Litany

Concluding the Thread

Thank you all for your comments and participation on this thread. I feel that a lot has been left unsaid, and many issues are still unresolved.

This thread might be closed, but the unanswered questions still linger and give us another reason for meeting again…

Nur, thanks for validating my point. You are too easy. I can

tell you were trying hard to actually get some meaning or notion across in the middle of you claim of superiority but what really comes across is blah blah blah blah.

And the advice you did not get like most other comments, was not fatherly but Aghel andar safih 

Hovakhshatare

You are one funny person. Thanks for the laugh!

You said:

As your preceding comment proves, and as your previous comments on this blog reinforces, I submit that you are in no position to do so in any case, especially since your argumentation here is an ad hominem (i.e. a fallacy) designed to deflect the points I raised by trying to make the person the topic rather than the topic itself. The topic here is whether IC is an exercise in futility. My position is that it is just that very thing, an exercise in total futility, given that no one even seems to know what democracy really is; this, while folks claim to want to bring democracy to Iran from this site whilst this site itself remains effectively a paternalistic dictatorship.

at some point in your life, you gotta be the man you are, not the man you want to become.

So, dad, is this your experience in life? You gave up on becoming the man you wanted to be and instead settled for the man you were??! Sorry, dad, that's called coping-out, i.e. giving up. As far as my experimentation has taught me, you give up and settle when they put you six foot under, not before. Before then, one must strive for the heavens and beyond, or rather storm the gates of heaven itself if one can, even if one ultimately fails. 

That said, your cynical (not realist, but cynical) fatherly advice above is the most anti-democratic attitude one could bring to the party of the collective will. It is also running against and not with the stream of democracy. If you want to look at it that way, why don't we all as people stop right now and just let this regime continue. After all at some point in life one has gotta accept the state one is in rather than the state one wants to be in, right, dad?  ;-)

Ari, no need to apologize, bro.

Ari, from the first point when you started commenting to Nur

It was clear you knew it won't produce results but would clarify your point on exercise of democracy. I'm always amused by the disconnect of formal knowledge of democracy and its practical application.

Nur, there is no need to explain who dropped the ball when. I read the thread and it is here for review so no need for you to explain your explanation. You won't admit it but you helped Ari demonstrate his point because you are so busy proving you are right and know beyond discussion, that you lose site of the topic. I'm not interested in in your testosterone challenge either because the conclusion is forgone; just as you exclaimed your victory over Ari. You are more interested in being right than getting to the truth or mutual engagement because you know that you know more and the rest is just proving it. Unlike you, while I'll observe your weaknesses and make fun of it as I did, I'm not interested in putting down your knowledge or in a comparative analysis. It seems you have read and learned and experimented(ing) with various religions and ideologies. However, there is an old saying; at some point in your life, you gotta be the man you are, not the man you want to become.

Hovakhshatare

As we saw, Nur began by challenging the point of this blog to the effect that IC prepares us for democray and ends with the following statment: "And this is why in the overall spectrum of things I remain a Green Anarchist."

What he had in mind as a democracy was revealed to be a form of anarchy.  In this experiment, the reader was able to see the confusion that blights the Iranian quest for democracy: some don't know what it is. As a result they are surprized when they get it now and then, and reject it for yet another dictatorship. This IC exchange has contributed to clarifying this problem. IC's helping understand democracy was the original point of this blog. 

Nur, my apologies for the third person reference.

Sovereignty

However, a system isn’t democratic if that social consensus can’t be challenged and changed.

Which is where America is right now, and has been since the late '60s, or even before, whatever candidate ends up in the White House every 4-8 years. Every branch of American government is being influenced by various big special interests. These big special interests have the clout to form consensus, whether through media or other means. Effectively the legitimacy of such consensus that forms under such a reality is now under question.

 For precisely this reason, a system of governance isn’t democratic if
the minorities aren’t protected from the will of the majority. In this
context, minorities are defined to be any group or even single
individual challenging the social consensus.

