The New York Times' double standard on democracy

[reality_hammer]

While whining that waging war on terrorism is anti-Democratic the New York Times has also made sure to promote radical theocracies as "democracies". This double standard on democracy should come as no surprise to anyone who realizes that the New York Times is trying to reposition itself from a city/national paper into an international news source

Comments

[dlombard]

Not even America is a perfect democracy, primarily because it is questionable that a so-called perfect democracy can work. We're a Democratic Republic. So, while representation of the people is important, I would say that it comes in second place to accountability. With real elections that determine who is make the call on all of those issues, be it the interpretation of what God would want or not, you have less of a problem of people just making stuff up to suit them (notice I said less, not eliminate--there can be corruption).

But a mostly religious people can take issue with a regime that exploits their religion in order to maintain an oppressive, totalitarian state. In other words, I doubt they want freedom from religion (much in the same way the friendly fellows in the Californian bay area do), as much as they want freedom Under religion. It's sort of like how we can have "In God We Trust" on our money while the 1st Amendment indicates that Congress shall pass no law favoring one religion over the other. I consider that legislation a form of secularism.

[politikitty]

All of that is fine and good, but it doesn't actually address the idea of whether a theocracy can be considered democratic.

Accountability seems to be a completely different issue. India and Mexico are rife with corruption. Monolithic parties are only now beginning to budge after years of corruption. In a democracy, accountability occurs at the ballot box. The accountability that occured in Iran seemed to be one of anti-Western sentiment. We can't be happy about that, but that doesn't mean it's illegitimate or anti-democratic. It's just anti-Western.

Iran's population can certainly take issue with a regime. But at the ballot, even requiring approval from the clerics, there was a substantial difference between the two candidates. So the fundamentalist won, does that mean the system broke?