CAN DEMOCRACY BE IMPOSED? NO. ONLY TYRANNY CAN BE!

A RESPONSE TO THE NEO-CONSERVATIVE RETRENCHMENT AND REVISIONISM OF KAPLAN AND FUKUYAMA:

ROBERT D. KAPLAN WROTE THE FOLLOWING IN THE WASHPOST - titled, "We Can't Force Democracy; Creating Normality Is the Real Mideast Challenge" :

Globalization and other dynamic forces will continue to rid the world of dictatorships. Political change is nothing we need to force upon people; it's something that will happen anyway. What we have to work toward -- for which peoples with historical experiences different from ours will be grateful -- is not democracy but normality. Stabilizing newly democratic regimes, and easing the development path of undemocratic ones, should be the goal for our military and diplomatic establishments. The more cautious we are in a world already in the throes of tumultuous upheaval, the more we'll achieve.

Paul at POWERLINE argues that Kaplan is making a distinction without a difference:

... the practical difference between Kaplan's classically conservative view and the supposedly hardline neo-conservatism of the administration probably is not substantial.

I SAY THAT KAPLAN IS FLAT OUT WRONG! Here's why:

All humans are literally and figuratively born free (desiring to eat, sleep, crawl and do just about everything as we please - when we please, from the moment we are born); in other words, we are each NATURALLY sovereign over ourselves.

Democracy is simply the only way free persons can give their personal consent to be governed - it's the only way a nation can truly self-determine its governmental system. Tyrannies cannot logically or morally claim to be self-determined; they are determined at the end of a barrel of a gun, so-to-speak; the gun-holder determines everything; the people nothing.

Put another way: Democracy is merely how mutual consent is arrived at among people who each enjoy their innate, universal human rights. There is no other way mutual consent - and therefore legitimate self-determination - can be achieved.

The only form of government which can be said to be truly "imposed" is the tyranny that people suffer under when they are trapped by undemocratic regimes - whether they're ruled by an aristocratic, Marxist, or Baathist elite.

The so-called neo-conservative agenda of Bush is identical to the classically liberal agenda of FDR, Truman, JFK, LBJ and Reagan. It consists mainly of taking assertive/active/positive steps toward removing the imposed tyranny and assisting the newly liberated people to form their own democracy.

This is why we refer to wars fought for this reason as wars of liberation. Those who refer to it as imposition are mistaken. We liberated Europe from Hitler and then the USSR; we did not impose democracy on Europe. Ditto Japan.

As the oldest, richest and strongest democracy in the world we have a moral duty to try to help our brothers and sisters everywhere become free - to help them re-attain their innate liberty. And this means helping them rid themselves of tyranny, and helping them design and implement a democratic government of their own.

Kaplan's suggestion that we should instead follow a less assertive and more "cautious" laissez faire attitude is tantamount to resigning that we cannot shape events - or that when we can, it's too risky because it's somewhat destabilizing, and that instability is worse than a status quo which accepts genocidal tyrannies which enslave millions and millions of people and keeps them trapped in societies and economies which can only breed inequity, ignorance and poverty.

Well, I assert that all humans everywhere are capable of democracy - and deserve it as much as me and Kaplan. Kaplan and others think this is not the case; he explicitly argues that stability for people who already enjoy liberty and the fruits of liberty is more important than assisting our fellow humans who suffer under tyranny, and I say that this is highly ill-liberal of them - and somewhat racist and ethnocentric, too.

I know that any Afghan infant - even the child of Taliban parents - or any Iraqi infant, or any Pakistani infant, or any Palestinian infant who would be adopted by Americans and raised in the USA would be as "American" as anyone else raised here. IOW: propensity for violent jihadofascism is NOT genetic; if kids are raised to believe that tyranny and terror are okay, then they will believe that is the case. But their believing it does not make it so - just as believing the earth is flat does not make it so.

If Kaplan and others agree that there is no genetic component, then they are essentially arguing that all humans have the innate capacity for democracy but NOT the same cultural capacityy, then they are essentially arguing (in the case of Iraq, for example) that Islam and democracy are incompatible.

