Is Democracy Overrated?
With the disintegration of the Soviet Empire and the Soviet Union, and Beijing's abandonment of Maoism, anti-communism necessarily ceased to be the polestar of U.S. foreign policy.
For many, our triumph fairly cried out for a bottom-up review of all the alliances created to fight that Cold War and a return to a policy of non-intervention in foreign quarrels where no vital U.S. interest was imperiled.
This was dismissed as isolationism. Seeking some new cause to give meaning to their lives, our suddenly superfluous foreign policy elites settled upon a crusade for democracy as America's new mission in the world.
Interventions in Panama, Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia followed, plus wars in the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan. To further advance the great goal, the National Endowment for Democracy and agencies like Freedom House set out to subvert authoritarian regimes in Belgrade, Caracas, Kiev, Tbilisi, Beirut and Bishkek.
Cold War methods and means were now to be conscripted—for democratic ends.
Yet, considering the high cost in blood, money and lost leadership and prestige since our victory in the Cold War, the democracy crusade scarcely seems worth it. For while we have been bogged down in two wars, China has become the world's leading manufacturer, steelmaker, auto producer and exporter, and the second largest economy on earth.
Nevertheless, we are ever admonished, we must not flag or fail in our pursuit of global democracy, for only when the world is democratic will our providential mission be accomplished. And only then can we be truly secure.
But setting aside the utopian character of all global crusades, why do we think that the more democratic the world is, the more secure and serene America shall be?
Historically, we have often made common cause with autocrats and dictators when our vital national interests commanded it. In our Revolution, our indispensable ally against the Mother of Parliaments was Louis XVI.
In the War of 1812, where our enemy was the Duke of Wellington, our de facto ally was the tyrant Napoleon.
During our war with Mexico, the Brits were on their side, not ours. During our Civil War, Tsar Alexander I wished us well, while the British wanted to see the United States permanently divided and weakened.
Democratic Sweden, Switzerland and Ireland were neutrals in World War II, while the China of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and the Soviet Union of Joseph Stalin did most of the dying on the Allied side.
During Vietnam, autocratic South Korea and Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines sent troops. The Brits and French traded with the enemy. Gen. Pinochet, who seized power in a coup in 1973, was a better friend than Chile's Salvador Allende, who was elected. While the Nixon White House did not cause Allende's ouster, neither did they weep over it.
Democratic France denied Ronald Reagan overflight rights for his F-111s to hit Moammar Gadhafi's Libya in retaliation for a terrorist attack, but Portugal's dictatorship gave permission for Nixon to use the Azores as a fueling station in resupplying Israel during the Yom Kippur war.
Ought not nations judge friends less by the ideals they profess than by how they behave when you need them most?
Moreover, any 21st-century democracy must sooner or later, through elections, reflect the most powerful of the currents surging through society. And, outside the West, and even in parts of the West, what are these?
Ethno-nationalism, fundamentalism, anti-Americanism.
When President Bush demanded elections in Egypt, Lebanon and Palestine, the winners were the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah and Hamas.
Bush's enthusiasm for democracy seemed to wane after that.
The largest democracies in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia—Brazil, South Africa, Turkey and India—are all moving away from the United States. Brazil and India are lining up with China to oppose limits on carbon emissions that would impede their growth.
India and China are resisting concessions to save the Doha Round of trade negotiations. South Africa leads the continent in sheltering the racist tyranny of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Brazil and Turkey launched a joint diplomatic initiative to help Iran break free of its U.S.-imposed isolation and of the U.N. sanctions regime.
Turkey is the archetype of a democratic nation moving away from America, as Ankara more accurately reflects the will of its people.
By moving Turkey off the secularist course set by Ataturk, moving closer to Iran and Syria, denouncing and defying Israel for its war in Gaza and treatment of the Palestinians, President Erdogan has increased his own and his Islamic party's standing.
In Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt, anti-Americanism and fundamentalist fever are both running high. Why would we want free elections in these nations if the inevitable result would be regimes far more hostile to our interests than the present governments?