Beautiful! Gol-i-golan gofti. The minority must be protected from the tyranny of the majority. The Federalist papers speak to this. Alexis de Tocqueville didn't think America had overcome this in the 1830s, and I agree with him in 2010. But that said, since we're trying to bring democracy to Iran, and ya'll think you are one of the patrons of such bringing to Iran; I here am a minority. I am a minority in my religious views and my social standing here given the obvious alliance and arrangements that exists with members or representatives of the Haifan Bahai organization. I am an an ex-Bahai, a Sufi as well as a Bayani. The Baha'i organization considers me to be an apostate (murtad) and has expressed this view in writing. Given my experience, I believe this organization is a dangerous Stalinist cult and potentially far more dangerous than the Khomeinists who have been ruling Iran since 1979. Practice your protection of minorities beginning with me, if you mean what you say.

Experience has proven to me here, and in multiple contexts amongst Iranians in the diaspora, that where such noble concepts are concerned, folks do not mean what they say and do not also say what they mean. Such principles expressed are sound bites and empty rhetorics,  but when it comes to actual reflection and practice (i.e. praxis) , the proverbial Shahanshah is proven to be walking around in his birthday suit!

Laleh

Hovakhshatare

You are so predictable!

Ok, then you critically define what you think democracy means and entails.

The fact is you yourself are as clueless as what you are accusing me of being, not to mention many of the other folks here. The fact that your reaction to critical concepts, and the fact that this site functions on the basis of a dictatorship, is  just a visceral, knee-jerk reaction without the least amount of thought or critical reflection is proof enough for me that you have no idea what you're talking about. I had a decent discussion with Ari, but, let's be fair, he dropped the ball when I started problematizing critical concepts in political theory.

But the ball is now in your court. Let's see some of the grey matter between your own ears at work on this question. What do you think democracy is? Where does sovereignty lie? What is the difference between an individual liberty vis-a-vis society versus an individuated liberty and personal autonomy in contradistinction to the collectivism of the mass? And brandishing sharpened pitch-forks and playing your role as one of the several IC lynch mob is not a critical discussion. 

A Question of Sovereignty

Nur-i-Azal wrote: “But we're still talking about a "consensus reality" or a social contract that not everyone has voluntarily entered into -- or necessarily agrees with. We still need to define what we even mean by democracy before venturing into that area, esp. whose agreement has legitimated this system, in order to locate precisely where actual "sovereignty" lies…”

In modern democracies that have proven to be the best we, the human race, has achieved so far, sovereignty lies with the people and comes from the collective clout of a nation. That sovereignty gives legitimacy to the social consensus governing all members of that society whether or not each individual has entered into that contract directly and willingly.

However, a system isn’t democratic if that social consensus can’t be challenged and changed.

The collective clout of a nation can manifest itself in revolutions, elections, and social consensus to carry out a policy or a course of action. Time and again, in the history of mankind, the collective will of a people has done irreparable harm to the minorities or has simply failed to stop mass murders, executions, and genocides.

For precisely this reason, a system of governance isn’t democratic if the minorities aren’t protected from the will of the majority. In this context, minorities are defined to be any group or even single individual challenging the social consensus.

On a Softer & Gentler Note

Nur-i-Azal, I have read the exchange between you and Ari Siletz on this thread and would like to reply to some of the points you have raised.

But before I do that, I am going to share with you my personal impression of Nur-i-Azal. Perhaps, on a softer and gentler note, you will accept it from a Laleh:

I sense the writer of all those comments here and in other threads to be an intelligent and well-read individual who suffers from a few prejudices and delusions, an individual equipped with a sharp tongue and an equally sharp wit.

I can’t help but wonder the contributions such an individual can make to a forum such as this if and only if he had the prudence to temper his approach.

Nur-i, almost everything you uttered is irrelevant to the topic

of this blog and expands it to more irrelevant stuff. Your ad nauseum comments and obvious paranoia on meaning of democracy, or hurling accusations does not help either and validates the futility of effort Ari took on with you. You don't understand democracy because you have never internalized what you may have read. You Bahaii past and now Bahaii bashing, along with Jew and who knows what else your delusions tell you. Let me be specific with the chill pills: Take 2 Diazepams twice daily (10 mg), and 2 prozacs per day (20 mg). And happy healing.

Thank you, Laleh

for expressing the significance of IC. And thank you for contributing to it. Voices of gentle dignity, like yours, are too few!

Voila, Don Siletzion

Nur

Mmm, not quite. Qu'est-ce que c'est VOX POPULI?

In a dictatorship the elite or individual leader may invoke their/his legitimacy from the people. Remember Communist systems claim(ed) to derive their legitimacy from the workers or mass proletariat (i.e. 'people') while effectively they are a dictatorship by one or a few. Recall that most of the Eastern bloc Soviet satellite states were known as "people's democracies," etc, so that is not a good, critical example here. Who are the people here?

