The Scourge of Dr. Strangelove Democracy

The talk from both ends of the political spectrum is that “democracy” will cure the ills of Iraq, Iran, and the surrounding Muslim nations. What if the “liberated” people of Iraq, with their newly acquired right to vote, decide that they want a Taliban-style social and political system whose goal is to defeat the infidel West and impose Sharia law on all Muslims? Democracy in the hands of wild-eyed fanatics is perilous. They will use the democratic process to deny the democratic process once they gain power through the democratic process.

Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying. There are democratic elements in our constitutional system, but these are balanced with courts and elected representatives. Moreover, western-style democratic principles are built on the remnants of a Christian moral order. Self-government under God’s government tempered the potential harmful effects of a pure democracy that could be manipulated by evil men. Attempts to export our political form without the worldview that gives it its heart will lead to unintended consequences. Democracy in the Mideast will only lead to the imposition of the prevailing worldview which is anti-Christian and anti-Western. There will be enough people in Iraq, influenced by Islamo-fascist terrorists who have their own special kind of death wish, especially since we invaded their country, dropped thousands of bombs, and killed who knows how many civilians, who will want to turn America into a burned out cinder. They would love to get the chance to vote in a “democratic election” so they can see their dream realized. In a perverse sort of way, Dr. Strangelove is their operating model. The Iranian president loves the bomb, and he’s not afraid to use it. He was elected in a democratic election.

Our founders did not have a high opinion of majority-rule democracy. The Federalist Papers were popular newspaper articles written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay in defense of the ratification of the Constitution. They described democracies as “spectacles of turbulence and contention,” said to be “incompatible with personal security or the rights of property. . . . In general [they] have been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

Democracies degenerate into exploitation, because rulers discover that if they promise certain benefits to a majority of voters, they can get those voters to put them in power. The voters realize that with their chosen ruler leading the nation, they can pressure him to vote in their best interests by threatening not to vote for him in the next election. Those seeking power through majority rule always vote for the candidate promising the most benefits. The results are certain: Western democracies eventually collapse because the public treasury is milked dry due to greater demands by the majority of voters. The minority of wage earners realize that no matter how hard they work, the fruit of their labor will be confiscated to satisfy the demands of the majority. Social chaos is the result with either anarchy or a dictatorship to follow.

Islamic democracy is twisted since there is no place for dissent. You convert and conform. Dissension, the basis of western democracy, means reeducation, punishment, or death.

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Iran cracks down on women's dress

TEHRAN, Aug. 29 (UPI) -- Police in Tehran have been ordering Iranian women to cover up, stopping those they perceive as "badly veiled."

The crackdown followed the 2005 election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"We are certainly seeing a return to behavior we haven't seen for 10 years," Hadi Ghaemi of Human Rights Watch told The Telegraph. "Generally, the imposition of strict Islamic codes has been increasing under Ahmadinejad."

Ghaemi said that the penalty for violating a code that requires the complete covering of women's heads and bodies in public depends on the officers involved and the women's political connections.

"The person could end up in jail depending on their relationship with the authorities," he said. "Generally, the imposition of strict Islamic codes has been increasing under Ahmadinejad."

Just as women in recent years had pushed the boundaries by wearing head scarves that revealed more than they hid, many Iranians had flouted the law banning them from owning satellite dishes, the report said. The government has been cracking down on them as well.

UPI

Ignorance? Turkey is not a democracy, It is, as its name official name "The Turkish Republic", declares, a republic. The only reason it has remained so and not secumbed to the dire predictions of the author is that its military is committed to the project of a secular democratic republic, until recently suppressed Islamists with a fairly heavy hand, and holds the threat of a coup to reimpose the secular order if the elected government gets our of hand. Unfortunately the resolve of the Turkish military in this regard seems to be wavering, so that an Islamist party (not radical, but bad enough) is now the largest party in the Turkish parliament.

The possiblity of a democratic republic abolishing itself once a totalitarian party is elected is illustrated well enough by Nazi Germany. The ideological conditions in the 'Arab street' are quite conducive to a repeat in hastily constructed democracies, witness the election of Hamas in the Palestinian territories and the electoral success of Hezbollah.

Hmmmm, something smells here -- let's look deeper:

here's the quote used in the article attributed to the founders of America as written in the Federalist Papers:

They described democracies as “spectacles of turbulence and contention,” said to be “incompatible with personal security or the rights of property. . . . In general [they] have been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

Let's see what it actually says when you examine it in context, i,e, from Federalist #10, from whence the author lifted this quote:

If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote: It may clog the administration, it may convulse the society; but it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the Constitution. When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government on the other hand enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest, both the public good and the rights of other citizens. To secure the public good, and private rights, against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our enquiries are directed: Let me add that it is the great desideratum, by which alone this form of government can be rescued from the opprobrium under which it has so long labored, and be recommended to the esteem and adoption of mankind.
By what means is this object attainable? Evidently by one of two only. Either the existence of the same passion or interest in a majority at the same time, must be prevented; or the majority, having such co-existent passion or interest, must be rendered, by their number and local situation, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of oppression. If the impulse and the opportunity be suffered to coincide, we well know that neither moral nor religious motives can be relied on as an adequate control. They are not found to be such on the injustice and violence of individuals, and lose their efficacy in proportion to the number combined together; that is, in proportion as their efficacy becomes needful.
From this view of the subject, it may be concluded, that a pure Democracy, by which I mean, a Society, consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the Government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert results from the form of Government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party, or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is, that such 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. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of Government, have erroneously supposed, that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.
A Republic, by which I mean a Government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies from pure Democracy, and we shall comprehend both the nature of the cure, and the efficacy which it must derive from the Union.

[emphasis added]

I have taken the liberty of highlighting the entire passage from which the "quote-mined" quote was extracted, and further underlined the actual portion that was used in the "quote-mine."

From the context of the entire passage, we see that the founders were NOT condemning democracies in general, but rather that peculiar form of democracy that is the pure form -- direct rule by the people -- or "mob rule," as it is sometimes known informally. This has nothing whatever to do with the fledling Iragi democracy that is, in fact, a representative government of constitutionally limited power whose memebrs are elected by democratic election. IOW, it is a Republican form of democracy (a democratic Republic), identical in principle to the one created by the same founders who wrote the Federalist paper so egregiously quote-mined by the author, in order to misrepresent what they were saying.

Either the author has no clue what he's talking about, or worse, he does, and is trying to sneak his misrepresentations of reality past a credulous audience.

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