Wednesday, November 19, 2014

The Power of Democracy

I want the world to be great again.

You might argue that it is still, but I don't think so.  Western societies are declining and they are the models that  invented democracy.  Democracy isn't a foregone conclusion in any nation.  We're lucky we have crafted it.  Greece invented the concept.  Rome continued it.  Britain created a Parliament under its monarchy.  The United States created the first successful full democracy, but other nations followed soon after.  Putin is trying to make his country great once more and if he keeps up his work he might succeed because he has the vision of a great Russia.  He also has control of much oil and so can manipulate Europe.  He doesn't have the vision of a democratic Russia, however.  China is advancing at a great speed because it has the vision of a great China.  It does not necessarily have the vision of a democratic China, however.  We had the vision of democracy, but most countries throughout history have had successful monarchies and dictatorships. We are the exception and not the rule.

I do not speak only for the United States.  I speak of Western and Eastern Europe.  I speak of those democracies building themselves after the Cold War.  I speak of many nations that were formerly part of an empire and are struggling to build themselves as democracies because they have seen the vision these former empires had of democracy.    

Many of us had that vision up to the end of the Cold War.  The West faced down the Soviet Union and, in the eighties, successfully broke the Soviet Union's vision with the idea of democracy.

The problem we face today, to put it in a nutshell, is that we hate ourselves.  We hate ourselves because we were empires.  We hate ourselves because we did not discard the idea of slavery when we built democracies.  We hate ourselves because we oppressed people. We hate ourselves because we were racists against the the people we oppressed.  We hate ourselves because we considered the people we oppressed underneath us. We hate ourselves because we did not view these people with contempt but viewed them instead with indifference. We were and are hypocrites.  Therefore, we hate ourselves. The country on the other side is always right, all our wars are unjustified because they are a result of our oppression, and all societies are morally equal and so therefore we should not judge them.  Some have the vision that we in the West should completely disarm and seek peace through peace, whatever that means.  They argue this because war is unjustifiable and especially our wars while they ignore the fact that other countries do not have that vision.    

Kill that inner hippie.  However hypocritical we may be and however oppressive we were once, we invented the concept of democracy, the idea that our government should serve us instead of the idea that we should serve the government. Almost every nation in the world is trying to follow our example. They might not succeed, especially since countries like China and Russia have visions of becoming great nations without the need to become democracies.  Even horrible ideas like the Islamic State have visions and I would argue that many otherwise sane people run off to join the movement because of their vision of a great caliphate.

We as countries no longer have a vision.  We simply hate ourselves.

Please join with me to stop this madness.  The fact that we no longer have visions is destroying the world.  Our visions have died and therefore we are dying.  I myself am a patriotic American, but I ask my friends to become patriotic citizens of their nations.  Please help rebuild the militarily, economically, and politically strong nations that are dying.  We don't have to become empires to achieve this once more.  We simply need to be willing to not back down. At Munich, had Chamberlain not backed down on Czechoslovakia, Hitler's generals would have led a coup to bring Hitler out of power. Czechoslovakia was no empire.  We back down constantly because we are terrified of threatening any force.  We saw that in stark detail when Assad crossed that "red line."

I want to see our self-loathing end.  I see it everywhere from the beginning of our childhood's education into our universities and after.  It makes me sick.

Kill that inner hippie.  We once were great nations.  We can be great nations once more.