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Back in the distant past in the 1980s and in a land far away called
Washington, DC there was a computer bulletin board, a BBS, named The Elite
Few. It still exists today but not in its original form. Back then is was a
cutting edge exchange by people computer nerds with day jobs. Those jobs
were from physician to military line officer, from Nation of Islam to
Congressman.
I could wax nostalgic but never recover the days essentially Washington
people could exchange thoughts, barbs, diatribes and downright discontent
with the DC sense of national purpose simply by living in the area. If you
have ever lived in a company town you know what it is like. For the people
who live in Washington, DC and its suburbs it is a company town and the
business of the company is the business of the nation and the world. You can
find more political savvy in a sixteen year old high school dropout than in
most adults in New York City. You New Yorkers, save your invective, you only
think you are the center of the universe. You are children.
At the behest of one participant from the State Department the Sysop, Dr.
Gabor Laufer, OB/GYN, posed the question, how can we get world peace? A
participant answered, Make all countries democracies as democracies do not
wage war on each other. A bit later it became public knowledge that the US
government had adopted spreading democracy as the route to world peace.
The first thing that policy missed was democracies do make war on each
other. And the world's first modern democracy, the USA, made war on the
world's second modern democracy, the CSA, in what is known variously as the
American Civil War, the War of Northern Aggression and the War between the
States. That war consumed more lives than all the wars those states have
been involved in from 1776 to the present. The European Union should take
heed of the penalties for putting off the hard decisions until later.
So much for US foreign policy being based upon a glib response to the
eternal question of world peace. And the same person who gave the glib
response later posted the ACW as an example of idea being wrong but the US
kept the policy. Someone in State must have gotten a promotion out of it.
There followed an exchange on the general subject with a cynical reference
to imposing freedom upon other people. How does one impose political freedom
upon people? How can imposition of freedom and real freedom be reconciled?
The functionally illiterate bureaucrats in the US government were never able
to reason beyond that problem and see that the imposition of freedom is the
antithesis of freedom and therefore impossible.
Thus we find ourselves hell bent upon imposing freedom on other countries
such as Iraq and faced with the impossibility of imposition of freedom by
force. But as we are all bureaucrats at heart and practice believing several
impossible things each morning before breakfast we insist upon doing
impossible things. We are currently insisting upon imposing democracy upon
Iraq and also deciding Iraq is not ready for democracy.
The people of Iraq are certainly not ready for the modern embodiment of
American democracy well funded by economic interests. They are more like the
free-wheeling United States in the 20 years after its founding where people
voted their conscience for the greater political good and damned political
parties as the death of political liberty. Iraqis are likely to vote for the
moral good of their country as they see it rather than abortion on demand
and taxes based upon personal wealth and influence.
If any Iraqi looks at the political history of any democracy they will see
what is called the modern, liberal democracy the US wishes to force upon
them is not as desirable as the democracy the US had a century ago. Then and
now they see the rich running the US as they see the rich running every
country whether or not it is a democracy. They see the difference in crime,
drugs, unwed mothers and a host of other social problems. And they will ask
if the exchange was worth it. And they will see the political oppression of
those who ask if it is worth it in the countries claiming to be open,
liberal democracies.
What the US has not realized is that democracy cannot be imposed as if it is
imposed then it is not political freedom. Democracy has to sell itself and
it can only sell itself by example. And the US has to realize it is not an
example most of the world wishes to emulate.
And for all of the above I wish to apologize for being the person who gave
the glib answer making all countries democracies on The Elite Few BBS way
back then. Of course that is a facetious apology as I do not consider myself
responsible for fools. No one was paying me for my answer so I bear no
product liability.
Pat Buchanan gets it.
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