MarkHumphrys.com

Irish. Atheist. Liberal-right. Anti-jihad. Pro-West. Pro-Israel.

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Politics - The World


 


Liberal democracy everywhere.
End tyranny everywhere.
End all non-democracies on earth
by 2025.
My world view

Political freedom in the world

Human rights groups

Religious freedom

Sexual freedom

Press freedom

Tyrants' embassies in Ireland

Genocide and War crimes

 

How to end war and famine

World bodies

The new power blocs of the world

The unfree world

Terrorism

Crime


The World



My world view

My world view can be summarised by the following:

1. Western values are the best

I believe in the western Enlightenment model of free speech, human rights, democracy and capitalism. These ideas are universal, and they will work for every country that adopts them. Every country in the world should adopt these ideas. They will be much freer, much happier, and incidentally much richer, if they do.

If the whole world adopts these ideas it will mean the end of war forever. This isn't an opinion. This is statistical fact.

My world view might be shocking if you were brought up in the polite left-liberal consensus in Europe. My view is that there is something basically wrong with the non-westernised world. My view is that humanity has discovered the correct way to live - the so-called western way - and any country in the world that doesn't adopt it is simply backward. Other races aren't backward. Other cultures are. Western values - reason, science, democracy, free speech, freedom of religion, free press, a secular state, private property, free enterprise, and so on - are not the property of one racial group (as America itself shows). They belong to all races, and these values should be adopted by the whole world.


2. We must defend the West (and all free countries)

My world view can be summed up by Freedom House's list of free and unfree countries. Freedom House divides the world into "Free", "Partly Free" and "Not Free". Accepting that one could debate indefinitely where to draw the lines, Freedom House's division does express a basic truth about the world. About 2 billion people in the world live in unfree countries, and every civilized person must hope for their liberation.

For me, an ethical foreign policy would be to be allies (including formal military allies) of the countries in the "Free" category, to be neutral about the countries in the "Partly Free" category, and to be formally hostile to the regimes in the "Not Free" category. If you think that sounds reasonable, then why don't you read what countries are in each category, and then you will realise how skewed our foreign policy currently is.

I regard every regime in the "Not Free" category as invalid and illegitimate. These regimes have no right to exist and should be replaced by free democracies. I do not recognise as valid any vote in which these regimes participated - such as UN resolutions, UN world conferences, or Arab League meetings.


Objection - Ranking countries

Is it simplistic to rank countries, as Freedom House does?

I prefer Freedom House to other human rights groups such as Amnesty International since the other groups refuse to rank countries. They refuse to say that such a thing as a "free world" exists - that, for example, the Netherlands is more free than Saudi Arabia. Instead, they just list criticisms of each country. But since every country can be criticised about something, why should one take, say, criticisms of Sudan, China or North Korea seriously. After all, Britain and France can be criticised too.

So yes, Amnesty and the others do important work, but they should have the courage to say that there is such a thing as the free world and it is not perfect but it is better than the unfree world.



Political freedom in the world



Ranking of world freedom - Freedom House

Freedom House is my preferred source of human rights country reports. Their world map of freedom clearly shows the unfree world - communism, Islam, and plain old-fashioned dictatorships in Africa.





Map of world freedom 2013, based on rankings of Freedom House.
Green - "Free".
Yellow - "Partly Free".
Purple - "Not Free".




Ranking of world freedom - The Economist

The Economist's ranking is not much different to Freedom House's ranking.





The Democracy Index, 2011, from The Economist.
Green - full or flawed democracies.
Yellow and Orange - Hybrid regimes.
Red - Authoritarian regimes.
From here.




Ranking of world freedom - Center for Systemic Peace




The trend towards increased world freedom, 1946-2007.
From the Polity IV Project.
Red = Autocracy.
Black = "Anocracy" (a state with weak or non-existent central authority).
Blue = Democracy.





Human rights groups




Religious freedom

As an atheist, I stand completely with religious people everywhere who are not free to practice their religion.

Most of the religious intolerance in the world is in Islamic states and communist states.





There are 7 nations where atheism is punishable by death: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, Mauritania, the Maldives.
All 7 establish Islam as the state religion.
Pat Condell says: "Seven barbaric crapholes where the state can execute you for being atheist. Can anyone guess the religion?"
From here.




Persecution of Christians worldwide

All over the Islamic world, the communist world, and the third world, Christians are oppressed and killed for their beliefs. Christians are probably the most persecuted religious group in the world today.




Sexual freedom



Gay rights around the world.
Tolerance of homosexuality gives us a good idea how other sexual freedoms are tolerated (such as contraception, pornography, sex outside marriage).
From here.

Homosexuality illegal:

   Minimal penalty
   Large penalty
   Life in prison
   Death penalty




Press freedom




World bodies (separate page)




The new power blocs of the world (separate page)






Tyrants' embassies in Ireland




Protest at Iranian Embassy, Dublin, Feb 2011.
From here.



The Rectory of St. Philip and St. James Church, Mount Merrion Avenue, Dublin, in the 1887 to 1913 period, before it was defiled by the tyranny of Iran.
The Rectory is now the Iranian Embassy.
Thom's Directory of Dublin shows it for at least 1901 to 1945 as the home of the Rector of St. Philip and St. James Church.
It is now called "Hollybrook", and is the Embassy of a regime that persecutes Christians. Hopefully these defilers will be expelled from it soon.
Wouldn't it be lovely if it became the Rectory again?
From OSI. See also Google street view.




Genocide and War crimes

For me, the most important issue in all future world politics is the need to prevent genocide and mass murder by dictators. The only real, long-term solution to this is to end all dictatorships.



Sovereignty



Rudolph J. Rummel

Rudolph J. Rummel has done some of the most exhaustive statistics of history's genocide and state mass murder. He has come to a simple, but totally unappreciated, point, that, I believe, is now the central point of world politics.

Democracy brings peace, life and prosperity. A powerful state brings war, genocide, death, poverty and famine. It's not an opinion. It's statistical fact. Reading these statistics should innoculate you against all philosophies (e.g. socialism) that demand a powerful state.




The top killers of the 20th century (individuals).
From Rudolph J. Rummel.





How to end war and famine (separate page)




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