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Turkey's ruling party is passing constitutional reforms to consolidate power:
Turkey's parliament approved the first seven articles in a second round of voting overnight on a constitutional bill that will extend President Tayyip Erdogan's powers, keeping the reform on course for a spring referendum.
The two largest opposition parties in parliament say the 18-article bill, which could enable Erdogan to rule until 2029, will fuel authoritarianism in the NATO member and European Union candidate country. The ruling AK Party, backed by the nationalist MHP, says it will bring the strong executive leadership needed to prevent a return to the fragile coalition governments of the past.
The seven articles approved overnight include increasing the number of MPs to 600 from 550, lowering the minimum age to be a lawmaker to 18 from 25, and holding parliamentary and presidential elections together every five years.
Also at CNN, Time, Al Jazeera, and The Guardian. You might also be interested in this take from the Daily Sabah.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Thursday January 19 2017, @08:05PM
Yes, lets divide the world back into Axis and Allies, that didn't have any negative consequences AT ALL! I get where you're coming from, protect our own citizens and allies, but you fail as usual to see the bigger picture. The world needs to heal the divides, not create bigger ones. Your xenophobic policies would guarantee a future WW3.
It is kind of like the Freedom of Speech, you gotta protect the rights of shit talking assholes if you want to call it freedom. On the world scale its better to prevent diplomatic ties from breaking down because then the only option left is violence. I'm no fan of the current Turkish regime (I find it disturbing actually) or the religious bullshit in the middle east, but I'm also not a fan of religious culture in the US either. However, I would never advocate walling off the midwest/southern US just because I don't like the majority of their culture. We've worked out our differences for the most part and going back to 1861 would not be a productive move. Hell, southern baptists have more in common with islam than they do with atheists...
Basically you're advocating something to make your "feels" happier, it tickles me pink to see a neocon displaying the traits they like to hate on.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday January 19 2017, @09:41PM
Why is violence necessary? Why can't we just turn our backs on Turkey and leave them to their own devices?
When I don't like one of my neighbors, I don't get a gun and shoot at him. Instead, I just put up a fence and ignore him.
However, I would never advocate walling off the midwest/southern US just because I don't like the majority of their culture
Why not? By keeping them as part of your country, you give them voting rights, and you give them the power to make decisions affecting your life, using their dumb religious ideals. It's better to make them separate and let them govern themselves, and restrict your own governance to people who are more agreeable to you and represent your own culture better. November's election should have been proof of why the liberal idea of "let's all hold hands and unify into one big government and let these backwards people vote in our elections" doesn't work; when you bring backwards, conservative idiots into your electorate, you're going to get a more backwards, conservative government. There seems to be an assumption among liberals that everyone is eventually going to "see the light" and turn more liberal, but it doesn't work that way. We're now probably going to see RvW get overturned, and many places in the world are getting more conservative, not less (see the middle east, Russia, etc.).
We've worked out our differences for the most part and going back to 1861 would not be a productive move.
What do you think is going to happen with Trump? Wake up: the midwest/southern US just took over your country.
Hell, southern baptists have more in common with islam than they do with atheists...
Yes, which is why they should be separated into their own country where they can't affect us. I'll happily take immigrants who renounce that religion and lifestyle though.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Thursday January 19 2017, @10:09PM
I would like to agree with what you say, this election has left a lot of anger and created a lot of division. However I still hold to the idea that creating divisions is a bad idea. The problem with banishing countries/states is that you set up future conflict. Cultures will diverge further and soon turns into an us vs. them problem. "The evil morally corrupt West is holding us down, we must fight back!" That sort of thing.
As for the US, Trump won not because the midwest/south has taken over but because US politics has finally been exposed for the corrupt crony system it is. We shall see how much damage really gets done, but I will opt to keep our country together because it takes diversity to make us strong. While I do disagree with a lot of things conservatives stand for, there are also a lot of things that liberals stand for which I disagree with. As time marches on our society evolves, and the trend is toward a more secular and liberal viewpoint. Two steps forward one step back, this election cycle is a backwards step to hopefully let the conservatives catch up... maybe we'll get a stronger Roe v. Wade after a failed attempt to get rid of it.
TL:DR Ignoring your problems is not a solid solution...
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Thursday January 19 2017, @10:16PM
As an addition, unless Trump and the Republicans go full dictator mode the way Turkey has, then if anything this last election cycle will wake up a LOT of people to the importance of elections. Expect grassroots campaigns to dramatically increase, and bullshit like the DNC pulled on Sanders to be swiftly brought to light. We need reform, badly, and we all know Trump isn't gonna do it.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday January 19 2017, @10:29PM
However I still hold to the idea that creating divisions is a bad idea.
Why? We already have separate nations. There's a division between the US and Canada. Are you proposing that the US and the Canada merge into a single nation? What about the US and Mexico? The US and Canada, in particular, seem to have no trouble coexisting without needing to unify into a single nation, and there's no sign that the US and Mexico are going to have a shooting war anytime soon. (There's some bad politics going on right now, but there's no signs that anyone wants to invade the other and try to steal land or resources.)
As for the US, Trump won not because the midwest/south has taken over but because US politics has finally been exposed for the corrupt crony system it is.
True, but I contend that's a necessary byproduct of having a nation where there's too much diversity and division between incompatible cultures (namely the mostly-Christian conservatives and everyone else). The nations which enjoy the lowest corruption rate worldwide are invariably nations which are smaller and are not diverse at all. When you're not fighting with your neighbors about whether some moral issue or whatever should be legal or not, it's a lot easier to pay attention to your elected leaders and make sure they're doing what they're supposed to. Over here, we just get distracted about whether gay people should get married, whether abortions should be legal (it's not a settle question, it's been a fight for more than my whole life and it isn't stopping), whether the government should endorse Christianity, etc.
but I will opt to keep our country together because it takes diversity to make us strong.
In an economic sense, sure. The same was true for the Roman Empire. Things didn't turn out well for them. Right now, the nations with the lowest corruption and highest standards of living are not very diverse: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Switzerland. (Yes, that last one has 4 official languages, but is there really that much difference between a German-speaking Swiss and a French-speaking one? Plus, their nation is organized into cantons with far more regional autonomy than we have, plus they have a lot more direct democracy, plus they're a very small country.)
As time marches on our society evolves, and the trend is toward a more secular and liberal viewpoint.
That's not what I'm seeing: there's more and more religion in Europe (thanks to the Islamic immigrants), there's more conservatism in the middle east (see ISIS), there's more religion and less secularism in Turkey (Erdogan is an Islamist), there's more religion in Russia (the Russian Orthodox church is very powerful, unlike 30 years ago), Afghanistan used to be a place where women went to school and enjoyed a lot of secularism 50+ years ago, and even here in the US megachurches are more popular and powerful than ever.
TL:DR Ignoring your problems is not a solid solution...
They're not "my" problems if I can divorce myself from the people with those problems. If I have a wife who's causing me a lot of problems, I can either try to convince/brainwash her to fix those problems (good luck), or I can get a divorce and live happily apart from her. Which one is easier and more sensible? The latter of course. Leave the dumb religious nuts to their own devices, in their own countries. I don't know about you, but I want to live my life in peace, not fighting with people to convince them that they're wrong. I can't do that when they're on top of me, and voting for laws to oppress me.