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Turkey, positioned geopgraphically on the edge of Europe and politically inside of NATO, has been heading in a troubling direction for some time in regards to speech. Crackdowns on dissent and even open speech are increasing and Internet communications are the specific focus of some of the recent actions. Coming up is legislation intended to curb the Internet (WWW) in ways similar to how television and radio have already been limited:
Having already brought Turkey's mainstream media to heel, and made considerable headway in rolling back Turkish democracy, the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has set its sights on a seemingly innocuous target: a satellite television preacher named Adnan Oktar.
[...] "It is just about control," said Kerem Altiparmak, a human rights and media lawyer. "Considering what has been happening in Turkey, I have no doubt this is a hegemonic power, controlling newspapers, TV and the judiciary, that is now out to control the [I]nternet sector."
All the restrictions are made that much easier through increased use of and dependence on centralized services like Facebook by the remaining opposition.
Source : Erdogan's Next Target as He Restricts Turkey's Democracy: The Internet
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Monday March 05 2018, @06:58PM (5 children)
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Monday March 05 2018, @08:16PM
I suspect your thoughts are fatally flawed in that respect. A longer, more intricate, Constitution would not be more effective at restraining the government - to the contrary, it's likely to be less effective. The more complicated something is the easier it is to play games with it.
A good consitution would be as simple as possible, but no simpler.
I don't think the US Constitution is perfect but it seems to be in the right ballpark there.
Which is why it's taken so long for some of the basic guarantees to be eroded by practice. For the most part, the provisions are simple enough that you don't need a team of lawyers to understand them, which has helped to give them practical force.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Monday March 05 2018, @08:49PM (3 children)
Plenty of democracies have no written constitution at all, I live in one.
This has the benefit of giving us flexibility in how we are governed. It has also given rise to a system where political parties have no formal place in our system either, ensuring that we haven't wound up with only two parties.
When our voting system was deemed to be no longer fit for purpose, we changed it, holding a national referendum to decide on which new system we wanted.
Written constitutions are not entirely a good thing.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @09:14PM (2 children)
You think that the two party system was written into the US constitution?
No.
The rules in the constitution just lead to that inevitable result.
We could also hold a referendum to change the way voting is done (adding an amendment), but it wont happen because those in power like being in power.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Tuesday March 06 2018, @01:23AM (1 child)
There's places in the US where there already are other election systems in place, for local elections mainly. The crazy Electoral College system is part of the Constitution and can only be changed with an Amendment ratified by State legislatures (not a referendum), but as I understand it, even this does NOT require first-past-the-post voting for the Electors, only for the actual Electoral College vote itself. (Again, as I understand it) if the States wanted to use Condorcet voting, for instance, to decide which candidate to choose to award their Electoral votes to, there's nothing stopping them, except perhaps passing a state law; the States are free to choose their electors however they want. Obviously, that's not quite the same as having a full nationwide Presidential election with every American having an equal vote, but it would still be rather different from how things are right now. As you said, it won't happen because those in power like being in power, not because it's legislatively that hard to do.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday March 06 2018, @09:09AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves