George Will: "Democracy everywhere?"

Townhall.com ^ | Aug 17, 2003 | George Will

[The Raven]

WASHINGTON -- U.S. warships carrying 2,300 Marines are off Liberia's coast, U.S. forces still are in harm's way in Afghanistan and U.S. military deaths in Iraq are, as this is written, just nine short of the total before President Bush declared major combat operations over. But some people think America is underengaged abroad.

For example, the presidents of Oxfam America and Refugees International, writing in The Washington Post in support of intervention in Liberia, urge the Bush administration to confront ``head-on'' many crises: ``Central Asia, the Balkans and Western Africa are areas of the world that provide too many examples of what happens when U.S. power is not used proactively.'' Such incitements to foreign policy hyperkinesis can draw upon the messianic triumphalism voiced by British Prime Minister Tony Blair in last month's address to a rapturous Congress:

``There is a myth that though we love freedom, others don't; that our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture; that freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law are American values, or Western values; that Afghan women were content under the lash of the Taliban; that Saddam was somehow beloved by his people; that Milosevic was Serbia's savior. ...

``Ours are not Western values, they are the universal values of the human spirit. And anywhere, anytime ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police."

----see full article through link

[--©2003 Washington Post Writers Group]

[The Raven]

Democracy isn't the reason IMHO (actually - we're a republic)...it's the removal of power from government that makes us tick.

Folks in the world don't know what they're missing unless they had a direct comparison...like East/West Germany. Same thing with us when we vote for libs [where would we be today if the government didn't spend half of our wealth every year?]

[patj]

Raven, there you go again! Breaking out in common sense, utterly confusing the libs.

[The Raven]

I liked that Blair quote [above] so much I had put it on my home page.

[tkathy]

The Seven Factors of Failed States
These key "failure factors" are:
Restrictions on the free flow of information.
The subjugation of women.
Inability to accept responsibility for individual or collective failure (victimhood).
The extended family or clan as the basic unit of social organization.
Domination by a restrictive religion.
A low valuation of education.
Low prestige assigned to work.

[patj]

I took a look at your home page, I like it. I admire Sowell, he always makes sense when he talks.

[neb52]

Lack of ownership of property as well.

[The Raven]

>>The Seven Factors of Failed States

Probably narrow it down to "power corrupts" -- If power resides in the people - you'll be OK.

Also...need land ownership........

[randita]

``There is a myth that though we love freedom, others don't; that our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture; that freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law are American values, or Western values; that Afghan women were content under the lash of the Taliban; that Saddam was somehow beloved by his people; that Milosevic was Serbia's savior. ...

How many liberals told us before the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars that "democracy and freedom aren't for everybody--some people just aren't ready for it". When I heard that, it made me sick.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Almost sounds like Michael Porter.

[Cacophonous]

So you diagree with George Will's premise here?

[Imagine]

I agree. Somehow I think, if we cannot elect Republicans that agree with "smaller" governmnet, is to attack one program after another in the courts under the 10th ammendment doctrine. Am I dreaming?

[arasina]

I suggest reading the entire editorial (which, unfortunately, had to be excerpted because the Washington Post is the original source). Mr. Will is saying that Prime Minister Blair and President Bush are idealists whose lofty goals for changing governments from tyranny to democracy is impossible.

Further into the editorial, he says:
Bush and Blair and many people called neoconservatives believe that moral objectives in politics are universally applicable imperatives. If so, then either national cultures do not significantly differ; or they do not matter; or they are infinitely malleable under the touch of enlightened reformers. But all three propositions are false, and antithetical to all that conservatism teaches about the importance of cultural inertia and historical circumstances.

And he wraps it up with:
The premise that terrorism thrives where democracy doesn't may seem to generate a duty to universalize democracy. But it is axiomatic that one cannot have a duty to do something that cannot be done.

[logician2u]

George Will broken clock bump.

[randita]

So you diagree with George Will's premise here?

I disagree with those who say that freedom and democracy are not for everyone. I agree with Pres. Bush who said that humans naturally yearn to be free.

[hosepipe]

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.-Thomas Jefferson

[Mr. Mojo]

I agree with Pres. Bush who said that humans naturally yearn to be free.

I don't. The fact is some humans yearn for freedom and others don't. Even during Revolutionary times there were those who were more than content to live under the rule of King George III. And in contemorary American times there are many people - I will not grace them with the name 'Americans' - who long for a cradle to grave socialist system that does everything for them but wipe their asses. These people, far from yearning to be free (as both you and Bush/Blair assert), are content to be slaves. Similarly inclined (although perhaps in a different way) is vast majority of the world's Muslim population.

To quote Will from the article:

Does Blair believe that our attachment to freedom is not the product of complex and protracted acculturation by institutions and social mores that have evolved over centuries that prepared the social ground for seeds of democracy? When Blair says freedom as we understand it and democracy and the rule of law as we administer them are ``the universal values of the human spirit," he is not speaking as America's Founders spoke of ``self-evident" truths. They meant truths obvious to all minds unclouded by superstition and other ignorance. Blair seems to think: Boston, Baghdad, Manchester, Monrovia -- what's the difference? Such thinking is dangerous.

[Cacophonous]

Mojo responded as I would have, were I as eloquent...

[KC Burke]

Democracy is a process element, not a goal. The goal is Participatory government that vests and franchises the citizen and legitamizes the government of the state.

Likewise the elimination of power is a buzz-word. Freedom from Arbitrary Power was the Old Whiggish goal that started us down our road to freedom.

And cultural history cannot be ignored. Renching change in franchise and process always penalizes Property, that foundational element of any society. Slow, incremental change of institutions, first set right by removal of Arbitrary application gives stability to the society where the change is happening, and the preditability that lets the feeling of justice prevail for all parties.

Will is making the classical conservative distinctions, nothing more.

[WOSG]

Ah, a true Burkean you are! And correct! True freedom requires institutional and cultural support. It takes time.

Will's point: Cold water on Wilsonian triumphalism.

But that doesnt negate the fact that there are millions, nay, billions, that would rather have more freedom and self-reliance and democracy, and are stopped by extremists (Islamofascists) and tyrants (Castro, China, Congo, etc.). Blair is expressng lofty generalizations that have much truth to them. Perhaps it could be tested in, say, the Arab world with a poll:

- do you prefer to live in a Western-style democracy and free market economy, or an Islamic dictatorship?

I wonder what the numbers would come out as.

[WOSG]

A response to Will might be: Yes, *our* freedom evolved over centuries, but as an example for others to follow, other nations need not take as long to adopt our cultural institutions, as long as the citizenry are able and willing.

Countries like Poland, Hungary, and Russia that lived for centuries under various forms of autocracy have moved remarkably quickly (in historical terms) from totalitarianism to market-based democratic rule. Not sure about Africa, but in Iraq there is hope.