Spreading Freedom and Democracy

[Red Peasant]

Agreed, but didn't she sort of sacrifice her own ideals in the process? Many in her assembly argued that this was the case in the debate preceeding the vote to take such an action.

Good post.

The debate was concerned with the punishment to be inflicted after suppressing their opponents on the island (initially way out of proportion), not their own right to intervene in their own sphere of influence. Thucydides is showing the degradation of human morality during war, as can be seen with the Spartan decision at Plataea and the Athenians also at Melos.

[-ThundeR]

I'm not sure what you mean by a "non-Western" democracy. Western democracy is far from perfect, but if a "non-Western" one involves curtailing freedoms then it is morally bad and it propagates injustice.

I'm referring to governments as in Thailand, Malaysia, really any government anywhere not in Europe or North America/Australia etc. has a whole list of traits that we may see as unthinkable. The point I was trying to communicate was that a country has to become pretty rich before a democracy can be productive.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Really. Could you elaborate a little more? Surely a free-market democracy will have faster economic growth than a nationalized police state.

[rotorgun]

The debate was concerned with the punishment to be inflicted after suppressing their opponents on the island (initially way out of proportion), not their own right to intervene in their own sphere of influence. Thucydides is showing the degradation of human morality during war, as can be seen with the Spartan decision at Plataea and the Athenians also at Melos.

Of course. After going back and reviewing Thucydides I realise that I was in error before. Still, the fact that they were in such a debate brings to mind the debates over torture and wether it is legal to keep the non combatant prisoners in Guantanemo. Surely, although Thucidides does not tell us so, it does reveal that there was probably no universal support for intervention in the first place. The fact that some where concerned about the punishment implies that there were "Hawks" and "Doves" among them. Didn't they decide initially to raise the city, then later repented that decision, and sent a fast vessel to stop the sacking only just in time?