America would do well to downgrade the ideological component of its foreign policy and start putting her national interests first.
Not all autocrats are enemies; not all democrats are friends.
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The same rule applies here at home. The costs of and damages caused by our DOMESTIC Empire (entitlements, public-"employee" benefits, etc.) are probably greater than the costs of and damages caused by our overseas actions.
"The first conquest an Empire makes is the conquest of its own people."
During our Civil War, Tsar Alexander I wished us well, while the British wanted to see the United States permanently divided and weakened.
Pat-What the hell do you mean by us?
Excellent article,Pat. "America would do well to downgrade the ideological component of its foreign policy and start putting her national interests first."
"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
— James Madison, Political Observations, 1795
Mark,
Depending on who is cooking the books, it looked something like the following for 2009:
Total Outlays (Federal Funds): $2,650 billion
MILITARY: 54% and $1,449 billion
NON-MILITARY: 46% and $1,210 billion
Pat, I'm in your "Amen corner" on this one.
I totally agree with the point of the article. Although the reference to the Civil War and us is a poor one. I wish Great Britain would have thrown her full support to those other guys. The United States could not have used Southern blood to expand its empire and create the vacuums that allowed Hitler and Stalin to come to power.
The trouble with democracy is rather like the trouble with free trade---it has never been tried.
And perhaps we should ask why "we" have been messing about in all these foreign places to begin with and allowing our incompetent and corrupt leaders to decide which side we should support in conflicts that we should have ignored. Having supported Saddam and then made war against him tells me they dont know what they are doing. We have a bunch of shrimps exercising the power of giants. Mr. Buchanan, bless him, is still thinking in terms of the Great Power game when we ought to be saving America from its internal rot.
Perhaps the trouble with democracy is not that it has never been tried, but like the christian ideal," it has been found difficult and left untried." G.K.C.
I beg to differ. Democracy has been tried more than once and it always leads to the vilest sort of tyranny. If one of the qualities of democracy is that the people are sovereign, we have a little problem in imaging a people ruling the country, when as individuals they cannot even govern themselves.
Attempts are democracy are worthless. The youngest in my house is a three year old and if he spits in the floor once more I'll be buying spittoons for the entire place and whipping tails til the cows come home. Only a loving dictatorship brings happiness and peace.
I have your cigars Dr Fleming. They are not especially high enders but they are direct from a friend in the business (he ran a wrapper farm in Ecuador for a number of years). I'm worried about the government concerning the likker. I'll see if I can drop it off in Charleston.
Have an eye out for the cigars.
McCallum
"Mr. Buchanan, bless him, is still thinking in terms of the Great Power game when we ought to be saving America from its internal rot."
Dr. Wilson has put the emphasis on the nerve endings of our politics AND at the very heart of our culture, where it belongs. Or as Tom Fleming put it,"we have a little problem in imagining a people ruling the country, when as individuals they cannot even govern themselves." Our country has become its soul writ large and what a dreadful sight. Its like nodding off while reading about Washington and Lee and then having a nightmare about ignoramuses like Karl Rove, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel, taking over. Only this time when you awaken, the nightmare is reality!! The only thing that can save us now is God's Mercy.
I second Dr. Fleming in his respectful rebuttal to Dr. Wilson. Ancient Greece tried democracy two and a half millenia ago, and it devolved into anarchy and mass hysteria, to say nothing of revolutionary France. Democracy, equality, and the universal rights of man gave France and the rest of Europe the great tyrant Napoleon.
Democracy is just mob rule and with mob rule you are reduced to the lowest common denominator that comprise that mob. Why do you think our culture is totally bankrupt and bizarre? In the 90's many publications had articles lamenting the "white trashing" or "dumbing down" of America, and with good reason. The "mob" got what it wanted and that was to become free from any personal restraint and common decency, thus the culture is going down the toilet.
Look what mob rule has done with regards to leadership in thisc ountry. If you tell the truth, you are scorned at. THe mob wants to hear sweet nothings and hold on to delusions that a demagogue will cure all their ills for them, so that they can act like a bunch of self indulgent brats.
