WHY do we have to promote democracy everywhere??
Because it's preferable over people promoting totalitarianism, maybe??
Because a democratic society (of whatever flavor, Republic, Constitutional Monarchy.. etc) is the only way in which the governed are able to have a say in how they are governed?
Because democracy, by its very nature, declares that human beings have individuals rights shared by EVERYONE, and not merely the rights that the most powerful are willing to grant to them.
Because democracy, if truly effective, is not supposed to result in political suicide. It is not really a democracy if the political parties are permitted to use that electoral process to avoid future elections, or to undermine the principles that permit a functioning democracy to survive (bill of rights, rule of law, freedom of the press, separation of powers.. etc).
Now maybe you might go look in the mirror ask yourself why you think only people like you deserve to live in a democratic system while the rest of the world is subjugated and oppressed by despots and tyrants??
One last thought. Recall that at the beginning of the US democratic experiment (for that's what it was), certainly congressmen offered Washington the opportunity to be "President for Life", an offer he graciously refused. Additionally, the only people who actually possessed suffrage (voting rights) were white property owners.
But now we have universal suffrage, women have equal rights, blacks are no longer slaves, and our experiment has been replicated around the world, one nation at a time.
Thus, what democracy means is political and social progress and evolution. A totalitarian regime, at its heart, is not about political and social progress for the enhancement of individual rights. It's about advancing the ideology of a select few "power elite" who's only accountability to the people comes from the barrel of a gun.
Democracy will not automatically bring a secular society.. and I don't think either Bush, or anyone else, has any illusions about the short term results. But every journey must have a beginning and if we are going to moderate the forces of totalitarian Islamo-Fascism, only a democratic process will truly force a government to focus MORE upon the needs of the governed, than external aggression toward their neighbors.
Hawk
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