It's been quite a week for the abuse of democratic principles by putatively democratic leaders. Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan used riot police to clear Istanbul's Taksim Square of peaceful demonstrators, whom he has denounced as "a few looters" and "a few bums." Egypt's upper house passed a law restricting the operation of non-government organizations which Egyptian civil society groups assert "lays the foundation for a new police state" by the democratically elected President Mohamed Morsy. Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians have taken to the streets to protest practically everything -- though there the government has professed bafflement rather than outrage.
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