Mursi-less developments in Egypt
 

[Re. Title: "Because you know the punsters @MF Central just had to go there"]

So, is the latest regime overthrow in Egypt a good thing, or a "careful what you wish for" deal?

Not a good thing- regardless of how we feel about the current regime, the fact that the populace and the military only gave the elected government one year to get the country back on a positive track before overthrowing them is not a good sign. I would have preferred a few more years of Morsi's government and then a valid election tossing him out, rather than a military coup just because change didn't happen fast enough.

Norm

Good thing.

It doesn't take a year to give people back their basic freedoms. I'm not talking about establishing a strong pension plan, or a decently meshed private + public health care system, but the basic sort of shit you would expect out of a developing country.

See [url]http://www.heritage.org/index/country/egypt[/url]

These folks keep a very well justified account of the basic economic freedoms of a country on a scale of 100. Egypt's score has dropped MASSIVELY from 2012 to 2013, after a pretty substantial drop in 2011 after Mubarak was removed.

Obviously, Morsi spent more time losing Egypt some of its economic freedoms than trying to restore them. The problem with Egypt, and its part of the world, really, is that everybody is in everybody's pocket and they just elected another dictator whose first action in office was to make it illegal to run against him. Hmm....

If they oust him and have another election, they're just going to get another dictator. And another one after that.

There's two good ways to do this. Good would be to have ten dictators brutally assassinated in ten years to show the rest of the bastards who want to oppress the very people who make them rich that you can't pull that kind of crap.

Better would be to carry Egypt through a good reasonable four-year political term as a surrogate of even a few representatives of Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, etc (not the US, mind); places that have proven themselves to be good, healthy, free places to live.

Egypt has dug itself a nice deep hold with an insatiable shovel called Socialism and Free Market Capitalism is the only way to get them back out of it. The problem is a lovely third-party called Corruption is stopping Capitalism from doing its thing, and until every corrupt to-be dictator dies or hide under a table, or someone else comes along to help, things aren't going to improve.


Keeping the current dictator is no better either.

[QUOTE=TheMawn;345220]
Better would be to carry Egypt through a good reasonable four-year political term as a surrogate of even a few representatives of Canada, Hong Kong, [b]Singapore[/b], Australia, etc (not the US, mind); places that have proven themselves to be good, healthy, free places to live.[/QUOTE]Interesting choice of prototypes there. Singapore is pretty much a dictatorship, though a remarkably benign one.

[QUOTE=xilman;345228]Interesting choice of prototypes there. Singapore is pretty much a dictatorship, though a remarkably benign one.[/QUOTE]

5.3 million people, $59,711 GDP per capita, growing at 4.9% per year and 2% unemployment. Second most economically free country in the world, and definitely among the richest.

Canada has $40,541 per capita growing at 2.5% per year and 7.4% unemployment. US has $48,387, 1.7% and 7.9%.

Tell me how a country built on a swamp with little to no landmass, very few people and hardly any natural resources can be richer than Canada or the US. If you couldn't figure out, it's because its people are free to do as they please, at least in economical terms. It's very hard for a dictator to strip a person of many social freedoms while maintaining the world's second best economic freedom.

This benign dictatorship is as benign as the brown spots on my arms.

But, TheMawn, there are other freedoms apart from Economic ones, and I'm not sure that Singapore scores so well here. Section 377A of the Singapore penal code, making sex between two consenting adult males punishable by up to two years in prison, is still in force to this day.

I'll agree they're not perfect. I have struggled for years to find a 'freedom' that fits in neither social nor economic categories, to no avail. I find it highly inconsistent though admittedly not impossible to be free in one regard and oppressed in the other.

To be perfectly honest, I think my favourite place to live in would have to be Australia, followed closely by Canada (lucky me). Economically and socially free, to an extent. Both are fairly lacking still but much better.

That's the reason I would want a committee of representatives from multiple countries. Making Egypt into Singapore would be a massive improvement, but there is, I will admit, a bigger improvement still to be made.

[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/07/05/muslim-brotherhood-site-says-egypts-new-president-is-secretly-jewish/[/url]

Ford would be proud. Of course, I would trust this at least as much as I do other sites linked in this thread :)

ahh yes....

Interesting perspective from international business expert [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Morici]Peter Morici[/url]:

[url=finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/america-mess-egypt-164639195.html?l=1]America’s Mess in Egypt[/url]
[quote]Recent events in Egypt put President Obama in a tough spot, even if not as difficult as that of deposed Egyptian President Morsi. At least the latter gentleman knows his own mind, even if paying a high price for it, whereas Obama is at wit’s end to articulate where he stands on the sanctity of democracy and its place in American foreign policy.

Mr. Obama is bound by his own words, international law and the expectations of allies, such as Great Britain, not to acknowledge or support coups that overthrow duly-elected governments. For the president, it is an inconvenient truth that Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, accomplished his office through the ballot box and was as constitutionally legitimate as Obama, but for one small fact.

Morsi pushed through constitutional changes that are rather favorable to the fundamentalist thinking of the Brotherhood. Of course, those views about the desired progress of society and place of religion in the equation are hardly simpatico with the left leaning ideas on Harvard Yard and other American temples of the “progressive” movement.

Like most Americans, I have no truck with the ideas of the Brotherhood, but the mob in the streets objecting to Morsi chose methods other than ballots to remove him. Sadly for him, the Egyptian military is neither under civilian control nor primarily financed by the Egyptian government. It gets its manna from the Obama Administration via more than $1 billion annually in U.S. foreign aid...[/quote]

[b]Update:[/b] In fact Obama is bound by more than international law "not to acknowledge or support coups" ... he is bound [u]by U.S. law[/u] to immediately suspend all aid to Egypt, inespecially the country military, which is where most U.S. "assistance" goes:

[url=http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/?&sid=cp105t3thy&refer=&r_n=hr825.105&db_id=105&item=&sel=TOC_564277&]Here it is in black-letter form[/url] - first section below the boilerplate.

[The discussion I've seen re. the above indicates that although the law was passed in the context of a specific-year appropriation, the *rules* laid down remain in force until repealed.]

[url=www.nytimes.com/2013/07/11/world/middleeast/improvements-in-egypt-suggest-a-campaign-that-undermined-morsi.html?ref=world]Sudden Improvements in Egypt Suggest a Campaign to Undermine Morsi[/url]: [i]The sudden end of crippling energy shortages and the re-emergence of the police suggest that those opposed to President Mohamed Morsi had tried to undermine his administration.[/i]