Democratization

My Final Refutations Democracy being desirable Pro:" The example of Morsi is cherry-picking..." What Pro fails to see is that debate is all about "cherry-picking" examples that best fit your side. I can easily point out numerous examples of when Pro cherry-picked i.e. Estonia's rare non-violent singing revolution, but the whole point of this debate is to provide examples that support or refute the idea of the U.S. having a MO to "promote" democratic ideals on other nations. However, Morsi wasn't my only example, democratically elected governments such as Russia, Ukraine, Brazil, Columbia, and Turkey also hindered people's freedoms. "I would also argue that free and fair elections should be included on any set of criteria for a democracy" Democracy was vaguely defined in round 1, and you never specifically specified this in your opening argument. Pro's utopian ideals of all democracies being free and fair isn't always the case in the real world. Ergo, democracy is not perfect, and the U.S. shouldn't being "promoting" it in countries without their consent. My opponent also argues that Russia is not a democracy, but it still is by definition; just not the most liberal one. Nevertheless, my point was the democracy has been a failure in a number of countries, including Russia. The affirmative argues that Turkey may be a democracy, and have PM allies under "criminal investigation. However, this proves my point. Under a democracy, Turkey still had corruption problems. Yet under non-democratically elected leader, Ataturk, he took steps to end this. Not only that, but he also argues that my source that states that these countries are corrupt is old, and that Ukraine, Brazil, and Columbia are taking steps to "end" corruption. However, these countries are still highly corrupt. Ukraine: Transparency International recently accused Ukraine of being the most corrupt nation in Europe, and is tied for 144th place with many authoritarian such as Cameroon, Central African Republic, and Nigeria, which are all authoritarian regimes.[1] Brazil: Forbes states that the cost of corruption in Brazil could be 53 billion alone, especially after "public funds were used to by political support by then Lula da Silva government, and to pay off debts from the previous election campaigns."[2] Columbia: Don't even get me started... Columbia is home one of the biggest illegal drug businesses in the world, and have had recent allegations of a massive corruption network under the Columbian army.[3][4] What do all of these countries have in common? They're all democracies by definition and are all incredibly corrupt. Is democracy really desirable? Nondemocratic Regimes Killing Millions Pro:"My idea of promoting is using education, social media, etc. to educate people.." Pro never specified this in previous rounds, and all of the sudden states this? You're supposed to model this in your opening argument, and not just state this in the last round. Nonetheless, I'll refute your next points. Pro: "Look at the Arab Spring, for instance. Social media galvanized nations into making necessary democratic reforms." In Round 1, you stated that there should be no new arguments in Round 4. Right here, you're kind of introducing a new point, but I'll clash with that. What my opponent fails to understand is that the Arab Spring was not a peacefully organized event that encouraged nations to make democratic reforms, it was an incredible violent process. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed during the Arab Spring, with a negative effect on citizens both mentally and physically. When Egyptians ousted democratically elected President Hosni Muburak, many foreigners in Egypt were suprised at how "little many Egyptians cared that Morsi had been once democratically elected."[5][6] According to political scientist Shadi Hamid , director of research at the Brookings Doha Center, on this issue "Democracy is not a matter of principle or faith for most people... It is something they believe in to the extent that it brings good results. ... If democracy does not bring those things, then people lose faith in the democratic process." He continued,"When push comes to shove, many say, democracy is fine in theory, but is not actually improving our lives. If the generals can promise us a greater degree of security and stability, we prefer that instead." [6] Therefore, what really matters is if democracy is best for the people. Pro's so called peaceful notion doesn't turn out to be peacefull nor successful for that matter. Pro: "And even if war were used, the democide impacts outweigh." Not necessarily, war accounts for a significant amount of civilian deaths, soldier deaths, and costs. In reality, war is just as bad as democide. MO to actMy opponent continuously states that the U.S. should stop human rights violations of governments against their own citizens. But again, this isn't something that democracy will necessarily solve, especially if it's "promoted" casually. Whether it's done violently or peacefully, it'll be a failure as I've proved. Even then, "promote" means war, which leads to mass human violations as well. Pro also gives the analogy of a bully stopping another bully from beating another kid up, but the point is that this is a non-sequitur in the U.S. having a MO to act.Essentially, the U.S. is being highly critical of other countries, and has no right to invade a country to impose ideals that the U.S. thinks are superior. My Final ArgumentsExamples of Benevolent non-democratically elected regimesCastro: Pro points out that while Cuba has good healthcare and literacy, democracies have good civil rights. However, as I've continuously stated, many of today's democracies don't give their citizens civil rights such Ukraine, Brazil, Russia, Colombia, and Turkey. What my opponent fails to see is that, non-democratic countries can be just as benevolent to their citizens as democratic ones. Tito: Pro states that Tito's regime in Russia isn't democratic, however, I never said that it was. First of all, Tito was the leader of Yugoslavia from 1953 to 1980; he's not the current leader. My point was that under his regime, he instated successful economic and diplomatic policies for the country. Hence, non-democratic regimes can make just as good of decisions for their people as democratic ones.Ataturk: Even if we see this as a "temporary" government, it was still a non-democratically elected one. Whether it was part of the transition to democracy is irrelevant, the point is that Ataturk is a prime example of how a non-democratically elected regime can be benevolent to the people. Nevertheless, Pro concedes that he was a great leader for the people of Turkey. Pro's definition of "Promote" is vague and ineffectivePro suddenly described what "promote" was in R4, which he isn't supposed to do. Nonetheless, it would still be ineffective. His prime example is how the Arab Spring was originally spread through the internet, but again, this ended in mass violence. What did the push for democracy lead to? All it has led to was a civil war, a corrupt democratically elected leader, and mass instability.The U.S. has absolutely no right to "promote" ideals that they think are superior. An analogy is this: you're part of a Hindu family, and all of a sudden a Christian group breaks your door, and tries to promote Christianity to your family. By no means am I saying this is a real life scenario, but this is what it would feel like for other foreign nations. However, it would be okay, if the Christian group knocked on the door, to ask for a quick word with the mother or father to try to promote Christianity. The point is that countries need to consent to the U.S. promoting their ideals on their nation.Imperialism: Again, this resolution is unrealistic because the U.S. doens't really want to promote democracy, they just want to expand. All my points are based around what the U.S. has done in the past and what they'll likely do in other countries. It's like saying that the U.S. would win if they went to war with North Korea, and then disregarding that North Korea has a ton of nuclear weapons. All I'm saying is that the U.S. is a hegemon that's looking for benefits for their country rather than "promoting" democracy.Failures of "promoting" democracyAfghanistan and Iraq are prime examples on how "promoting" democracy is a failure. The U.S. was supposedly promoting democracy in those two countries, and eliminating the Taliban, but it has just led to mass corruption in those countries. Afghanistan and Iraq are now the 3rd and 7th most corrupt nations respectively after the U.S. intervening.[7] Conclusion1. Pro disregards the fact that non-democratically elected regimes can be just as good as democratically elected ones.2. Pro fails to take into account that "promoting" democracy is usually violent and ineffective.3. Pro dismisses the fact that the U.S. is one of the most powerful countries in the world, and is looking to expand rather than to promote democracy. Sources: 1.https://www.kyivpost.com... 2.http://www.forbes.com... 3.http://www.bbc.com... 4.http://www.pbs.org... 5.http://learningenglish.voanews.com... 6.http://www.huffingtonpost.com...7.http://www.reuters.com...;