#10 "Democracy has been tried more than once and it always leads to the vilest sort of tyranny"
Does this mean classical neo-con scholar, Victor David Hanson, might have been wrong when he foresaw democracy breaking out all across the Arab countries once the U.S. dug Hussein out of hiding, destroyed all his weapons of mass destruction, hung him by the neck, asassinated his potential heirs, and bestowed power to Iran's neighboring democrats, the Shias? If democracy is written on the heart of "everyman" then why do they still need 50,000 American combat troops for the next few decades in order to insure Iraqis get what they most desire?
Perhaps the trouble with democracy is not that it has never been tried, but like the christian ideal,” it has been found difficult and left untried.” G.K.C
Ben Franklin described democracy as "two wolves and a lamb taking a vote on what to have for dinner." Today the two wolves are the democratic and republican handlers. The lambs have been so traumatized they think dinner with "Miss Grizzley" might offer a different result. It won't.
Democracy is simply a modern-day form of consumer fraud.
I still say our mob is not nearly as crazy and depraved as our "elite." The trouble is, the last genuine American leadership class was suppressed at Appomattox, which, as Mencken pointed out, was a victory of Babbitts over gentlemen. It is not so much the people's rule that is at fault as that the American people are not citizens but a bunch of government wards and consumers. There has been no democracy since Lincoln and his friends turned over the real power to the bankers, something which "the people" had no say over.
Granted, democracy's bias is it's belief in human nature when entrusted with power. Not unlike any other political construct, it can and indeed has devolved into demogougracy and the vilest sort of tyranny- but what sovereign is not subject to human folly. When the Sovereign does return, or we return to Him, there'll be no need to imagine who can best govern self or others, but in the interregnum I would prefer to dine with a jackass and a pachyderm than a "loving dictatorshipt"
I agree with everything that can be said about the defects of "democracy"---but where does that get us? I would prefer a native natural aristocracy ruling in the forms of a republic. But no such thing as a native natural aristocracy any longer exists in "America." The present regime is not an abstract exhibit of the failures of democracy. Regimes are not exercises in political philosophy but exercises of power by those who can seize power. I see no way of correcting the regime that does not work with "the people." Merely to denounce "democracy" is futile.
There was much more freedom for the independent yeomen under the aristocratic leadership of Virginia. But secular puritans emboldened by the idea of deomcracy for all, despairing of any good in the depraved average citizen, and filled with the greed of a false religion, set things straight ---AGAIN!! Without a cult that informs and developes the soul of its followers, it doesn't matter what form the government takes. Aristocratic like our founders, Timocratsic like the old South, oligarchs like their northern invaders or democrats like Bill and Hillary Clinton and George Bush /Sarah Palin. When cultures blood and treasure are sapped, it dies and something other takes its place. Before we can give something away it must belong to us first. What is our cult today? Freedom? Democracy? Virtue? Empire? War in the Middle East? The lives of our citizens at home? From the looks of things it apppears our foreign policy is invade and instruct, while our domestic policy is expand individual freedom through more government, more perversity and less of the Western and Christian heritage. Until that cancer is put in remission, we will remain an unruly mob composed of disordered individuals, dysfunctional families and diminishing small communities,headed for the big herds in Houston and Boston!!
#11 you end "dictatorship" with a "p", I end it with a "t". I say I'm closer to the mark.
#12 the ignoramuses have indeed ascended, but you list of the complicit hardly descends into nightmarish. Get thee to a gulag.
#21 And I agree with him who said the best "argument against an aristocracy is that it always means the rule of the ignorant. For the most dangerous of all forms of ignorance is the ignorance of work" You prefer the genius and defects of the few, I the genius and defects of the many.
The trouble with democracy is the same thing as the trouble with that thing defined under "politics".
If the conventional modern definition of "politics" is "the process of reconciling people's interests", then we can only assume that such a thing is not and never can be possible; different people's interests are always at odds.
#22 I'm no historian, but have the distinct impression that for many Puritans(circa the English Civil War), democracy was not so
much an idea (Ideal), as it was agitation for equality and
conditions. I suspect the american variety mirrored their cousins.
