(Besides the whole natural slave thing, that is...) Ali Sina, a self-professed ex-Muslim, commenting on the recent success of Hamas at the polling booth, writes in the Canada Free Press (a publication I had not heard of before; from a cursory look I know they were not fans of Paul Martin & Co.!):
The solution to the problems in Islamic counties is democracy. But before you hand people that awesome power, you must prepare them for it.
Aristotle understood the danger of democracy when people are not yet ready for self rule. The peripatetic philosopher was not against democracy. He suggested a sound balance between two extremes--one that romanticizes the rule of people and the other that advocates the governance of the elite that underrate them.
The masses are not always right. It is cruel to let people self-rule when they are not ready for it and have no understanding of democracy. They can end up hurting themselves and others. The tyrannical regimes of the Nazis, the Bolsheviks and the Iranian Islamists were all born out of popular votes. Yet no one would call them democratic.
Self-rule under law is better than all compelling forms of governments. However, democracy cannot be imposed universally. It must arise out of cultural and historical traditions of the people or it will fall into tyranny.
I would cite the current president as an example of how the masses have a nasty habit of voting against their best interests, and in general I agree with this exerpt, however I felt a strong desire to point out that the Nazis never gained a plurality or a majority from the Weimar electorate--as Hitler seized power when the Reichstag mysteriously burned down with less than a third of that year's votes to his party's name, and that, furthermore, the Bolsheviks had a tendency to dissolve any parliaments without Bolshevik majorities. My lack of knowledge on the Iranian Revolution prevents me from commenting on the third piece of evidence.
Posted by: Ian Schwartz | February 01, 2006 at 10:11 AM