[lit-ideas] Re: How Democracies Perish
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 13 May 2006 08:27:13 -0400
Pointless invasions combined with pennilessness don't do much for enduring
democracies either. The devil is in the details Lawrence. Pie in the sky
never paid the bills. I keep asking you what this struggle looks like, and you
keep serving up philosophical hash. Speaking of pennilessness, are you aware
that another $70 billion tax cut was passed to give billionaries more breaks?
----- Original Message -----
From: Lawrence Helm
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 5/12/2006 10:56:37 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] How Democracies Perish
Irene,
Jean-Francois Revel had your point of view in mind when he wrote How
Democracies perish, 1983 (English edition 1985). He described democracy as
?the first system in history which, confronted by a power that wants to destroy
it, accuses itself. . . .
?The distinctive mark of our century is the humility with which democratic
civilization agrees to disappear and works to legitimize the victory of its
mortal enemy. That communism shall have been more clever and effective in its
offensive would only be one additional example of one power being a better
strategist than the other. . . . It is less natural and newer that the targeted
civilization should not only judge that its defeat is justified, but provide
its partisans as well as its adversaries with ample reason to regard all forms
of self-defense as immoral, or at best superfluous and useless, if not
downright dangerous.?
These words were quoted in one of the obituaries I read. Are they not still
applicable in our struggle against Militant Islam?
Revel had the Leftists in view when he wrote those words. Since I am not a
Leftist I cannot get caught up in the angst you and Mike Geary display. I
don?t agree with it. I don?t blame the U.S. I don?t consider the Militant
Islamists as being morally equal to the U.S. The idea that we should allow a
Rogue nation to have nuclear weapons because we have them strikes me as
suicidal madness.
Before you been frothing and rush to produce a list of things the U.S. has done
wrong, all nations have made mistakes, but the U.S. has made fewer than the
others and the American motives are more benign than any of the others.
As to your question about being King of the world, I don?t believe in
Monarchies; so I can?t imagine an answer to it. Take it that I think Liberal
Democracy is the best form of government that has been developed in the world
and the U.S. the best exemplar. There are a lot of things in our society I am
unhappy with ? too many Leftists in it for example -- but not so much that I
would want to move to any other.
Lawrence
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