Laws, restrictions on individual liberty, is the leviathan (or Hobbesian) approach to the question of human liberty, or lack thereof under a society. Hobbes proposes that without restrictions or the great Leviathan human life becomes a war of all against all. Many modern conservative political theorists are in one way or another Hobbesians. However the leviathan theory emerges from a very negative notion of human nature and so proceeds to be quite cynical about liberty as a notion eo ipse.

word "free" refers to the process of coming to an agreement on the laws

This is the "social contract" theory of human liberty qua social animal. The first major proponent of this idea was Jean Jacques Rousseau who was a major theorist of the French Revolution and influenced especially the Jacobins and Robespierre's "Great Terror" regime. Rousseau's social contract has also influenced all modern political theory, but there are major theoretical flaws with what he says, and like Hobbes he does not resolve the intrinsic question of an individuated liberty, i.e. the liberty of the individual as the individual as opposed to her/his liberty as a social or political animal.

Once people democratically agree to drive on
the left side of the road, the guy going the wrong way will have his
license taken away--democratically.

But we're still talking about a "consensus reality" or a social contract that not everyone has voluntarily entered into -- or necessarily agrees with. We still need to define what we even mean by democracy before venturing into that area,  esp. whose agreement has legitimated this system, in order to locate precisely where actual "sovereignty" lies, i.e. the question that still plagues contemporary political theorists of every ilk.

That said, let's get really precise: where and with whoim does the "sovereignty" (i.e. malakiyat) of this website Iranian.Com lie? Is it with all the subscribers as a collective bloc or is it with JJ himself? Without beating around any bushes, to me the answer to that question is already self-evident. 

Nur, we're getting close

Fire in a cinema. Or did someone say 'Avatar'?

Responsible free speech is as much an oxymoron as is the concept of a kinder gentler dictatorship. Free speech is supposed to be unfettered. If it is fettered by ambiguous concepts such as "responsible" than you have already qualified the parametres of free speech and so have assented to the fact that your notion of free speech is not unfettered but thoroughly circumscribed. Because who gets to define what constitutes responsible? Again, a consensus reality does. As such the right to insult and air dirty laundary ought to be one of the bedrocks of free, unfettered free speech. Without it, you have fettered discourse, which is dictatorship, i.e. the Matrix.

First grade, or school in general, has never been about democracy. School is a perfect dictatorship. But I find it quite interesting that your final example instances quite a paternalistic paradigm. Paternalism does not become democracy. Sorry!

Did someone say there was a fire in the cinema?!

Nur

IC pitch-forks come a-callin'

And this is precisely my point. Democracy is a misnomer in the mainstream vocabulary and diction to begin with. Political scientists have been pointing this out for decades. On this site it is a blatant misidentification because there is no unfettered democracy here. At best, this place is a benign Singaporean style authoritarian dictatorship.

You actually misunderstood what I meant by Q's laughter. Ever heard the expression having your tongue firmly implanted in your cheek?

Chill pill? I'm here to make trouble. What, you think complacency is the sure road to democratic utopia Iran? C'mon, already! But such form of reception to anyone who challenges the consensus reality here is precisely one of the reasons I say ya'll are fooling yourselves if you think this place is democratic and the model to emulate. Dig?

Sharpen them there IC pitch-forks now, ya here! Yer gonna have yerselves a malcontent linchin'! Yeehaawww!

Nur-i-azal, take a step back and look a bit harder at what you

say and how. It is a bit too much on balance and does not jive with some of philosophical stuff you seem to promote. In most places outside of radical left or right, you won't get away with a lot of what you say and certainly won't get a repeat chance. Taking Q's laughter as evidence says a lot about your taste as well. Take a chill pill.

Laleh

Was the aim to deliver another blow to Jews and the Baha'i faithful in order to weaken and ridicule them once more?

Since I am half Jewish myself, and have a legion of my maternal family living in Israel right now, any low blows would not necessarily be directed at Jews per se, but the hypocrisy that has become Israel, which legions of Israelis themselves confess to openly. But the Baha'is -- and specifically the majoritarian Haifan Baha'is, which I am a declared apostate to -- is another story. If Stalinism meets prayer and pretensions to global theocracy is your idea of faithfulness, then we need to have us a looonnnng talk, girlfriend, and preferably privately. But, yes, this site has a bias completely leaning in their favor and an Islamophobia (Muslim-bashing) that whenever challenged gets the challenger censored and even dropped from the site. And so as such the kind of ambiguity in identity that I represent is practically a threat to this site's Politburo.

