Nicholas Kristof : Unfit for Democracy?

[cal04]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/opinion/27kristof.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Is the Arab world unready for freedom? A crude stereotype lingers that some people — Arabs, Chinese and Africans — are incompatible with democracy. Many around the world fret that “people power” will likely result in Somalia-style chaos, Iraq-style civil war or Iran-style oppression.

That narrative has been nourished by Westerners and, more sadly, by some Arab, Chinese and African leaders. So with much of the Middle East in an uproar today, let’s tackle a politically incorrect question head-on: Are Arabs too politically immature to handle democracy?

(snip)
We Americans spout bromides about freedom. Democracy campaigners in the Middle East have been enduring unimaginable tortures as the price of their struggle — at the hands of dictators who are our allies — yet they persist. In Bahrain, former political prisoners have said that their wives were taken into the jail in front of them. And then the men were told that unless they confessed, their wives would promptly be raped. That, or more conventional tortures, usually elicited temporary confessions, yet for years or decades those activists persisted in struggling for democracy. And we ask if they’re mature enough to handle it?

(snip)
In the 21st century, there’s no realistic alternative to siding with people power. Prof. William Easterly of New York University proposes a standard of reciprocity: “I don’t support autocracy in your society if I don’t want it in my society.”

[The Second Stone]

1. Corporations want autocracy to better exploit populations

and are opposed to democracy in countries that do not have it and in countries that do have democracy.

[Demeter]

2. Don't Know About Arabs, But Americans Sure Aren't Ready for Democracy

and they sold their freedom for the illusion of security.



"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."


o This was written by Franklin, with quotation marks but almost certainly his original thought, sometime shortly before February 17, 1775 as part of his notes for a proposition at the Pennsylvania Assembly, as published in Memoirs of the life and writings of Benjamin Franklin (1818). A variant of this was published as:

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

This was used as a motto on the title page of An Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania. (1759); the book was published by Franklin; its author was Richard Jackson, but Franklin did claim responsibility for some small excerpts that were used in it.


An earlier variant by Franklin in Poor Richard's Almanack (1738): "Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power."


Many paraphrased derivatives of this have often become attributed to Franklin:

They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither.

He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security.

He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither.

People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both.

If we restrict liberty to attain security we will lose them both.

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.

He who gives up freedom for safety deserves neither.

Those who would trade in their freedom for their protection deserve neither.

Those who give up their liberty for more security neither deserve liberty nor security.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin