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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (105753)	7/16/2003 9:30:52 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The problem with that is, you can't have a democratic system without a critical mass of engaged moderates, and /or revolutionaries committed to democracy. I am nowhere near convinced Iraq has anything like that. I have seen no evidence that even a majority of Iraqis favor democracy. And they have damn few moderates. At the time of our revolution we had rates of literacy in the US of around 90% in New England. The rate of literacy in Iraq is around 58%. School enrollment is around 49%- and both numbers are worse for women. Our government is, imo, a good thing for me, and I like it (but I like it because I don't yearn for a religious government, and the more our government lets us be individuals the more I like it- but not all people, even in THIS country are comfortable with that)- I'm not sure what we have can effectively be foisted upon other countries regardless of their history. We the US need to realize that part of "freedom" (the greater goal of Democracy) is the freedom of a society to reject it.