Any questions?

Liebling Ari

1. In Iran's IC style democracy everyone will get their soapbox. It is taken away temporarily when they use it for a litterbox.

Ergo that is not democracy, and you just proved my earlier point, good friend. Thanks. Your litterbox, or the litterbox of an entrenched herd consensus, is someone elses jewelbox. Once you get to define what constitutes a soapbox and what constitutes a litterbox, is precisely when one of the fundamental guarantees of a democracy flies out the window: the unfettered freedom of expression, i.e. azadi-i-andisheh. I understand that this is a little difficult for some agendas to get their heads around, but that is what we are dealing with.

2. "HoJJatol IC" would have worked better for a laugh. 

Q was rolling hysterically in the aisles here when I first addressed our beloved leader and Supreme Editor with that title. But then again, such things are also a question of taste, which goes back to my point about litterboxes and jewelboxes.

 3. Didn't hear from Uganda. Plan to follow up locally when I get a
chance. Whatever I find out would be help Ugandan gays not to bash
Bahais.

You do that, liebling, and let us know the outcome. While you're at it, please preach the principle of non-bashing (esp. where Muslims are concerned) to some of the local yokels hereabouts. And also have a Jaffa-made falafel on me packed with all the condiments the next time you're there. I love those sandwiches  and was practically living on them the last time I was in Israel myself hanging out with some of my Iranian Jewish homeys!

Nur-i-Azal

2. "HoJJatol IC" would have worked better for a laugh. 

3. Didn't hear from Uganda. Plan to follow up locally when I get a chance. Whatever I find out would be to help Ugandan gays not to bash Bahais. 

The Soapbox

Nuri-i-Azal wrote: “We also have our beloved Supreme Editor, Ayatol-Dot-Com JJ, whose guidance reigns unchallenged hereabouts.”

I have read many posts and numerous comments from you on Iranian.com. You have been able to express your ideas and opinions on this forum, enjoyed the soapbox, and haven’t spared anyone whenever challenged.

Although I haven’t had the pleasure of engaging in a civilized discussion with you, I welcome the opportunity here and now.

Please enlighten me: Israel is neither my homeland nor owns my allegiance. I neither live in Tel-Aviv nor feast in Jaffa. And I fail to see the relevance of your comment.

Was the aim to deliver another blow to Jews and the Baha'i faithful in order to weaken and ridicule them once more?

LOL

Ari, would that be democracy-incubator Israeli style? Really, given my own experience here, that one gave me a really, really good laugh. Thanks, bro.

IC is a dysfunctional  forum as any other reflecting certain entrenched interests and elites like a lot of other similar sites. Certain subjects and discussions are verboten here as in any other good dictatorship. We also have our beloved Supreme Editor, Ayatol-Dot-Com JJ, whose guidance reigns unchallenged hereabouts.

Sounds like good old fashioned South African apartheid era style democracy to me or the kind of democracy you folks already enjoy in lovely Israel/Palestine.

If IC style demo/plutocracy is the agenda for Iran once the mullacracy is unravelled, no thanks, we'll take it from there ourselves. You good people stay back in Tel Aviv and enjoy the sumptuous falafel cousine in Jaffa.

BTW did you ever get a response from the Ugandan Baha'i NSA?

[crossposted to USENET]

Insightful blog!

Nicely said laleh

We have much to look forward to. Global footprint & endowment of Iranian diaspora is a great asset and will serve Iran lovingly and honorably.

OKtaby

Sargord, it is good that you corrected yourself

yes , indeed there were times like sad summer of 1983 when "free" Iranians burned books and jailed Iranians were tortured and confessions were drawn by torture. So, many Iranians had to leave.

Wonderful blog. Thank you.

Wonderful blog. Thank you.

Sargord .....Ghorbonet Beram

be eeen jawab.

But seriously, we should help Iranian.com with monetary contributions.

PS: Khanom Laleh, if you are in exile and can't get those 300 sekes out from husband. let me know, I can them in IRAN.

JUST KIDDING ....:))))