The Iraq War Poll

[MadImmortalMan]

No, if I want to attack your position that Iraq is not a functional democracy I can.  It's quite easy, and I've already done it.  Private armies that intimidate voters nullify any claims to a democracy there is.

I'm attacking your inability to know what the word "Objective" means.  For instance, Poland has a slightly higher literacy rate then the US.  Does that mean that Poland is more "good" then the US?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate  If a totalitarian dictatorship had higher rates of literacy, life expectancy, etc would that make it a better system?  In a less theoretical example some of the Scandi-Socialist countries beat the US in many of the criteria you suggest.  Does this mean you think that Scandi-Socilism is better then the American system?  Are they more "good".

IMO, sometimes things are better on moral grounds to do even if they are pragmatically worse for everyone.

[dps]

No, if I want to attack your position that Iraq is not a functional democracy I can.  It's quite easy, and I've already done it.  Private armies that intimidate voters nullify any claims to a democracy there is.

I'm attacking your inability to know what the word "Objective" means.  For instance, Poland has a slightly higher literacy rate then the US.  Does that mean that Poland is more "good" then the US?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate  If a totalitarian dictatorship had higher rates of literacy, life expectancy, etc would that make it a better system?  In a less theoretical example some of the Scandi-Socialist countries beat the US in many of the criteria you suggest.  Does this mean you think that Scandi-Socilism is better then the American system?  Are they more "good".

IMO, sometimes things are better on moral grounds to do even if they are pragmatically worse for everyone.

I agree with you, but that doesn't agree with Berkut's position that democracy is objectively better, unless you want to argue that certain moral values are objectively better than others.

[Berkut]

No, if I want to attack your position that Iraq is not a functional democracy I can.  It's quite easy, and I've already done it.  Private armies that intimidate voters nullify any claims to a democracy there is.

I'm attacking your inability to know what the word "Objective" means.  For instance, Poland has a slightly higher literacy rate then the US.  Does that mean that Poland is more "good" then the US?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate  If a totalitarian dictatorship had higher rates of literacy, life expectancy, etc would that make it a better system?  In a less theoretical example some of the Scandi-Socialist countries beat the US in many of the criteria you suggest.  Does this mean you think that Scandi-Socilism is better then the American system?  Are they more "good".

IMO, sometimes things are better on moral grounds to do even if they are pragmatically worse for everyone.

I agree with you, but that doesn't agree with Berkut's position that democracy is objectively better, unless you want to argue that certain moral values are objectively better than others.

My position is that assuming some basic criteria for quality of life are valid, you can objectively state that democracies are more successful overall than non-democracies.

You can, of course, argue that those values themselves are not valid measures of quality of life, a point I made right from the beginning. But that is largely specious, since all of use here are going to be in general agreement that in fact those values are valid measures (things like literacy, life expextancy, infant mortality rates, etc., etc.).

Once can objectively state that democracies are better at providing a higher quality of life so long as you can agree that the standard measures for QoL are in fact valid measures. I contencd that anyone who does not agree with those measures probably isn't worth arguing with anyway - it is like arguing with someone who does not agree that 4 is greater than 3, because "greater" might mean something other than numerically larger. They may have a point in some theoretical sense, but who cares?