What’s In A Democracy?
A lot of talk these days centers about how our democracy is threatened or endangered by Gestapo-like right-wingers or left-wingers. The talk often shifts to the ordeal in Iraq and Afghanistan and what kind of democracies they’re really going to have. I’ve even seen an author on C-Span speak to our “arrogance” that we a slightly over 200 year old country dare lecture Iraq, which is “7,000 years old” on what kind of government it should have. By the way, Iraq isn’t quite that old. Civilization in the area could be argued at 6,000-7,000 years and I’ve heard some arguments for exceedingly older, but even though it is the birthplace of Hammurabi, the area hasn’t seen “representative” government before.
Well, this led me to think on a line I heard not to long ago. What would you consider a country that could send government troops in at any hour of the day into your home, grab you, imprison you without trial and hold you indefinitely? Would that be a democracy? Well, I’d hope so. It’s what they can do to you in Great Britain through the Official Secrets Act. And Britain is the model for our democracy to a good extent.
I know some were thinking “Well, with Ashcroft/Gonzales/Bush (fill in your most hated current Executive employee here) it could happen here”. Actually, a bit of it happened when Clinton ordered Janet Reno to kidnap Elian Gonzales and send him back to communist Cuba, but we haven’t really seen it here since then. I digress, though.
Ideas like habeas corpus and several of the freedoms we take for granted in the Untied States are not subscribed to or even considered in other parts of the world and while we might get what are called and what even function as “democracies” in the Middle East and elsewhere, they won’t necessarily be American democracies. Our liberal government and even more liberal freedoms are the envy and in some cases a source of criticism of much of the world’s governments. To assume that cultures that don’t hold such liberal views on freedom will adopt them at all is possibly to assume too much. While we might instill representative government and perhaps a greater measure of freedom than most places have ever known, they are still not America. That should be kept in mind as we consider what “democracy” is.
Another consideration of our democracy in all this is how it may be “threatened”. Well, it’s always threatened. Demagogues and tyrants are ever present dangers in any society and the longer we exist the more we seem to want to regulate ourselves and wrap ourselves in the warm, clingy blanket of socialism. The Constitution is routinely attacked as outdated, sexist, racist, too vague, too specific, misinterpreted, flat-out ignored, or worst, treated as a “living, breathing document”. It’s the easiest way to build a new Great Society by deconstructing the old one. As it’s been said, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
Still, my concern is that those who consider it threatened in the alarmist fashion that’s so fancy among the hard-core left and right these days is that they think in the short-term. Our society and government are too resilient to be beaten in the short-term and no tyrant or demagogue could destroy us that easily. What they should be concerned with, and what many are seeing today, is the effect of long-term re-engineering of our society. What was unthinkable a generation ago becomes acceptable or even the norm and society decays and degenerates into some new, poorer form as a result. While people focus on the here and now, our national attention span shrinks faster than a 10-year old with a TV remote.
It’s important that those people refocus and think about the long-term. What kind of country are we leaving the next generation? What kind of country were we left and why? How do we stop those who so willingly make the mistakes that cause this damage? That is something we must all keep sight of or what makes a democracy will become somewhat of a moot point around these parts.
A lot of talk these days centers about how our democracy is threatened or endangered by Gestapo-like right-wingers or left-wingers. The talk often shifts to the ordeal in Iraq and Afghanistan and what kind of democracies they’re really going to have. I’ve even seen an author on C-Span speak to our “arrogance” that we a slightly over 200 year old country dare lecture Iraq, which is “7,000 years old” on what kind of government it should have. By the way, Iraq isn’t quite that old. Civilization in the area could be argued at 6,000-7,000 years and I’ve heard some arguments for exceedingly older, but even though it is the birthplace of Hammurabi, the area hasn’t seen “representative” government before.
Well, this led me to think on a line I heard not to long ago. What would you consider a country that could send government troops in at any hour of the day into your home, grab you, imprison you without trial and hold you indefinitely? Would that be a democracy? Well, I’d hope so. It’s what they can do to you in Great Britain through the Official Secrets Act. And Britain is the model for our democracy to a good extent.
I know some were thinking “Well, with Ashcroft/Gonzales/Bush (fill in your most hated current Executive employee here) it could happen here”. Actually, a bit of it happened when Clinton ordered Janet Reno to kidnap Elian Gonzales and send him back to communist Cuba, but we haven’t really seen it here since then. I digress, though.
Ideas like habeas corpus and several of the freedoms we take for granted in the Untied States are not subscribed to or even considered in other parts of the world and while we might get what are called and what even function as “democracies” in the Middle East and elsewhere, they won’t necessarily be American democracies. Our liberal government and even more liberal freedoms are the envy and in some cases a source of criticism of much of the world’s governments. To assume that cultures that don’t hold such liberal views on freedom will adopt them at all is possibly to assume too much. While we might instill representative government and perhaps a greater measure of freedom than most places have ever known, they are still not America. That should be kept in mind as we consider what “democracy” is.
Another consideration of our democracy in all this is how it may be “threatened”. Well, it’s always threatened. Demagogues and tyrants are ever present dangers in any society and the longer we exist the more we seem to want to regulate ourselves and wrap ourselves in the warm, clingy blanket of socialism. The Constitution is routinely attacked as outdated, sexist, racist, too vague, too specific, misinterpreted, flat-out ignored, or worst, treated as a “living, breathing document”. It’s the easiest way to build a new Great Society by deconstructing the old one. As it’s been said, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
Still, my concern is that those who consider it threatened in the alarmist fashion that’s so fancy among the hard-core left and right these days is that they think in the short-term. Our society and government are too resilient to be beaten in the short-term and no tyrant or demagogue could destroy us that easily. What they should be concerned with, and what many are seeing today, is the effect of long-term re-engineering of our society. What was unthinkable a generation ago becomes acceptable or even the norm and society decays and degenerates into some new, poorer form as a result. While people focus on the here and now, our national attention span shrinks faster than a 10-year old with a TV remote.
It’s important that those people refocus and think about the long-term. What kind of country are we leaving the next generation? What kind of country were we left and why? How do we stop those who so willingly make the mistakes that cause this damage? That is something we must all keep sight of or what makes a democracy will become somewhat of a moot point around these parts.
posted by Rob Beck | 7:30 PM
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