What's more important: democracy, or liberalism/secularism?

[Beet]

A big discussion in the Turkey Coup thread right now.



 What's better?

 1. a democratically-elected government... even if it morphs into a populist elected-dictatorship that increasingly tries to consolidate power, oppresses free speech and the media and ethnic/religious minorities, treats women differently, and demolishes the separation of religion/government by making government lean more theocratic

That's not democracy. No one's saying Erdogan is particularly democratic. But starting an event which is pretty much guaranteed to result in deaths of innocent people and risks tipping your country into a civil war is the act of a murderer, and pretty stupid to boot.

[Beet]

The second option -I have no desire, for instance, of having the People's Republic of China become a democracy if they are going to make a sham of it the way the Russians have done under Putin (or Turkey under Erdogan of late).  I'd rather they take the slow, deliberate approach so that when they do eventually become a democracy, it would actually have staying power. 

Oh no, I would take Putin, Trump or Erdogan over Xi Jinping any day. Compared to him, they all look like Thomas Paine. That being said, I do worry that Trump would get us into a war with China given how bellicose he is.

[Beet]

Maybe. If that's the case, apologies.