What is Legitimacy?

In US, the cultural tug-of-war is between prohibition and freedom, in its degenerate forms it can play itself between extreme hedonism or extreme prohibition, but legitimacy in US is firmly rooted in the principle of freedom - not free as in beer, free as in speech (this is why I predict the current hoopla on NSA will never go away, as the undertakings of the agency is illegitimate per principle).

In UK the monarchy is legitimate, they represent what is better, providing the role model for men and women alike, a certain way of acting, and conducting self (UK's code for itself is CLASS). Men aspire to be gentlemen, "distinguished" and the royals provide such imagery for the populace in abundance. During the 50s the prediction was the Royals were all but doomed to disappear, but they played their cards right (they have Liz II to thank for that) and they are still around.

In Europe, whose cultural tug-of-war is between Rome and Jesus, between piece and war, legitimacy resides in being an integrated and pieceful countries / continent with expression of freedom. Piece in all shapes of form is seen as legitimate.

Middle East and Turkey: What represents better for these people? Interestingly enough, Europe, and as a general concept, the West represents what is legitimate. In Turkey the despots called Ottomans fled the country finally putting an end to centuries of blunders and wars, the Middle East went through a tumultuous period in its history going through one thug after another and now is rocked by the aftermath of the Arab Spring. One needs to remember how it all started though: Wikileaks cables showed how their rulers were seen in the eyes of the West (not in a good way) which in turn, made these leaders illegitimate. Most recently, Obama praising Morsi with few sentences caused the man losing his shit and assume extraordinary powers - n.gger must have thought "I be legitimate now", and thought he could rule the roost (I use the N word quite "liberally", I hope that is clear by now). Or the imagery of Wael Ghonim on TV after his detainment: "he worked for Google, he is back, and now he is crying". This is primal stuff, at cultural level (higher in importance than conscious thought according to Rapaille ordering of brain functions).

In Turkey, the cultural tug-of-war is between the palace and the peasant. Legitimacy resides in people having more say, and the West, as long as it represents those ideals. That is why attempts by generals after a coup during 80s, and later by various parties including -most recently by AK- to paint Ottoman past as a "good thing" failed mainly because, most importantly, it contradicted with hard historical facts (simply untrue, based on delusions of few ministers). AK's efforts to extend this "legitimacy bubble" to the Balkans and the Middle East has been demolished by people themselves or the most recent events in the ground. Balkans simply chose the EU and it is clear by now nobody wants the third Rome and its caliphate - the carbon copy of the Roman Catholic Church and its questionable past. What people wanted was more freedom, as in free speech, the kind the West almost destroyed itself while attaining.