CDR: Shunning, lesbians and liberty

[James A.. Donald]

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At 11:52 PM 10/2/2000 -0500, Kevin Elliott wrote:
 > However I'll bite by asking the inverse of the question- name one
 > large scale famine that occurred in any country not under some form
 > of "forcible rule" (forcible rule being defined as some sort of
 > communist, socialism, or dictatorship, for the purpose of this
 > question).  A less precise way of putting this is present one
 > example of a country in which free election are/were taking place
 > for a reasonable period of time, during which that country
 > experienced mass starvation of a significant portion of it's
 > population.

You are putting ordinary dictatorships, like Pinochet's Chile or Park's 
Korea, in the same category as communist dictatorships, like Castro's Cuba 
or Mengistu's Ethiopia.  That is ridiculouys.

The difference between normal dictatorships and totalitarian regimes is 
enormous, vastly greater than the difference between dictatorships and 
ordinary democracies, and the distribution of famine (excluding famines 
caused by war) illustrates that difference.

So let us go back to the original question:  Where was there a significant 
twentieth century famine other than those caused by war or socialism?

It is absurd to use categories that put normal dictatorships in the same 
category as totalitarian dictatorships.

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          James A. Donald
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