Freedom vs. Democracy: How The U.S. Government Created a Crisis in the Middle East

Hezbollah, which has been waging war on Israel, and America, for years, is the immediate cause of the current fighting in the Middle East. The broader cause, though, is the United States government.

When Washington declared that freedom could be advanced by elections in which Hezbollah participated, and by which it became part of Lebanon's government, we granted that terrorist entity something it could never achieve on its own: moral legitimacy.

We gave legitimacy to Hezbollah--just as we did to such enemies as Hamas in the Palestinian Authority and the budding theocrats in Iraq and Afghanistan. These people all came to power through democratic elections promoted by the U.S. But a murderer does not gain legitimacy by getting elected to the ruling clique of his criminal gang--nor does anyone gain it by becoming an elected official of an anti-freedom state.

The premise behind the Bush administration's policy is the hopeless view that tyranny is reversed by the holding of elections--a premise stemming from the widespread confusion between freedom and democracy.

The typical American realizes that there ought to be limits on what government may do. He understands that each of us has rights which no law may breach, regardless of how much public support it happens to attract. An advocate of democracy, however, holds the opposite view.

The essence of democracy is unlimited majority rule. It is the notion that the government should not be constrained, as long as its behavior is sanctioned by majority vote. It is the notion that the very function of government is to implement the "will of the people." It is the notion espoused whenever we tell the Lebanese, the Iraqis, the Palestinians and the Afghanis that the legitimacy of a new government flows from its being democratically approved.

And it is the notion that was categorically repudiated by the founding of the United States.

America's defining characteristic is freedom. Freedom exists when there are limitations on government, imposed by the principle of individual rights. America was established as a republic, under which the state is restricted to protecting our rights. This is not a system of "democracy." Thus, you are free to criticize your neighbors, your society, your government--no matter how many people wish to pass a law censoring you. You are free to own your property--no matter how large a mob wants to take it from you. The rights of the individual are inalienable. But if "popular will" were the standard, the individual would have no rights--only temporary privileges, granted or withdrawn according to the mass mood of the moment. The tyranny of the majority, as the Founders understood, is just as evil as the tyranny of an absolute monarch.

Yes, we have the ability to vote, but that is not the yardstick by which freedom is measured. After all, even dictatorships hold official elections. It is only the existence of liberty that justifies, and gives meaning to, the ballot box. In a genuinely free country, voting pertains only to the means of safeguarding individual rights. There can be no moral "right" to vote to destroy rights.

Unfortunately, like President Bush, most Americans use the antithetical concepts of "freedom" and "democracy" interchangeably. Sometimes our government upholds the primacy of individual rights and regards one's life, liberty and property as inviolable. More often, however, it negates rights by upholding the primacy of the majority's wishes--from confiscating an individual's property because the majority wants it for "public use," to preventing a terminally ill individual from ending his painful life because a majority finds suicide unacceptable.

Today, our foreign policy endorses this latter position. We declare that our overriding goal in the Mideast is that people vote--regardless of whether they value freedom. But then, if a religious majority imposes its theology on Iraq, or if Palestinian suicide-bombers execute their popular mandate by blowing up Israeli schoolchildren, on what basis can we object, since democracy--"the will of the people"--is being faithfully served? As a spokesman for Hamas, following its electoral victory, correctly noted: "I thank the United States that they have given us this weapon of democracy. . . . It's not possible for the U.S. . . . to turn its back on an elected democracy." All these enemies of America--Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiites--abhor freedom, while adopting the procedure of democratic voting.

If we are going to try to replace tyrannies, we must stop confusing democracy with freedom. We must make clear that the principle we support is not the unlimited rule of the majority, but the inalienable rights of the individual. Empowering killers who happen to be democratically elected does not advance the cause of freedom--it destroys it.

I do believe Hitler was initially elected. So what. It just means those who voted for him were as screwed up as he was.

The German system of government did not permit the Chancellor to assume dictatorial powers. Hitler used secret, illegal gangs to murder opponents and consolidate power. A breakdown in the rule of law had to occur.

The unstable, not yet free governments in the Middle East are also broken. But how does a stable free government prevent a Hitler from wresting control? Individuals with enforcement power, those who enjoy the monopoly on violence, must fear the consequences of illegal action.

