Posted on 03/16/2004 10:49:28 PM PST by quidnunc
Looking back on the stunning catastrophe of the Spanish election, the one thing that no one can say is, "If only Spain had been a democracy." Spain was a democracy — the kind of democracy that we can only dream of establishing in Iraq or in other countries of the Middle East, and yet, when given the choice between standing by civilization or giving in to the demands of its enemies, Spanish democracy did not hesitate for a moment. It rallied to the side of anti-civilization.
Democracy did not save Spain. On the contrary, it was the instrument by which the terrorists got Spain to do their will, so much so that, in the aftermath of Sunday's election, the rest of the civilized world has the right to ask, "Who really rules Spain now?" Is it the Spanish people, or a small clique of dedicated terrorists?
If this question seems exaggerated to you, consider the following thought experiment.
Suppose that last week's attack had not been the work of terrorists, but the work of the United States. Suppose American jets had flown over Madrid on Thursday morning and dropped a scattering of bombs on the commuter trains, killing and maiming the exact same people who were killed and maimed in the terrorist's attack. Suppose, further, that President Bush had subsequently announced that Spain would be subjected to further attacks if the Spanish voters did not vote as he wished them to vote.
Had the Spanish people docilely obeyed such a brutal command, and voted as the United States bid them vote, the world would be left in no doubt who really ruled Spain. The election would have clearly been understood as an act of collective capitulation and an abject abandonment of all claims to national sovereignty. Henceforth Spain, with good reason, would have been looked upon as a puppet state of the USA — in the exact same way that Soviet tanks in the streets of Prague in 1967 proved to the world who really ruled the Democratic Republic of Czechoslovakia.
If a foreign agent is permitted to interfere at will with the internal affairs of a nation, then that nation no longer possesses national sovereignty — a fact that can be immediately grasped in those cases when the foreign agent is another nation state, as in the case of the USSR and its satellites during the Cold War.
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(Excerpt) Read more at techcentralstation.com ...
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Because values do not come from a form of government: they came from Judaism and Christianity and are now largely forgotten in Europe and increasingly here at home.
The lament should not be "If Spain were a democracy:" it should be "If Spain, and Europe were Christian as they once were..."
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