In our current age we seem to have elevated democracy to god-like status. It is spoken of as if it's the be all and end all of political progress in any given nation. We see photos of woman in Iraq and Afghanistan holding up purple thumbs as evidence they just voted in free elections and we tend to conclude those nations have arrived politically. Then we seem to forget those conclusions when we see blatant evidence to the contrary. People still kill people over politics there and even worse, over religion.
Then we see a similarly failed election result in Egypt, only worse because in Egypt the violence against politically and religiously different people was being fostered by Egypt's democratically elected government. Our perception of reality is challenged. In our world democratically elected governments are inclusive and some might even say good.
Much of the world press tries not to pay too much attention to it all because it doesn't fit their templates where democracy is the right of passage into our current enlightened age. Then when the Egyptian military steps in and dissolves the Morsi government most so called news sources have no idea how to process it.
It's almost as if they're asking themselves in their heads, "how can Pinochet be right?" But no one dare speak such a question out-loud. The answer must be that the premise of the question is wrong. And perhaps it is. Perhaps Pinochet really was just a monster and not a cure to a democracy gone wrong. Maybe Egypt's military's action here is a lone exception to an otherwise hard rule that militaries should never undo the results of free elections. Nothing and no one should ever undo the results of free elections. To do so is a crime against humanity.
Okay, now I've had enough of acting like I share in this popular deification of democracy, because I don't. Winston Churchill once very wisely said, "democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others". Some who lack life experience and/or insight might have seen this quote before and thought Churchill was just griping about democracy's imperfections but otherwise cleverly praising democracy. But the rest of us see his point more clearly when we consider that no government, no matter what its form, is ever good. It can only at best be the lesser of evils between itself and civil disorder.
So what Churchill was saying was that of all the lesser evils between themselves and civil disorder, democracy is the least evil, but it is still evil. And I would pick up from there to say that democracy like all evils, if we leave it unchecked it will do horrible things. And once those horrible things become horrible enough and/or lead to the very civil disorder all government is supposed to be preferable to, that government loses its justification to exist.
So what's my take on what has happened in Egypt? Some times a military must act to undo the results of free elections, but deciding when that is should be very difficult. Asking when should a nation's military overthrow a democratically elected government is like asking when one should cut off a person's limb. It's a horrible thing to do that must only be done when it is clearly the lesser of evils.
On Facebook I saw a meme showing the anti-Morsi protests in Egypt and the caption, "Hey America, walk like an Egyptian". As I saw it I thought perhaps we could substitute Venezuela or Nicaragua for America there and it would have been equally fitting. Honduras has already in that sense walked like an Egyptian before Egypt even did. But I cannot fault militaries from seeing the idea of overthrowing democratically elected leaders as abhorrent. So I chose not to share that meme and I can't recall if I even gave it a like.
In the United States all military personnel are required to swear an oath to the nation's constitution and that constitution is written so as to limit the nation's government and any popular will as much as possible from doing evil to those citizens that don't agree with them. This oath is the American people's last line of defense against forces that may chose to ignore the constitutional restraints placed upon our government. Thus it's an oath I pray they take very seriously and never scoff at the possibility it could ever come down to that.
If a government ever sees itself as more important than individual liberty and dignity then it may just be time that nation's military consider walking like an Egyptian and doing what Honduras did with one such leader and leave him standing in ankle chains on the tarmac of a foreign nation.
Then we see a similarly failed election result in Egypt, only worse because in Egypt the violence against politically and religiously different people was being fostered by Egypt's democratically elected government. Our perception of reality is challenged. In our world democratically elected governments are inclusive and some might even say good.
Much of the world press tries not to pay too much attention to it all because it doesn't fit their templates where democracy is the right of passage into our current enlightened age. Then when the Egyptian military steps in and dissolves the Morsi government most so called news sources have no idea how to process it.
It's almost as if they're asking themselves in their heads, "how can Pinochet be right?" But no one dare speak such a question out-loud. The answer must be that the premise of the question is wrong. And perhaps it is. Perhaps Pinochet really was just a monster and not a cure to a democracy gone wrong. Maybe Egypt's military's action here is a lone exception to an otherwise hard rule that militaries should never undo the results of free elections. Nothing and no one should ever undo the results of free elections. To do so is a crime against humanity.
Okay, now I've had enough of acting like I share in this popular deification of democracy, because I don't. Winston Churchill once very wisely said, "democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others". Some who lack life experience and/or insight might have seen this quote before and thought Churchill was just griping about democracy's imperfections but otherwise cleverly praising democracy. But the rest of us see his point more clearly when we consider that no government, no matter what its form, is ever good. It can only at best be the lesser of evils between itself and civil disorder.
So what Churchill was saying was that of all the lesser evils between themselves and civil disorder, democracy is the least evil, but it is still evil. And I would pick up from there to say that democracy like all evils, if we leave it unchecked it will do horrible things. And once those horrible things become horrible enough and/or lead to the very civil disorder all government is supposed to be preferable to, that government loses its justification to exist.
So what's my take on what has happened in Egypt? Some times a military must act to undo the results of free elections, but deciding when that is should be very difficult. Asking when should a nation's military overthrow a democratically elected government is like asking when one should cut off a person's limb. It's a horrible thing to do that must only be done when it is clearly the lesser of evils.
On Facebook I saw a meme showing the anti-Morsi protests in Egypt and the caption, "Hey America, walk like an Egyptian". As I saw it I thought perhaps we could substitute Venezuela or Nicaragua for America there and it would have been equally fitting. Honduras has already in that sense walked like an Egyptian before Egypt even did. But I cannot fault militaries from seeing the idea of overthrowing democratically elected leaders as abhorrent. So I chose not to share that meme and I can't recall if I even gave it a like.
In the United States all military personnel are required to swear an oath to the nation's constitution and that constitution is written so as to limit the nation's government and any popular will as much as possible from doing evil to those citizens that don't agree with them. This oath is the American people's last line of defense against forces that may chose to ignore the constitutional restraints placed upon our government. Thus it's an oath I pray they take very seriously and never scoff at the possibility it could ever come down to that.
If a government ever sees itself as more important than individual liberty and dignity then it may just be time that nation's military consider walking like an Egyptian and doing what Honduras did with one such leader and leave him standing in ankle chains on the tarmac of a foreign nation.
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