Forum Discussion

>This is great! Everyone should see this, it is
>so true.

now if only we could convince the liberals of it

http://sgthook.com/2005/11/17/taste-of-freedom/

Here Ashley, read this. I'm not saying it's a conclusive answer to everything, but it might be enlightening.

I fully agree that Hamas and Putin are both duly and democratically elected. In fact, it even seems like Hamas won fair and square, with few intimidation tactics evident. That doesn't mean I'm not worried that they might be bad for their countries, and even that they might stifle free elections when their terms expire... but for now, I'll call them legitimate.

Putin abolishing regional elections, on the other hand, is the first step from democracy to totalitarianism... so that merits close scrutiny. Also, true democracy (or rather, republicanism... little "r", there are no technical democracies anymore, only republics) requires not only free elections, but also free speech, so that the elections can be properly informed and so that the current officials can be challenged. If Hamas allows this, and if Putin returns to this, then they've got democracy... otherwise not.

There are many forms of democracy, I agree, but there are certain core tenets that we *do* have an obligation to insist on. For instance, I believe that it is actually impossible to democratically elect a fundamentalist theocracy, even if the majority votes for it. The reason for this is that once that theocracy is in place, it destroys democracy by failing to allow criticism of the party in power (because, of course, if they're God/Allah's servants, then to criticize them is to criticize the religion... which is punishable under any fundamentalist regime). For another example, it is impossible to democratically vote to disenfranchise a subset of the citizenry (e.g. women, in the case of an Islamist regime... "Islamist" being distinct from merely "Islamic"). The reason again being that such a move is inherently fatal to democracy.

The fundamental concept of democracy is that everyone is inherently equal. This doesn't necessarily require equality of *result* (which is a uniquely liberal idea), but I think the Left and the Right can agree that democracy cannot tolerate blatant and invidious discrimination.

Well, whether the Iraqi government (and Hamas) can succeed without degrading from democracy into oppression will be told only by time. I did say, on the other hand, that I do think the Hamas elections are valid per se, just that that doesn't guarantee that their rule will indefinitely *continue* to be legitimate.

Also, the difference between "Islamic" and "Islamist" is that the former is only a religious adjective, while the latter describes a religio-political ideal that includes the rule of an Islamic fundamentalist theocracy.

That's one way of looking at it, sure. In fact, as long as you mean that the war will be over when our soldiers come home *victorious*, I fully agree.

And definitely, I join you in hopes that this war comes to a triumphant conclusion as quickly as possible.

Yes thats what I mean.