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Comment by berntb | Hacker News Reader

First you wrote: "[Democracy] is a biproduct of individualism, and individual rights... These are not universally agreed concepts and a lot of people don't agree with them."

For individual rights I brought up human rights from UN etc.

You answered: "No, I wasn't saying that, those were your words."

That is wrong.

You did say "individual rights" yourself -- I just answered with the general rights which are (more or less) supported in democracies. But you knew that.

I wonder a bit what you mean with "collective rights"? (Clans? The communist party? Your church/mosque?) Not enough to really care. Your position seem too much like an abstract (sophistic?) defense for oppressing people by claiming rights for groups. Not new in history.

A fun read, anyway.

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Hmm, a dishonest response, that ignores what I said. There is little point in this discussion continuing.

Collective Rights is a popular concept that a quick google would reveal to you. It is not about Clans, Communism or Relgion.

Democracy is not a cure to oppression.

I called you dishonest -- and showed how. I saw no reason to touch your comment after that.

You lack references. If this is what you talk about, I don't see the problem with democracy (or relevance to what I originally wrote):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individual_and_group_rights

Collective Rights:

- http://library.thinkquest.org/C0126065/isscollective.html

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

You'll see the the above is not incompatible with Human Rights[1]

As per my original comment, democracy and the spread of it at the hand of the US is entrenched in its history[2] and serves its religious and economical agenda.

You may want to look up the following for your own benefit (in future discussions):

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

In particular:

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

[1] http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Hu...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_Liberty

>>You'll see the the above is not incompatible with Human Rights[1]

From your original comment:

>> [Democracy] is a biproduct of individualism, and individual rights... These are not universally agreed concepts and a lot of people don't agree with them.

You claimed there that many people disagreed with individual rights, which I questioned -- using the Human rights from UN as an example.

Again -- you seem to be arguing something else now. Or your point of claiming a contrast is too trivial.

Thanks for the links to "collective rights", they were clearer than Wikipedia.

>>As per my original comment, democracy and the spread of it at the hand of the US is entrenched in its history

American exceptionalism is afaik something you find on the quite extreme US right? Also, the definitions of democracy in western Europe etc is quite accepted in the US so it isn't that extreme even there...

(Re child labour -- we had that in the West, until we could afford not to. It is a stage in economic evolution, which is best left as quickly as possible. Re alternative economic models -- please show me some that work and are tested, there should be better ways of doing economy.)

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