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Allowing fringe ideas to dominate discussions so centrally is also exactly the opposite of living in a democracy.

• raverbashing 11y ago
  I agree, but who determines what is a fringe idea? I don't agree with torture, quite the contrary, but the same discussion could have been constructed in the opposite way and the fringe idea could have been that torture doesn't work (which I'm sure happened in a lot of situations)
  • rdtsc 11y ago
    > but the same discussion could have been constructed in the opposite way and the fringe idea could have been that torture doesn't work (which I'm sure happened in a lot of situations) Could be, but not in this case. This is about torture. I would say living in a civilized society, a society where torture is a despicable criminal act (that is why my original comparison with rape) is more important than living in a democracy. Doing stuff in the name of an ideology (democracy) is a also a problem. There were a lot atrocities and murders and other horrible things also committed in the names ideologies. That is, claiming things like "it's ok to engage in these things, because we live in a democracy and that is what we do in democracy". I would rather not live in a democracy but live in a country where torture is not a debatable topic to discuss for sane people.
• rdtsc 11y ago
  Exactly. To put it another way, I would rather live in a civilized society that doesn't torture or considers it a valid topic for debate, than in a democracy.