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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (15420)	11/6/2003 3:17:34 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793622

President Bush today likened the campaign to install a stable, representative government in Iraq with the long cold war struggle against Communism and said America must be committed to promoting democracy in the Middle East "for decades to come." Good for him. Or maybe I should say "it's about time." This is a very different message. Is the message different because the mission has changed direction or because he was misdirecting us before the war? That's a rhetorical question. You know, based on the earlier messages, people out there think we're hard at work keeping the terrorists out. If we get hit again during these next couple of decades while we wait for democracy to take hold, there will be hell to pay, particularly if we get hit as a result of avoidable security gaps, such as foreigners overstaying visas or getting on planes with bogus IDs. History won't be kind.

To: LindyBill who wrote (15420)	11/6/2003 5:47:24 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 793622

the most important quote from the speech, stressed in an NPR report I just heard is, "We have erred by not pressuring our friends in the Middle East to move towards democracy" ...a very clear change of policy towards Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

To: LindyBill who wrote (15420)	11/6/2003 11:28:08 PM
From: Sam	Respond to of 793622

So democracy is the cat's meow? The key to modernization, prosperity and stability? All we need is an Arab example to get the ball rolling? But Turkey has had a secular representative government with a firm division between state and religion since the 1920s. Somehow that example didn't take in the Islamic world. Is China a democracy in any sense of the word? But that country has had for the past decade or more the highest or among the highest growth rates in the world, is rapidly becoming the manufacturing center of choice, and is arguably in a similar position relative to the rest of the world industrially that the US was in the late 19th, early 20th century (with the obvious difference that this country needed to import people to populate our ill-gotten gains in the West and provide our hungry industrialists with cheap labor--a problem that China obviously doesn't have). If you don't like the Chinese example, look at Singapore--far from democratic, but prosperous nonetheless, with a large middle class and an almost crime free society thanks to the rigid hand of President Lee, their quite autocratic leader. Democracy guarantees nothing. Democratic institutions can be changed in the blink of an eye, and in any case, the "people" can be manipulated to do almost anything under the right set of circumstances. Germany was democracy that elected Hitler. Here is a post from another thread giving a little historical perspective on democracy, rudimentary but it will have to suffice since I don't have time right now to improve on it: Bush Urges Spread of Democracy whitehouse.gov PRESIDENT:The roots of our democracy can be traced to England, and to its Parliament -- and so can the roots of this organization. In June of 1982, President Ronald Reagan spoke at Westminster Palace and declared, the turning point had arrived in history. He argued that Soviet communism had failed, precisely because it did not respect its own people -- their creativity, their genius and their rights. President Reagan said that the day of Soviet tyranny was passing, that freedom had a momentum which would not be halted. He gave this organization its mandate: to add to the momentum of freedom across the world. Your mandate was important 20 years ago; it is equally important today. (Applause.) President Bush and most of our elected politicians keep referring to America as a 'Democracy.' and how we need to promote this philosphy worldwide. No doubt this is because they weren't taught the difference under government-funded, outcome-based public 'education.' And their parents and teachers probably weren't taught the difference either. The Founders knew the difference, however. James Madison warned: 'Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.' Alexander F. Tyler stated: 'A Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess out of the treasury with the result that democracies always collapse over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a dictatorship.' Fisher Ames stated: 'Liberty has never lasted long in a democracy, nor has it ever ended in anything better than despotism.' Samuel Adams stated: 'Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes itself, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.' As Benjamin Franklin emerged from Independence Hall in Philadelphia, he was asked by an onlooker what form of government he and his countrymen had created during the first and to date, only constitutional convention. His answer: 'A Republic, if you can keep it.' Republic vs. Democracy proliberty.com by Marvin Gardner All people who call our country a democracy are either uneducated as to the truth or are trying to convince you of something that is not true to achieve their own selfish ends. Not once is democracy mentioned in our Constitution and every time it is mentioned in the writings left behind by the Framers of our Constitutional Republic it is to warn us of the historically proven social, political and economic dangers of democracy. Read the following; educate yourself and realize that every time "our" president calls our country a "democracy" he is shouting unconscionable profanity to all of the American people who wish to have the freedom to live a decent life. -(DWH)