Once More--with Thought, not Feeling

The West suffers mightily because the pro-freedom forces are not doing the proper thinking, while the anti-freedom forces are "thinking" circles around them. If this persists, the pro-freedom forces will end western civilization, perhaps in our lifetimes.

Case in point: This morning, on Fox and Friends, Dan Senor, Paul Bremer's mighty assistant in the immediate post-war period in Iraq, "debated" Daniel Pipes. The discussion concerned the meaning and consequences of "democracy" in Islamia. Iraq has chosen for prime minister the guy who is all cozy with Al-Sadr. In "Palestine," voters voted in Hamas. Mr. Senor took the position that Islamists must live with the consequences of their voting, and be given the chance to correct choices in subsequent elections. Mr. Pipes took the position that Islamists must move into "democracy" very slowly, or they will vote themselves into tyranny.

Mr. Pipes is much closer to the truth, but neither gentleman spoke to fundamentals.

A governmental which is constitutionally based on the sanctity of individual rights (which our Founders called The Rights of Man) can vote without voting themselves into tyranny. To vote themselves into tyranny, they must fully violate the concept of rights first. This can be done, but rights stand as a powerful barrier. In fact, and never spoken about, is that, under our system, citizens do not have the right to vote themselves into tyranny.

In a "democracy," and may that word perish forever, people can vote themselves into and out of anything at any time. This is ochlocracy, or mob rule. The fundamental in a "democracy" is majority vote, not individual rights. Thus Germans voted themselves into Nazism in 1933; "Palestine" voted itself into theocratic tyranny.

Our Founders were careful with their words, unlike so many today. They knew that words MEAN SOMETHING, and that meaning does not shift with the whims of the majority. They feared "democracy," quite properly. What they developed for America was the Constitutional Republic.

Constitutional Republic means that citizens elect persons to represent them in government, based on the precepts of the constitution. They were brilliant enough to build in the electoral college, as one example, so that citizens could not elect a despot by popular vote. No, nothing our Founders did fully prevented us from suicide by vote, but they made it bloody hard.

Islamists want theocratic tyranny, and that, so far, is exactly what they are voting for themselves. Sharia and Islam dominate the governments of Afghanistan, Iraq, and "Palestine." They are the living meaning of "democracy."

What Mr. Senor and so many "talking head" pundits are not grasping is that democracy is not the fundamental--constitutionalism is, and that must spell out fully the safeguards to individual freedom. Yes, these people can vote themselves bad leaders, but they will never have the chance to vote in better choices later. The first thing to go in tyrannies is the open and free election.

So, let's do our part by stopping the application of "democracy" to America. And, let's stop imposing it thoughtlessly on peoples who are still tribal savages.