Quote Originally Posted by CorbinFisher_BD
I think there's more that's flawed here than just this aggressive Bush Admin foreign policy that has as in Iraq right now. The whole notion of spreading democracy is flawed. Democracy in and of itself is not the cure to the world's ailments, despite what Bush would have us believe. And this neoCon idea of spreading democracy by all means necessary seems blind to the fact that what others want might have nothing to do with what we'd like.

Democracy will bring a heavily Islamist leadership in to power in Iraq.
Democracy won Hamas the Palestinian legislature.
Democracy is nationalizing countries throughout Latin America.
Democracy, were it not subject to violent repression on the part of secular governments, would have Egypt and Algeria be fundamentalist Islamic states.
Democracy is what put the Islamist regime in to power in Iran in the first place.
When Khan Noonan Singh went after Admiral Kirk for killing his wife, Mr. Spock remarked that his attack strategy "indicates two dimensional thinking" Don't make this easy pitfall.

Democracy does not equal utopia. And people will decide differently on identical issues - just like if the people of the states of Massachusetts and Utah were to vote on a gay rights question, there would probably be different outcomes.

Democracies allow for the competition of ideas, and no better demonstration of this appears currently in South America. This weekend Peru and Columbia elected Presidents who oppose nationalizing their economies, and that's a direct public reaction of Hugo Chavez's actions to unite Cuba and Bolivia together with Venezuela so he becomes the next Simon Bolivar.

Democracies are superior because they are a process. So yes, you can point to Iraq's current instability, or the Palestinian Hamas government today, but as democracies they have the ability to move through it. (maybe painfully, but still) Regimes like the Saddam Hussein goivernment or Fidel Castro's are different because they will keep their power by force, and they are not held accountible by anyone. They become places frozen in time. The lands that time forgot.

It's like how equal rights for gays in lesbians in the US over the past thirty years has been a moving process, which we ultimately win. In those places of the world with big problems, they will do best if they have a democratic government in place to move them through the process.

Steve