Spread Democracy, or "Rule of Law?"

[SpitfireV]

Don't swear at me or I'll swear back.

I've taken this from Wikipedia, which is hardly a scholarly example but it will do at short notice:

"In contemporary usage, the term democracy refers to a government chosen by the people, whether it is direct or representative.[16] The term republic has many different meanings, but today often refers to a representative democracy with an elected head of state, such as a president, serving for a limited term, in contrast to states with a hereditary monarch as a head of state, even if these states also are representative democracies with an elected or appointed head of government such as a prime minister.[17]"

And it also says direct democracy (pure) was often criticised in the 1800 by your founding fathers:

'The Founding Fathers of the United States rarely praised and often criticized democracy, which in their time tended to specifically mean direct democracy; James Madison argued, especially in The Federalist No. 10, that what distinguished a democracy from a republic was that the former became weaker as it got larger and suffered more violently from the effects of faction, whereas a republic could get stronger as it got larger and combats faction by its very structure. What was critical to American values, John Adams insisted,[18] was that the government be "bound by fixed laws, which the people have a voice in making, and a right to defend."'

So my assertion that republicanism is a form (I didn't say the same) of democracy would appear to be intact.

 

[0699]

Not going to debate the democracy/republic issue as Pardus has already answered that. Bastard HAD to go quote the Constitution and end the arguement...

What we should be spreading is education.

 

[HOLLiS]

One can not have democracy without rule of law. Basically anarchy is void of rule of law. Other words any institution can not survive without rule of law. What we see is lawlessness in many third world countries, mob rule other words. A victim is single out, sentence and punished without any concept of due process being applied. There is no judicial oversight or protection of basic human rights.

 

[Diamondback 2/2]

Don't swear at me or I'll swear back.

I've taken this from Wikipedia, which is hardly a scholarly example but it will do at short notice:

"In contemporary usage, the term democracy refers to a government chosen by the people, whether it is direct or representative.[16] The term republic has many different meanings, but today often refers to a representative democracy with an elected head of state, such as a president, serving for a limited term, in contrast to states with a hereditary monarch as a head of state, even if these states also are representative democracies with an elected or appointed head of government such as a prime minister.[17]"

And it also says direct democracy (pure) was often criticised in the 1800 by your founding fathers:

'The Founding Fathers of the United States rarely praised and often criticized democracy, which in their time tended to specifically mean direct democracy; James Madison argued, especially in The Federalist No. 10, that what distinguished a democracy from a republic was that the former became weaker as it got larger and suffered more violently from the effects of faction, whereas a republic could get stronger as it got larger and combats faction by its very structure. What was critical to American values, John Adams insisted,[18] was that the government be "bound by fixed laws, which the people have a voice in making, and a right to defend."'

So my assertion that republicanism is a form (I didn't say the same) of democracy would appear to be intact.

No disrespect meant by the "swearing" just how I post most of the time... Did not know it offended you, I'll try and tip-toe around for you... ;)

To break it down for you as best I know how, the United States is a REPUBLIC nation mainly b/c we have a constitution. And although we do have the ability to vote for representatives and laws, they can all be over powered or rejected by our legal system, hints the rule of law or Republic. Our constitution is a legal guide for our government. It tells the government what they can and cannot do, and it guarantees rights to our citizens. Even though our government has the ability to vote in a new law or change a law, the ultimate deciding factor is the judicial branch who decides if it violates the constitution and the rights of the people.

So even though a Republic may seem to be a form of Democracy to you, there is a fundamental difference. A democracy can vote to add or change laws and there is nothing to keep it checked our balanced. In other words a majority can strip the rights of the minority. Where in our Republic system this is not possible. That being said they are not a form of the other and are very different at their core.

 

[Scotth]

I don't think we can push any particular way for people to do things. Countries need to develop at there own pace and it has to be driven from within. I like what 0699 said about promoting education as a means for driving change but it's a slow process.

Pushing for Democracy has been a joke for an American strategy. It was a fall back justification for the invasion of Iraq after there was no WMD found. The best example of why that is a failed policy is simply looking at the Palestinian election. The US and Israel demanded election because they couldn't work with the PA because they were to corrupt. Elections were held and Hamas wins in a fair election and of course the US and Israel find dealing with Hamas is even worse then the PA. The PA is corrupt and controlling people that are corrupt and in it to get paid makes them much more predictable then Hamas who are true believer. Elections don't guarantee change and the results can often be worse then the original problem.

Democracy and elections don't fundamentally change what was broken in the first place. In Iraq we have a different form of government with a new set of laws and several elections that haven't changed the core hatred between the Shia and Sunni. Time is the only thing that could heal those wounds and we are leaving and those wounds haven't even scabbed over yet. Once the troops are gone there will be a civil war in Iraq between those two.

I don't view pushing the "rule of law" as a policy being much different then pushing Democracy and from the view of the military can only be achieved by breaking the country. Breaking countries and trying to rebuild them in what we think is a better image is a long and difficult process. We have been in Afghanistan for nine year and corruption is the norm in the country. It was the norm before we went in and will probably be the norm when we leave. The problem with fundamentally trying to change a country from the ground up is time. I believe when you invade a country there is a small window when it's possible to make fundamental changes in a country and unfortunately that window closed a long time ago in Afghanistan. There are also so many variables working against you. Economics and generations of learned behavior and the actors that your forced to deal with are just some of the factors that we fight in Afghanistan. None of which can be fixed without huge sums of money and time.

Unfortunately we look at change in the eyes of years instead of generations. Change is coming to Iran. It's slow but as each generation grows to adulthood it becomes harder for the people to take the Mullah's control of the country. We have seen people starting to rise up and it will only get stronger with time. I think there are things we can do both covertly and overtly to encourage the changes as long as we are mindful not to over play our hand or try to ram to much change to fast. It has to be driven by the people and if the day comes were the push is viewed as driven by the US we have failed.

Education and technology is the way to effect change in the world in the years to come. Giving people the tools and the knowledge about what "could be" will be the big force for change. I don't know all the communication issue, but finding away that normal wireless cards in laptops could receive internet access from satellites would be a huge way to educate and empower people around the world. It might take different and more advance technology then the normal wireless card of today. But if that became a hardware standard and the US had satellites that they could park over countries like Iran and China so that people could get unfiltered information. Imagine what that could do to free peoples minds.

We need to stop thinking of change in years and instead fostering changes over generations.

 

[pardus]

No disrespect meant by the "swearing" just how I post most of the time... Did not know it offended you, I'll try and tip-toe around for you... ;).

Tell him to fuck off JAB, he's a pansy and an arsehole.

 

[Diamondback 2/2]

My personal belief is that we the United States should not be spreading anything to anyone. I believe we have enough of our own damn problems to deal with and that it’s foolish to run around trying to fix the world when we can’t fix our own backyard fence. For far too long we have been caught up in this “nation building” game that has drained our resources and divided our own people on far too many issues.

When we are spending more money on securing other countries borders then our own, it becomes a no brainer. We have infrastructures that are collapsing, we have a huge gang problem, and we have economic problems that are threatening every Americans way of life. We have no business spending billions on building other nations to be more like us.

What we should be spreading is the understanding that we will take care of our people first, well before we ever help another nation’s people. We should let it be known that we will destroy any nation, organization, group or all around threat in order to protect our people. That we won’t rebuild or say we are sorry, that we won’t lose sleep over the shambles we leave a nation in due to self defense. We should keep our influence on the world at a level of commerce and trade and not one of military or “carrot or stick” influence.

We should not be spending millions on other nations when we are so far in debt that we may never get out. We should pay our debts and focus on building our economy…