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Part 154: Summary Twelve:
May 16, 005:
Now, I will discuss terrorism and inadvertently democracy. I don't think we can separate these two for many reasons. First, of course, is the fact that terrorism is a tactic of primitive peoples in their attempt to destroy civilization. The goal is to return us to the dark ages where superstition ruled the world. To achieve that they are propagating mythology, by force when necessary. We must notice that civilization means some form of democracy, so the assault of these primitives is really an assault on democracy.
Another obvious fact is that our adversaries are primitive people under repressive regimes wherein the people have no power and no hope. People with hope cannot be persuaded to become martyrs and commit suicide easily. This means, one thing we must do to end terrorism is democratize the world. Giving these people hope is what democratizing the world is really about. Democracy supports free enterprise which creates wealth. It offers the possibility of a decent life, for the person and, more importantly, for his family. Democratizing the world means economic parity.
We cannot pretend we can get rid of terrorism when we withhold all hope for a decent life from large numbers of people. Desperate people without hope may easily be lead down the path of terrorism by the extremist madmen. The most powerful answer we can give to the threat of terrorism is hope. The best way to create hope is through democracy where everyone has a chance for success, for a decent life. Democracy creates the possibility of increased wealth. The more wealth there is, the more likely each person is to get a piece of the action. So, we need to bring the third world into the twenty-first century. They must join us as equal partners in a world economy. Only people in a free society can achieve our kind of productivity.
I believe we must overthrow the international criminals and restore the entire Muslim world to the Muslim people. Then we must support them in creating solid government institutions, so the criminals will never again gain a foothold. They need democratic government and the rule of law in place of capricious dictators. This does not mean we must send our army into these countries as we did in Iraq. That was a debacle we need not repeat. There are more subtle ways to bring down despots. The best and most sure way is the way it happened in the Soviet Empire. We systematically exposed the people of that empire to the products and benefits of democracy. That created a gradual buildup of pressure that was bound to explode in a drive for freedom, and it did.
Therein then is our method. It is a long term thing, but we need not impose democracy. We need simply to set the example and expose the oppressed people to the benefits of democracy. They will do the rest. In all cases, we can be proactive in our public moral support. In some cases we might be proactive in covert support, but we must be very careful of arming reactionaries. In too many cases we have mistaken potential enemies for allies and armed them to our later detriment.
Representative democracy is the best compromise between anarchy and dictatorship. It is sure not perfect, but it can be made to work. Communism is a childish notion based on an erroneous assumption of human nature. It assumes man is inherently good. This will only be true when there is an understandable social structure within which he can function. Then enlightened self interest will cause him to behave well. He must know that his own good is dependent upon the good of the community. This will be apparent when the functioning of the community is based in law as it is in democracy. We must quit wasting time and get to it.
In addition to not wasting time, we must stop wasting our resources, including our military resources. There is no good reason to have troops scattered all over the world. We cannot continue to disperse troops, helter-skelter to whatever hot spot crops up. We must decide what is and is not necessary to defeat terrorism. We must have a plan and we must follow our plan. To change our plan as the situation evolves may be necessary, but that should be carefully thought out.
In looking at the threat of terrorism we cannot ignore the religious madness which underlies it and lends the cloak of legitimacy to it. There is and has been a religious war in the world ever since the time of Abraham. It has been an ongoing war between Muslim extremists on one side and the Jewish Christian extremists on the other side. It is a form of religious insanity that is promoted by both groups. We must treat honestly with the fact that there is enough evil to go around. None of these extremists are innocent.
One of the problems mankind will continue to face is how to mitigate the effect of these few madmen on the world. I personally believe that can only be finally resolved through the nurturing of children. When we begin to nurture the creative genius in our kids instead of instilling religious bigotry and conformity, we will begin the road to resolving that particular evil. Until then, we must act to control the madness on both sides. We must stop pretending the evil is all on one side. We must get honest about our own religious fundamentalist madmen. To do that, we cannot have a leader who believes he is the agent of God on earth. That is imperialism at its worst.
I would rather see America as imperialist in its best sense. From one perspective imperialism can be understood as a national form of elitism. An elitist believes his understanding of a situation is better than the average person. Hence, he is better equipped to rule or lead than the average person. Now we can escalate those individual notions to a national posture. In that sense, America is definitely elitist and consequently imperialist.
How do we justify imperialism? Looking at our leaders I don't think we can justify an imperialist stance based on the quality of our leadership. In addition, I have no convincing evidence that the rabble of America are superior to the rabble of any other nation. So, what are we left with? It seems our economic and military power in the world remains as the only basis for our claim to superiority. At this time, few would argue that we are lacking in economic and military capabilities though we might argue as to how well we are currently applying them. Well, how did we acquire those powers? Though there are many factors involved I think an analysis will show our political and economic systems are the enabling factors.
So, if we are superior, our political system, which enables our economic system is responsible. Our political system is, of course, representative democracy. Democracy is what makes us productive. It also provides an environment for individual excellence. It holds out the possibility of personal growth. In our democracy, there is no limit to human achievement. It is the political system of representative democracy as created by our founders, and nothing else, that makes America superior to other nations. To the extend that other nations emulate the example of democratic government, they can excel, and sometimes even surpass America.
I will argue again, that democracy is the best product we ever created and we should export is as vigorously as is ethically feasible. We should export it every chance we get. We installed it in Japan and Germany following WWII and it worked. Since then both of those nations have been outstanding participants in the community of civilized nations. No further evidence should be needed.
So, call me an elitist, that's what I am. That does not mean
I want to go to war and impose my system. Let us not confuse elitism
with tyranny. The true elitist stance is to be ethical and creative
in the extreme such that others are compelled to follow the example.
We want to lead the world by our example. With that, I thing we
have some image repair work to do. We have not done our best of
late. It is time to get down and dirty with honest work to become
the best. Then we need to look at the world to see how we can
be of help.
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