Preemption, democracy and liberty -- the ultimate cause

townhall.com ^ | 12/04/03 | Ross Mackenzie

[kattracks]

We are thankful in this season for ... what?

For love and family? For abundance? For a benevolent Lord? For life itself - particularly in the opinion of those who, having peered into the abyss, embrace life daily as distinctly preferable to the alternative?

Yes, all those things - and more. But how about special thanks for a president determined to extend democracy to barren precincts of the world - notably in the Middle East?

Democracy gone bananas can become ochlocratic (as, paradigmatically, in France in 1789), even anarchic. But nowhere does liberty flourish under a nondemocratic regime. It never has. And liberty is the ultimate cause.

Perhaps the al-Qaidists and Talibans and Baathists did us a favor. Many have derided President Bush as a stupid, aimless rich boy. Whether that critique is true, this is: Sept. 11 left him a man transformed. His administration is driven by two doctrines revolutionary in intellectually arthritic Washington: preemptive war and the expansion of democracy's realm. Both doctrines serve America's long-term interests, but principally to the extent that they serve liberty.

[lainde]

bttt

[tjwmason]

But nowhere does liberty flourish under a nondemocratic regime. It never has. And liberty is the ultimate cause.

Not true. England (and post 1707, Britain) was not really democratic until the 19th century, yet liberty was still considered to be one of the greatest strengths bestowed on England (cf. Magna Carta, which merely enumerated liberties previously understood). Indeed, it was the perceived breach of these liberties (non-democratic liberties) which American colonists rebelled in the mid-late 1770s.

Liberty is a great value which we should all treasure, sometimes it is safeguarded by democracy, other times it is undermined by democracy. One could argue that the English Civil Wars resulted in the first 'democratic' regime, yet liberty was utterly suppressed until the restoration of the Crown in 1660.