I don't know what constitutes secular puritanism, but as per your descriptions, its' proponents seem Fifth Monarchy/Levelers that instead of the Saints, are ruled by ignoramuses.
I simply fear many cures are worse than the cancer.
#25 should read ..." as it was agitation for equality of rights and conditions."
Winston Churchill: The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
#27 I suspect Mr. Churchill's five-minutes were more audience than coversation
r.a. schulz: 'you end “dictatorship” with a “p”, I end it with a “t”. I say I’m closer to the mark. '
The only concern with authoritarianism is which higher authority and values the authoritarians concern themselves with. Give me a Christian, aristocratic, patriotic dictator over the leaders "we" elect anyday. It would be a massive victory if any one of the current masterclass would exhibit just one of these traits.
Churchill also said that democracy was the worst form of government---except for every other form that has been tried. C.S. Lewis said something similar. When Hamilton said that men were flawed and therefore needed to be ruled by their betters, Jefferson had the perfect reply: Where do these angels come from?
I would say that denouncing democracy is the most valuable and helpful service we can offer to the American sheeple today - as long as we follow it up with the obvious truth that the far left has tried to sweep under the rug for at least a century by now: the American government never was or ever has been a democracy, nor was it ever intended to be one, because democracy is a HORRIBLE type of government. The American colonists and especially the Founding Fathers knew this.
The far left champions democracy and even parrots the laughable lie that America IS a democracy, precisely because it is desirable to them. For what do you get by putting every single policy decision up to a majority vote at the highest levels of government? The citizenry moves further and further to the socio-political left, of course. A republic, a type of government which restrains the flights of fancy and causes of the moment that the sheeple are drawn in to, is the antidote to the poison of democracy.
Dr. Wilson @30:
Hamilton probably replied to Jefferson, under his breath, of course:
"Anywhere north of Maryland."
#29 There will be no massive victories, only continual skirmishes. Moreover, the results you seek would constitute not a victory, but a miracle. I believe in victory and miracles, but never in as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
#30 Despite all his flaws and shortcomings, his monument was always one of my favorite DC sites/sights.
Fredericksburg's own misanthrope, Florence King, once described (in the pages of National Review) democracy as "the crude leading the crud." No complaints from me. NR refused to run my classified ad when I had that slogan made into a bumpersticker. Hypocrites!
I'm not quite sure why it is that the average American voter will generally choose the more stupid candidate whenever election day pops up. Maybe it's safer to be governed by the dopey in the hopes that someday they'll get caught doing something wicked.
I'm also pretty certain that there will never be an American equivalent to Russia's Vlad Putin. Even "the Vegetable" Medvedev, is head and shoulders above Little Smoking Barry in the IQ department. And I liked the way the network scum put Obama on a raised dais during their recent TV appearance. Taller is more important for the image. Short is weak and craven.
But why stop at denouncing democracy?
Why don't we move one step ahead?
The republic itself is at the core of the worst problems we face. What is the republic but a system of rule at will unchecked by concrete moral authority of Church or any similar thing? What does it involve other than completely opening the path for absolute power at the expense of all human decency? Were oligarchies in 14th century Italy made for benevolent purposes?
And this thing we call the nation-state? You can see in Lebanon that they attempted a propagandist history of their geographic region - they were a Christian Mediterranean people only, and hence a ruler and his cabal must assert their claim on speaking on behalf of all their fellow Maronites, and everybody else who wasn't. As if Lebanon, the land once inhabited by a dozen dead empires, "belonged" to anybody. This little ethnic experiment in ensuring that there was an ideology of support for the ruling elite resulted in the war that tore Lebanon apart - a war highlighted by the massacre of entire Muslim villages by Christian soldiers. What happened in Lebanon was the exact oversimplifying nationalism that happened in Central Asia, Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East in movements that have shed so much blood.
