"B." wrote:
>
> [I always hear India called the "world's largest
> democracy," but I'm assuming it's "democratic" in the
> way the US is democratic -- you know, sorta, but not
> really when you hold it to the strictest standards.
Those "strictest standards" don't belong in serious political discussion. They only exist as a utopian daydream. When we discuss democracy we should always specify "actually existing democracy," because there is no other kind.
Actually existing democracy means the famines in the 19th century India.
Actually existing democracy means the substition of lynch law for Reconstruction.
Actually existing democracy means the ravaging of the Philippines in the administrations of McKinley and T Roosevelt.
Actually existing democracy means the ghetto existence of 10s of millions of u.s. citizens.
Actually existing democracy means the slaughter of upwards of 2 million Vietnamese slaughtered by France & the U.S.
Actually existing democracy means the torture chambers called prisons and jails in the u.s.
Actually existing democracy means unchallenged brutality by u.s. police departments, small and large.
When discussing any "undemocratic" regime it should always be measured against the record of actually existing democracy, not by the illusory democracy that exists only in imagination.
Democratic rights that exist only for a part of a population do not exist in any serious sense.
Carrol