It certainly is. I’m not pretending that liberal democracies are perfect. Ensuring that the one with the least power or at the margin don’t become victims and remain free is a constant struggle but people are fighting it. It can be a dispiriting one when you go through times like the one of the USA are currently traversing

It would be a deep mistake however to fall from the traditional defence of illiberal countries and think that the imperfection of liberal democracies somehow make authoritarian countries as legitimate and acceptable. Oppression there is not an imperfection. It is the system working as designed.

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makeitdouble 8 days ago | parent [-]

I look at it from a different lens: the political system and what people's life look like isn't a predefined matrix.

To take a mild example, we don't look at federal countries and assume it affects citizen's life in a radical way that can be straight attributed to the federal nature of it. Germany biggest differences from France probably aren't because of that. Sure it has an impact, but not in an easily predictable way.

Authoritarian regime are prone to abuse, but that's not enough to guarantee it will be managed worse than the worse democratic countries. We've have democracies fully melt down and becoming literal hell on earth.

I don't intend to praise authoritarian regimes and don't see them as sustainable, but IMHO there is a lot more to a country than just that.

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StopDisinfo910 8 days ago | parent [-]

> Authoritarian regime are prone to abuse, but that's not enough to guarantee it will be managed worse than the worse democratic countries.

You are missing my points by orienting the discussion towards an abstract concept such as well managed.

Authoritarian countries mistreat part of their populations in a way which makes them morally abhorrent and that’s by design. You will hardly find people pointing it out and defending the marginalised in authoritarian countries because they themselves become the target of the state.

I’m not blind to the fact that most of the apologists I have met in my life who are always happy to point that it’s relative and what about the majority actually happy often want nothing more than to be the authoritarian power themselves. This seems particularly relevant in the current American context.

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makeitdouble 8 days ago | parent [-]

My general point would be that mistreating part of the population is a tool in a toolbox, and countries from all boards use it way more than we acknowledge.

We have democracies that either hang people on public places, pass eugenic laws, sentence gays to prison, or will engage in ethnic cleansing under official orders. Even in milder areas, prventing whole sections of the population from getting citizenship or limiting their reach (mass incarceration etc.) are well know levers that help a country be nice to its most vocal population while shutting down a whole section of the population. Those are readily available tools, whatever the political system.

And being well managed isn't abstract, you might be better off living in Monaco or Morocco, which are full fledge kingdoms, than a democracy like Nigeria for instance.

	▲	StopDisinfo910 7 days ago \| parent [-]
		You might notice that I have carefully talked about liberal democracies in my previous comments. This is not a flourish. Democracy is not a panacea. The liberal part is essential.