Republicanism, nationalism, and democracy are all a part of the path towards destroying the foundations of high civilization for the sake of greed, materialism, and amoral disrespect for fellow humans. Where peace, law and order, and aspirations towards constructive purposes exist, they must be marginalised by the more base desires of those who wish to acquire absolute power - not for creating anything, but for enjoying what already existed.
As a moral extremist, I see nothing wrong with being an extremist in being morally consistent. It's not that I care to find some compromise or solution to the problems of the democratic republic nation. It's just that I simply see what is right and wrong. And this triumvirate of political systems has always been evil in intentions and results.
#36 I think we need be more concerned with "oversimplified " moralism than with your list of supposed evils. It seems to me self-evident that most nonsense is proposed by absolutists who can't appreciate the necessity of paradox.
I am inclined to think that we would get much more sensible and moral decisions from a plebiscite than from the best Congress money can buy. One of the basic problems, beyond financial corruption, is that America is full of self-important little pseudo-intellectuals who think being Liberals makes them superior to the plain folk. That is not a flaw of democracy but rather a flaw of the Yankee national character.
"That is not a flaw of democracy but rather a flaw of the Yankee national character."
This is an astute observation. The Puritan settlers of New England who were revolutionary radicals possessed by a kind of hysterical heresy, is now easily identified as the least religiously informed area of the country.(and who wouldn't flee that remose and depraved view of God and Man.)
In a recent Pew research study, the six New England states were at the very bottom of the list of all fifty states in religious practice, including attendance at worship, personal prayer, or any professed religious values. They have been radicals forever in pursuing their own ideology -- they corrupted Old England,then New England, tore up the old South and cheered the killing of almost a million of their fellow citizens for "their own good." --- and
always with the same hysterical enthusiasm. To meet a true blue blooded Yankee today is somewhat rare, but once they open their mouth or attempt to wrap their mind around any known reality,it doesn't take long to identify the repressed hysteria leaking out like a NASCAR oil gasket.
Clyde Wilson writes: "I am inclined to think that we would get much more sensible and moral decisions from a plebiscite than from the best Congress money can buy."
There is an old saying; an emperor can either be a Nero or a Marcus Aurelius, and the people can be a Nero but never a Marcus Aurelius. Think on it.
Clyde Wilson writes: "One of the basic problems, beyond financial corruption, is that America is full of self-important little pseudo-intellectuals who think being Liberals makes them superior to the plain folk. That is not a flaw of democracy but rather a flaw of the Yankee national character."
When was the last time a Liberal praised Monarchy? Fascism? Yankee national character is naught but the result of the secularization of religious democracy (every man a priest!) of the seventeenth century. Think on it.
"Taking the term in it's strictest sense, there has never been a real democracy and there never will be. It is against the natural order that the great number should rule and the small number be ruled" --Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Are you to the left of Rousseau?
P.S. Those financiers love democracy. Without it, they never would have risen so high. When was thelast time you heard one praising Throne and Altar? Read some Balzac. He'll fill you in.
"When was the last time a Liberal praised Monarchy?"
During the English Civil War. Not even the most radical parlimentarians wanted both throne and altar destroyed.(maybe puritan Cromwell but he was a murderous thug and liar from the beginning)a minority of nuts were stll rancorous towards Rome after Henry VIII and the land grab that created the first American version of oligarchy,but it was Marx and his band of brothers who have relabled it the English Revolution.
Sempronius writes: "Those financiers love democracy. Without it, they never would have risen so high."
That's interesting - but how about the fact that British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury was against democracy because he felt that it would erode property rights - specifically that since debtors outnumber creditors, they can outvote them?
So let's see - there are the creditors, who are the financial institutions and the people who save money with them, and the debtors, who are all the rest dependent on their loans (rich and poor alike).
Ever since democracy came about, we've had bankruptcy laws, in which the court can intervene against the creditor's preference on the assets and let the debtor, be it Donald Trump, General Motors, or a defaulting home owner, get away with it. Ever since democracy came about, public sector workers and the government can live off the borrowings from banks as much as they want and pay off old borrowings with new borrowings to the point that public sector workers are richer than private sector workers, whose taxes and savings perpetually fund the lavish living of public sector workers. Ever since democracy came about, old tort laws under which nonpayment of debts got you jailed have been removed. Ever since democracy came about, financial institutions have become increasingly regulated and state-monitored.
