say the Indian Strategy has not paid some dividends, but we can predict that India will catch future hell in social ramifications.

 

[Nebor]

Every major power has been forced to destroy their land's native populations. India has to do it if they ever want to be a first world country.

 

[Greenman]

Native Americans killed = 50-100 million
Slaves = 27-100 million
Land stolen = roughly 1 billion acres

No one ever said democracy couldn't be a tyranny.

Where did those numbers come from?

 

[boochi]

Native Americans killed = 50-100 million
Slaves = 27-100 million
Land stolen = roughly 1 billion acres

No one ever said democracy couldn't be a tyranny.

What crackpot source did you use for the numbers you are using? At the time of the civil war there were less than 5 million slaves in the US in total and there were less than a half million slaves in 1776. The native american population was estimated at its peak to be no more than 18 million. The numbers you are using obviously come from some leftist source that is trying to twist facts to suit an agenda. Irregardless of how they got sick the vast numbers of native americans that died were do to disease, hardly genocide.

 

[Zebo]

Every major power has been forced to destroy their land's native populations. India has to do it if they ever want to be a first world country.

Couple points
Is that really better? I think not belive me. Worked rat race now I'm semi retired lovin it..
As a wise Indian chief once said "before white man came and Indians were running things, there was no taxes, no debt, plenty of beaver, plenty of buffalo, free medicine man. Indian spend all day hunting and fishing, all night having sex. Only white man thinks he could improve a system like that"

Not to mention in 21st century with ideals about human rights seeing them abrogated to such extent it's all just a sham. Two wolves and a sheep still decide what's for dinner. Might makes right. nothing changes even under veil of democracy it's actually probably worse as immutable protections to individual are not granted like our constitution. That's what's really important, not democracy pre se.

 

[wuliheron]

What crackpot source did you use for the numbers you are using? At the time of the civil war there were less than 5 million slaves in the US in total and there were less than a half million slaves in 1776. The native american population was estimated at its peak to be no more than 18 million. The numbers you are using obviously come from some leftist source that is trying to twist facts to suit an agenda. Irregardless of how they got sick the vast numbers of native americans that died were do to disease, hardly genocide.

Better look under your bed again for those damn commies. They're comin' to get ya! Nah, the simple explanation is that I just gave a rough estimate of all the slaves ever owned and all the native Americans ever killed in all the Americas.

You can try to sort it all out as exactly who owned how many slaves and who deliberately killed how many Native Americans if it makes you feel better, but its still countless millions no matter how you slice it. However, if you really insist I'll also provide an estimate of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin just so you have something else to argue about.

 

[Inspector Jihad]

part of the idea of democracy is that they're allowed to report this information rather than just sweeping it under the rug.

 

[Greenman]

Better look under your bed again for those damn commies. They're comin' to get ya! Nah, the simple explanation is that I just gave a rough estimate of all the slaves ever owned and all the native Americans ever killed in all the Americas.

You can try to sort it all out as exactly who owned how many slaves and who deliberately killed how many Native Americans if it makes you feel better, but its still countless millions no matter how you slice it. However, if you really insist I'll also provide an estimate of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin just so you have something else to argue about.

Dance around it as you will, but no one knows how many native Americans there really were. There is simply no data. It also appears that the vast majority died from disease brought by the Europeans. That's bad luck, not genocide.
Your slave numbers are equally questionable. Again, it appears that there were at most 10 million.

I don't condone slavery or the killing of indigenous people that are in the way, but exaggerating the numbers is stupid, it detracts from your credibility. My only other comment is simply that we didn't do it. Every single person involved with slaves in the US is dead, along with everyone who pushed the indians aside. None of us had anything to do with it, and I refuse any sort of guilt or recriminations over events that occurred hundreds of years before my birth.

 

[wuliheron]

Dance around it as you will, but no one knows how many native Americans there really were. There is simply no data. It also appears that the vast majority died from disease brought by the Europeans. That's bad luck, not genocide.
Your slave numbers are equally questionable. Again, it appears that there were at most 10 million.

I don't condone slavery or the killing of indigenous people that are in the way, but exaggerating the numbers is stupid, it detracts from your credibility. My only other comment is simply that we didn't do it. Every single person involved with slaves in the US is dead, along with everyone who pushed the indians aside. None of us had anything to do with it, and I refuse any sort of guilt or recriminations over events that occurred hundreds of years before my birth.

To paraphrase the great bard, "Me thinks he doth protest too much".

I never said anything whatsoever about present day people being responsible for slavery or genocide in the Americas. The fact that you get all defensive about something I never even brought up suggests you actually do feel guilty and are just going off on your own personal head trip here. If credibility concerns you, then I suggest a little introspection might be in order.

 

[Ape]

Better look under your bed again for those damn commies. They're comin' to get ya! Nah, the simple explanation is that I just gave a rough estimate of all the slaves ever owned and all the native Americans ever killed in all the Americas.

You can try to sort it all out as exactly who owned how many slaves and who deliberately killed how many Native Americans if it makes you feel better, but its still countless millions no matter how you slice it. However, if you really insist I'll also provide an estimate of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin just so you have something else to argue about.

That was a creative dodge but you still didn't provide a source to your numbers. Is there on of did you guess them up?

 

[Greenman]

To paraphrase the great bard, "Me thinks he doth protest too much".

I never said anything whatsoever about present day people being responsible for slavery or genocide in the Americas. The fact that you get all defensive about something I never even brought up suggests you actually do feel guilty and are just going off on your own personal head trip here. If credibility concerns you, then I suggest a little introspection might be in order.

So did you pull those numbers out of your ass or not?

 

[Zorkorist]

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

Martin Niemöller

-John

 

[Zorkorist]

The United States, with Fake Money, it doesn't own, makes Indian's attack their own people.

-John

 

[wuliheron]

That was a creative dodge but you still didn't provide a source to your numbers. Is there on of did you guess them up?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade

 

[wuliheron]

That was a creative dodge but you still didn't provide a source to your numbers. Is there on of did you guess them up?

Its not a dodge asshole.

As far as I'm concerned most of the people here couldn't give a rat's ass for the facts, will arbitrarily spin anything they want to fit the facts, and nothing I can say will ever persuade anyone one way or another. All this pretense over logic and the facts is the only real issue on the table most of the time.

In this case we're talking about statistics that even the best experts in the world agree are piss poor by any standard. Hence I provided figures that vary by a factor of 3 or better! Nonetheless ya'll jump on it like a dog on a bone as if your lives depend on debating how accurate the numbers are.