Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan showed again an utter lack of self-awareness or shame when he denounced the German government for blocking rallies of Turkish nationals — saying that the decision is “no different to those of the Nazi period.: Erdogan has been widely denounced for his destruction of the secular traditions of Turkey and his attack on free speech and the free press. Whatever objections can be raised over the denial of free speech in Germany (and there are many), Erdogan is the last person who could credibly raise them.We have followed the rapid destruction of the secular government and civil liberties in Turkey under the authoritarian rule of Recep Tayyip Erdogan — assisted by the long-standing and continuing support of the Obama Administration of Erdogan. Erdogan used the recent failed coup to push his effort to create a de facto Islamic regime and to complete his work in arresting his critics, including forcing the resignation of thousands of secular academics, and suspending all civil liberties in a proclaimed state of emergency. Recently, Erdogan threatened the United States that he wants his greatest critic, US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, delivered to him and that a failure to yield to his demands would be a “big mistake.” Now, he has ordered the round up of journalists despite the fact that journalists helped him stay in power during the coup by bravely continuing to broadcast during the coup. In addition, his government has arrested people who express doubt (with many internationally) about the coup. Erdogan has been known to use trumped up events to expand his power and many believe that he is not only using the coup as an excuse but engineered the coup. His government says that anyone raising such concerns is likely a coup plotter and should be arrested.
None of that stopped Erdogan for expressing dismay at the loss of free speech in Germany: “Germany, you have no relation whatsoever to democracy and you should know that your current actions are no different to those of Nazi period. When we say that, they get disturbed. Why are you disturbed?” he was quoted by Reuters as saying at a rally in Istanbul on Sunday.
Erdogan remains a menace to basic civil liberties and this dark legacy will be the introduction of Islamic influence over the Turkish government and the denial of free speech to Turks. To avoid appearing comically hypocritical, he should probably remain focused on this authoritarian agenda and not comment on the actions of others.
https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/839668771098882048
Walking ghoul.
I don’t know what came over Jonathan Turley, be he seems to have forgotten that the concept of hypocrisy only applies to decent people and can never apply to leftists and all their authoritarian variations. The lamestream fake news media presstitutes have made that axiom abundantly clear. So please get with the program.
It’s all over the news in Germany. I wish they would just ignore him.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan showed again an utter lack of self-awareness or shame
He has a perfectly sectarian understanding of ‘free speech’. So do the student rabble at Middlebury and UC Berkeley. So do all the portside posters here (anon, bettykath, etc).
This person is Crazy! Pot calling the kettle black? My sister spend two years teaching English at the Koc School in Istanbul. That was before this psycho was elected. She always raved about the country and that, for a Muslim country, their forward thinking about women and freedom. Too bad the overthrow of this kook was a failure. Very sad for the Turkish people. They have lost a millennium of progress.
What ‘millennium’. The Ataturk regime was founded in 1923, not a century ago. It always had a vigorous coercive element.
Turkey has not functioned well as a parliamentary republic the last 70 years and appears to not have the sort of political culture which would buttress a sustainable parliamentary order. Up until about 15 years ago, some sort of modus vivendi was achieved by placing the military beyond the reach of elected officials. The military constrained elected officials from contravening certain Kemalist non-negotiables.
A dozen years ago, Martin Kramer offered the Justice and Development Party as a possible example of an Islamist party that could and would operate within the constraints of a parliamentary order. His judgment was tentative and, it now appears, very wrong.
Government leaders have always done what is necessary to maintain their power. Remember Lincoln suspending the Writ of Habeas Corpus. I’m sure that there are many in Turkey that are praising him for being such a tough leader against dissidents.
Most of the nation states around the world today are quite fascist and as such must usurp especially property rights to maintain the various redistribution of wealth schemes to maintain their power base.
By comparing the socio-economic systems of Japan, Germany and Italy before and during WWII, it gives you the economic foundation for what fascism is. Each used slightly different propaganda methods to rally the masses behind the various social policies as many of the nation states do today. In economics it’s called the popularist agenda, such as demonizing immigrants and libertarian ideology. Let’s build that wall so america will be great again.
The demopublicans hate the libertarian agenda such as Ron Paul because they oppose their massive redistribution of wealth schemes. The Turkish people are just getting the government and leadership they pay for. Just because taxation is forced upon the Turkish people under the threat of prosecution and imprisonment, doesn’t give them the right to be dissidents. We must have laws?
No, they despise Ron Paul because the man is a silly and conceited crank, manifest in just about everything he advocates.
No, what Ron Paul and the millions of other libertarians from around the world believe in, is the protection of individual rights predicated on the ethical foundation of natural law.
Perhaps if you understood that, you would not have made such a silly comment.
Ha ha ha. Ron Paul is a promoter of crank monetary nostrums, crank historiography (esp. re the 2d World War) and crank conceptions of international relations.
Paul (and, in a more dignified way, the von Mises Institute) are manifestations of one strand of libertarian. The Ayn Rand Institute is another; Rand herself had very limited investment in policy disputes or political contests, so was fairly immune to certain silly excursions, as is her executor, Leonard Peikoff. Another strand is manifest in the Reason Foundation and the Libertarian Party. They’re basically promoters of vice goods. Ann Coulter said she once approached the Libertarian Party in her area with the idea of running for Congress; the meeting didn’t go well (“I discovered the only thing they gave a damn about were the drug laws”). Another strand is manifest in the Mercatus Center: they’re status conscious academics at pains to never be embarrassed in the faculty rathskellar, so never take any positions which would be controversial in that matrix.
In general, libertarianism is good and original. The good part is unoriginal and the original part is not good.
Some of your facts are correct but your conclusions are incorrect. Opinions you cannot support.
“Ann Coulter said she once approached the Libertarian Party in her area with the idea of running for Congress; the meeting didn’t go well”. (“I discovered the only thing they gave a damn about were the drug laws”)
You should continue to trust the intellectual integrity of people like Ann Coulter or you could do like I did and actually go to some of the meetings and read their platform and program. I’ve been in all three parties and they are the best by far. But don’t take my word for it, get involved and see for yourself.
I find it quite disheartening to see so many still trusting the lame steam media? When are you folks going to catch on.
Why would I ‘get involved’? I don’t have an issue with the drug laws, or the military, or the Federal Reserve. Neither am I a votary of open borders.
FYI: Nobel Prize Laureate and economist Milton Friedman even now believes Ron Paul’s position is correct on central banking. No better way to determine the truth then to see its failures in action, finally acknowledging he was wrong.
Just wait to see how the upcoming budget battle is going to have on our society as the divergent players, elements and results of years of poor public policies start to unwind again like they did in 2008. There is still a backlog of foreclosures in process. Any bets the kick the can down the road again.
As Peter Schiff recently wrote; when you’re in this much debt you don’t go out and buy a new car as Trump suggests we do socially by increasing defence and infrastructure spending.
I’m so tired of Dictator Divas.
While those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, they still do throw them. “Projection” is the most common aspect of demonizing others.
You heard it here. Just in from Cloud 9. This was an email, not a Twit. Trump and his wife will hence be known as: “Beauty And The Beast. He, being the beast.”
The man is a menace to society.
(music- to the tune of Henry The Eighth)
I’m ErdoGan the Eighth I am!
Erdogan the 8th I am I am.
I got married to the widow next door.
She’s been married seven times before!
And, everyone was an Erdogan.
It wouldn’t be a Willy or a Fred.
For there ain’t no man like Erdogan!
Erdogan the 8th I am!
“We’ll eradicate Twitter. I don’t care what the international community says. Everyone will witness the power of the Turkish Republic.”
March 20-Erdogan