You're right, I have no idea about about using gold in exchange for oil and gas. I thought the world had moved away from this because there is not enough physical gold on the planet to match the value of yearly African oil and gas production.
Reagan attacked Libya in 1986 because of terror attacks and in 2011 the Arab Spring was the catalyst for a Libyan Civil War and the West joined in against him because there some bad blood between them and Gadaffi for his violations of international law.
Gadaffi was ten years ago. Since then the Libyans are converging on a form of democracy, albeit with armed militias in a position to usurp authority, but I don't see any Western colonial nation interfering which was my original point and that was in response to why African nations have so much war, disease and poverty. If they had a form of government like the USA or Germany they would be as rich or richer.
I'm a UKcel but I have satellite TV and I watch Italian news, as I'm learning Italian, which covers Libyan affairs plus I like to read African news websites but who knows what's true or not I'm not personally involved in any of this. I do know that African migrants look desperate, violent and uneducated because I see them in my own city so something terrible must be going on there and I believe it to be their form of non-democratic government.
B
Michels is correct. All democracies (currently in practice) will eventually converge towards oligarchies. Democracies facilitate the natural corruptibility of humans by systematically promoting democracy's built-in cronyism. A leader gets elected and appoints all of his friends and allies as ministers and cabinet members. This gradual and incremental cronyism, which is socially and politically accepted, inexorably moves the political structure towards an oligarchy.
He's incorrect about this point, though.
True democracy is theoretically possible, but it demands much more from the average citizen to function, as a true democracy requires active participation in affairs of state from each and every citizen. This would have been impossible to do without the advent of communications and computer technology, which is probably why it has never been attempted in history.
Over for noideacels
I think these points have been covered in The Federalist Papers, late 19th C. along with the concept of the "Consent of the Governed".
Exactly. It's like that everywhere worldwide. The Western European "democracies" are very corrupt too, for example, lot of high level corruption.
Only because the citizen has ignored his duties. Where are the militias in the USA to right the violations of the Constitution? Where are the voters in the UK? Voter turnout is very low especially in the local authority elections. They are a hundred tasks a citizen could volunteer to do to improve his local area and to legally protest but no one does.
I still think "liberal democracy with human rights" is still superior to any other form of government even though it is probably not going to last much longer (50 years?). The alternatives always, according to history that I've read, lead to war and mass starvation and I'm not really keen on that as my life is hard enough as it is.
they also offer subornation to the population in exchange of votes.
The problem isn't in legal authority. A democratic country's constitution can guarantee popular sovereignty and rights and employ the most advanced system of checks and balances, separation of powers, decentralization, laws, etc. But the oligarchical tendency will still be there.
It goes deeper, below the law, because the few rich and influent will always have much more influence than the ignorant and uninterested majority, because they are richer, more organized and have expertise on how to do what they do. They can therefore control the outcomes of elections and infiltrate the state with individuals and groups who favour them.
If powerful enough, the elites can simply violate the constitution if they need to but can't legally bypass it, declaring a coup d'etat. This is common in underdeveloped and developing countries. My solution is to do the same, gather an elite, try to lure the masses into supporting you, and challenge the decadent oligarchy by force.
But I agree with you though, democracies are historically the governments that better treated their citizens.
D
Based
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