Legitimate agents of government must maintain a monopoly on violence and obey the limits on their powers. The people and the leaders must all submit to the rule of law. But this house of cards won't sustain if people only submit to the rule of law out of fear. Successful free governments depend on a people who cultivate the virtue of submission. And people wholeheartedly submit because their government has proven its ability to protect their rights.

==Pretzel logic that doesn't get to the root of the problem.

Are you talking about the article? If so, I think the article is focusing on a very important problem with our efforts to push democracy in the Middle East. Of course there are many other very important problems plaguing the Middle East, but I think the author is correct about the need to push constitutions that protect life, liberty and property (as opposed to creating democracies that favor or allow for mob rule).

You don't go straight from dictatorship to freedom overnight. It's going to be a tough 20-30 years for the Middle East.

The oil age is about to end and these people are for the most part 200 years behind. The leaders pocket all the wealth and pass out fish to the people. If you think it's radical over there now, wait until the oil money drys up.

Think of it this way. Why do people stay in gangs ? Because they lack the skills to get a decent job. The reason there are so many jihadis in Pakistan and Afganistan is because there are no jobs to be found so war becomes their profession and gives them self worth. Same thing can be said about the Palistinians.

==The reason there are so many jihadis in Pakistan and Afganistan is because there are no jobs to be found so war becomes their profession and gives them self worth. Same thing can be said about the Palistinians.

What's the best way to create jobs/stable economy? A constitution that protects life, liberty and property. Having said that, such a constitution may require significant bloodshed before it can be implemented.

This is a culture problem. It is an old world culture where the human being has no inherent worth. The concept of inherent human value brought forward by the Judeo-Christian Culture was a breakthrough in human endeavor. Such a culture gives all human beings great value as ordained by the Creator. It is something that all humans have desired since the beginning of time. It is a culture that gives the individual the freedom to determine his own destiny. This is a self governance by the individual himself who makes moral decisions conscious of a all-aware Creator. This model of human interaction has produced a civil order that enables the individual to reach their fullest potential.

Opposing the Judeo-Christian model of human treatment is a culture of deception, manuscripted from an old savagery, which sees humans as existing only to perpetuate a totalitarian ruling class. Such a ruling elite class has a narcissist world view where the individual must be controlled through fear and exists only as an instrument of the state. The deception begins when the individual is told he has no value. It continues when the ruling elite elevate themselves or are elevated through cultural custom to the position of gods. Because of this devaluation of the individual, their are no limits to the treatment of the individual. If the state can further their purposes by the enslavement or the killing of the individual, it will take the liberty to do so. If the killing of innocent human beings furthers the interest of the state, people will be sacrificed in this totalitarian system. The effects on individual accomplishment are incalculable.

The writer is a fool, and the premise of his argument -- that we granted Hamas and Hizbollah "Moral legitimacy" -- makes a mockery of the term "moral". The organizations may have been granted political legitimacy within their own political boundaries but the United States never once granted them anything like "moral legitimacy". The U.S. State Department continues to label them terrorist organizations.

Politicians have been using the term "democracy" in a more generic sense to include republics like the USA and parliamentary governments like the UK since Woodrow Wilson's war to save democracy.

What I resent about this article is that is assumes that Bush labors under the impression that we are creating pure democracies in the Middle East. We are helping the Iraqi's to create a republic based on a parliamentary form of government with some power devolved to regions like Kurdistan. Bush is not trying to establish pure democracies in the Middle East.

Further, in my opinion, the key to having political freedom is that people have the right to vote for their representatives and leaders in government. If they never experience that right, they become apolitical and apathetic about who's in charge (beyond their control). This allows thugs like Saddam or Assad to take over and create a newer version of the NAZI party.
Give people the power to vote and determine their leaders, and eventually they will learn the consequences of the leaders that they choose.
Palestinians chose Hamas in the last elections. Now they are paying the price for that choice. Perhaps they will eventually learn the consequences of such a choice.
To ignore those persons that want freedom in the Middle East is to surrender to tyrants before you give the people a chance to develop good leadership on their own.
Turkey has done so for 90 years and is still struggling a bit, but have a form of government far superior to anything else in the Muslim world.

I think you've zeroed in on the fundamental challenge. Isn't it interesting, though, that the Greco-Judeo-Christian Culture PRECEDED Islam?

The question is what is to be done now? Help the Kurds I would guess since they are more sectarian.

Nevertheless we can't continue nation building if the nations we are building are going to be just as bad or worse. Its as if we allowed the Nazis and Tojos to stay in and exercise their power after 1945.

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