If anything, democracy has been a full fledged attack on financiers. It has been a systematic attempt at reducing the power of savers and increasing the power of spenders. Because the demands of a democratic government are such that government can never have enough money to do all that it wants, it had to use power of law to take full control of the banking system on which it was dependent.
Why else is it that the largest financial markets are now in Shanghai and Hong Kong, while American financial markets have contracted in global share?
Dr. Wilson,
Instead of justing denouncing democracy or the current regime, which is futile, have you ever thought of a plan of how one, or a group of people, could replace the current regime with a native natural aristocracy ruling in the form of a republic? We are all wards and consumers of the state. But this current system is comming to an end for a lot of reasons. It is on fire and burning down. How could real leaders take advantage of it to replace the current regime with something better. Real leader don't chase the vote.
Mr. Sanjay, judging your comments here and elsewhere it seems to me you too often confuse words and their meanings. Are you seriously equating "property" (ownership) and the work if "financing" (means for funding production or changes in property ownership)?
And are you saying the "average joe" is a beneficiary of bankruptcy laws and financing functions in our country? When "democratic" institutions enter into or meddle with "financing" who generally benefits?
Let's say when something like TARP is approved so as to ostensibly encourage liquidity and prevent certain financial failures that result in property forfeiture, what actually transpired? "Mass man" whose mortgage was due while his paycheck disappeared grabbed the loot? Or it was transferred to a handful of multi-millionaire (some billionaire) financiers?
And what does any of it have to do with the size of the Hong Kong stock exchange??
I am always puzzled by folks like Sempronious who are for monarchy and established church, or aristocracy. Exactly where are you going to get that monarch? You cannot be for monarchy in general, only for a particular royal line. The last legitimate monarch in the English-speaking world lost his head long ago. Do you want the tacky little Germans and Danes who now uselessly drain the British? The Russian, Austrian, or Spanish claimants?
America was not founded by a monarchy or a central state of any kind. It was founded by brave, independent men---mostly younger sons of the gentry and yeomen---who risked their own capital and lives to settle a continent. The fall begins when they are replaced by the flotsam and jetsom and rejected authoritarians, revolutionaries, and socialists of Europe from the 1840s onward.
Dr. Wilson,
It seems as though scholars continue to duck, dodge and dive away from a very needed endeavor. After all the scholarship is done with regard to how screwed up this country is and when it went bad and who was at fault and so on - what are the solutions? Lets figure out how we got here in this mess. First of all, where is here? After we figure out where we are in history, existentially speaking, we need to figure out where to go from here. How to not just build, but rebuild a nation. All the problems discusses about every topic on this site beg the questions that require solutions to implement. Should we not focus on real solutions?
"How could real leaders take advantage of it to replace the current regime with something better. Real leader don’t chase the vote."
Real leaders already are doing what real leaders do -- working and praying for what the poet called "heaven and the future's sake."
"Only where love and need are one,
Is the job ever really done,
For heaven and the future's sake."
And you are right, Mr. Rhettman, it has nothing to do with buying the vote. The world is a very old place and so are the truths that reveal it, the goodness within it and the beauty about it. Good leaders know where to look for these things and when. Chronicles is constantly pointing them out; only not with ten year plans or ideological fixes. All those with ears to hear, let them hear.
#38 I always thought plebiscites were mainly one shot deals- statehood, independence, etc.. When plebiscite becomes "moral decisions" - serial plebiscite- we are no longer in Kansas. I like Helvetia, lost a portmanteau with passport, D-marks,etc. and had it returned intact.
Perhaps before we discuss solutions, we should try to get clear on what is possible, and then after that, decide what out of the possibilities would be most likely to succeed and most beneficial.
Looking at society as it is now, I am at a loss when trying to find any practical possibilities that may work in our lifetime.
#46. Which is why I dismiss twaddle about "throne and altar."