Since there are many Muslim democracies and many millions of Muslims living under democracy in nations which are not majority-Muslim, I think those who argue that Islam and democracy can't work co-exist are just simply wrong. And those who say we can't help transform tyrannical nations into democratic are just as wrong. And those who say the help shouldn't be forceful - when some force is necessary, are wrong, too.

I do feel that Arab Muslim nations have special hurdles to overcome on their path to democracy - some of these hurdles are related to their particularly fervent cultural practices: polygamy, endogamous and consanguineous marriage, and misogyny.

I feel these contribute more to Arab poverty and to their diathesis for xenophobic violence, than Islam does. I feel these practices also give them a special diathesis for the most extreme forms of Islam. (WHY? Well, men raised to feel it's okay to murder their own daughters or sisters in order restore "family honor" are certainly going to be capable of xenophobic genocidal terror against people who are not in their "tribe.")

I feel that nations which allow these ill-liberal anti-humane and unfair coercive practices should be totally shunned by the Free World. We could START by relegating them to observer status at the UN.

We should no more accept a nation which allows these practices into the international community or into international alliances - or benefit from international aid from the World Bank or the IMF than we would a nation which allows slavery. THAT THE INDIGENOUS POPULATION SHOULD ENJOY LIBERTY AND EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW SHOULD BE EVERY BIT AS IMPORTANT TO THE UN, THE WORLD BANK AND THE IMF AS THE LEGITIMACY AND TRANSPARENCY OF THE GOVERNMENT.

In criticizing the pace of transformation in Iraq - and highlighting the instability there - Kaplan seems to forget that our own nation had very VERY serious problems developing our own democracy, too: We had YEARS under the Articles of Confederation which were a DISASTER,; we had the Whisky Rebellion, and a horrifyingly deadly (though absolutely necessary) Civil War, and another 100 years of failing to FULLY achieve what the Declaration and the Constitution promised for all.

SURE: Democracy is a process - and a it's sometimes a long one, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't help that process along - or capitulate to the anti-democratic forces when that process hits some resistance. It seems to me that Kaplan and Fukayama are now advocating just such a capitulation.

And Kaplan forgets that, as tyrants go, King George III was not as bad as Saddam. And Kaplan seems to forget that the French had one and a half centuries of faulty democracies before achieving their current republic.

That's why Kaplan and Fukayam and the other naysayers should not be so quick to throw in the towel. Because it's based on a bad reading of history, and because it's EXACTLY what our extremist enemies want.

IN FACT: It's exactly what our extremist enemies tell their own people: "Democracy is not for you!"

I say: DEMOCRACY IS FOR EVERY PERSON EVERYWHERE. FDR said it, too. Bush says it - and does something about it.

God Bless Him. And God Bless Our Troops. WITH OUR HELP, THE IRAQIS WILL FIND THEIR WAY. There are tyrannical totalitarians who do not want the Iraqis to forge their own democracy. People who believe that all humans deserve their universal, inalienable, innate human rights must help our brothers and sisters in Iraq defeat these totalitarians.

POST SCRIPT:

Folks like Kaplan who prefer stability and a gradually, "providentially" evolving status quo (to taking risks) are not only timid, but wrong. The pre-9/11 status quo was what led to 9/11 (and tow decades of attacks before 9/11!). That should be as intolerable to everyone as slavery, too. So-called Realpolitik is bankrupt morally and ineffective in the real world. The confrontation between democracy and tyranny is something tyrants want to avoid - we shouldn't!

UPDATE: MORE HERE. And HERE. And HERE.

[ASIDE: Many critics of our assertive actions and our militaristic response to enemy provocations in The Long War are hollow because we have a voluntary military, and we are not asking the citizenry to make any sacrifices at all. BUT AREN'T HIGH ENERGY PRICES AND A GROWING SENSE OF UN-EASE AND INSECURITY SACRIFICES THAT WE ARE ALL MAKING?! Yes, I think they are. And I think most people realize that these are the costs of war.]

UPDATE (hat tip Jim Rose): MORE HERE.