Democracy Is No Panacea

Universally, democracy is being exalted.

Everywhere one turns, one hears of its virtues: how democracy ensures human rights, fosters prosperity and shepherds in modernity.

Yet democracy represents nothing more than the tyranny of the majority. In other words, contrary to the ideals of western liberalism, democracy does not ensure that the smallest minority, the individual is protected.

In the vast majority of circumstances, people free to choose their government get the government they desire. In Russia, the people have chosen again and again to elect KGB criminals. In Gaza, the people have chosen to elect either Hamas or Fatah, terrorist parties in perpetual war. Democracy does not a free society ensure.

Democracy is merely a system of election – it is not inherently good as its results are entirely predicated on the voters themselves. Freedom-loving peoples will generally establish a political system to protect freedom. Those who prefer strict rule will devise a political order that squelches it.

I would argue that any Islamic society will refuse to establish a system grounded in property rights, individual liberty and free market principles because it is completely anathema to Islamic culture, history and religious tenets.

That champions of freedom can express such naivete that democracy as it pertains to Egypt is an inherent good is but a reflection of the fact that our society has grown so blinded by multiculturalism and moral relativism that we cannot discern that different peoples are different. For a society to establish a government grounded in the principles of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution requires a populace that values such things. All experience tells us that Muslim societies do not.

In our own nation which shifted from a Republic to a democracy (against the wishes of the Founders mind you), we have seen poor results. Even with a populace composed ostensibly of freedom-loving peoples, we have developed a social welfare state with crony capitalism, plunderous public unions, major slices of the private sector either outright or de facto nationalized and widespread wealth redistribution. When combined with political correctness, a chief component of cultural Marxism, our society in many respects has been rendered impotent.

So just imagine now a state composed of people who have never known freedom, who lack a liberal western European heritage or any demonstrated proclivity towards its values, whose predominant religion demands a world incompatible with free society. And you are confident this romantic experiment in democracy is going to end well?