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The Democracy Doctrine

9 comments on The Democracy Doctrine

The Democracy Doctrine

: President Bush didn’t go quite far enough in his very good speech that called upon Arab nations to move to democracy.

I say the time has come to establish a Democracy Doctrine.

It is time to say that it is unacceptable for people to be governed without democratic rights.

No, this doesn’t mean that we will invade and reform the world’s undemocratic lands — though, when there is a need to respond militarily in a nation because of tyranny or threat, what is left afterwards must be a democracy.

What this does mean is that we set a standard of democracy throughout the world. We set an expectation that all nations and all peoples should live in democracies.

Undemocratic regimes rob their citizens of their inherent rights of self-government and their inherent respect as human beings.

As Bush quoted Ronald Reagan yesterday: “He argued that Soviet communism had failed, precisely because it did not respect its own people — their creativity, their genius and their rights.”

This means that we should give democracies greater privileges in their dealings with us.

This means that we should expect other democracies to stand with us to support and expect the spread of democracy through the rest of the world.

It’s a simple doctrine but the best and clearest doctrines are quite simple, for they give context to so much more:

We expect every human on earth to have the right to participate equally in the selection of his or her government and we will not rest until we see all our fellow man live in peace and democracy.

9 responses to “The Democracy Doctrine”

  1. Charlie Avatar
    Charlie

    Yes, exactly. What you said.

  2. Tassled Loafered Leech Avatar
    Tassled Loafered Leech

    Liberty is more important than democracy, which is only one way to deliver liberty. I think many people use democracy as a “shorthand” for liberty, human rights, respect for the minority position and the rule of law.

  3. Steve Teeter Avatar
    Steve Teeter

    An excellent idea, but one that should be pursued with a whiff of humility. We would do well to remember that for most of our history, we would not have met what are currently our own standards. At the founding of the US, only white male landowners were able to vote. Then it was white males. Gradually non-whites were able to exercise the vote, but only outside the South. Women could not vote in national elections until the 1920s. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 may be when we got really serious about all adults having the vote. But many will tell you that, in some areas, that battle was won only within very recent living memory, if it even has been.
    I’m not trying to run us down. I’m immensely proud of what we’ve accomplished in building such a strong democracy, especially as we were largely pioneers with very few role models to follow. I’m just saying that if we take this course as a policy, we should be prepared for a critical response, on occasion.

  4. Greg Avatar
    Greg

    We are the role model of democracy in the world. The founding fathers both revered and feared what they were about to create, the free world was being created.
    It has been a long, and extremely hard journey, but I look at American today and I have never been prouder. God Bless America(excuse my American-English).

  5. Doug Kenline Avatar
    Doug Kenline

    These two forms of government: Democracy and Republic, are not only dissimilar but antithetical, reflecting the sharp contrast between (a) The Majority Unlimited, in a Democracy, lacking any legal safeguard of the rights of The Individual and The Minority, and (b) The Majority Limited, in a Republic under a written Constitution safeguarding the rights of The Individual and The Minority; as we shall now see.
    An Important Distinction: Democracy versus Republic

  6. Jeff Jarvis Avatar
    Jeff Jarvis

    Doug: You’re quite right. Except “democracy” has come to describe what most people consider a “republic.” And that is what I am doing here. It’s a bit sloppy, I grant, but rhetorically, “democracy” is the word with impact. Pardon me for this, but “democracy” is the brand. What underlies this must be the order and civility of a republic. But what must burn in the hearts of citizens is democracy.

  7. rose Avatar
    rose

    Steve,
    You’re right; the American journey toward representative democracy has been a long one, and isn’t over yet. But it seems to me that the injustices perpetrated along the way were not caused by any indelible flaw in the project of democracy. Rather, those injustices seem to me atavistic residues of the tribal hatreds that fester in the general human heart–hatreds that in so many other parts of the world have only tightened their holds on their bearers. The ethnic slaughters of the twentieth century, the pogroms and purges and holocausts and suicide bombings, bear witness to this seemingly universal loathing that neighbor feels for neighbor.
    What’s remarkable–perhaps even miraculous–is not that U.S. history contains its share of disenfranchisements (and was colonized by a process that looks a lot like genocide), but that the U.S. has listened to the protests of the oppressed and disenfranchised, and has worked, with full public consciousness, to remedy their oppression. Of course there’s work left to do, but that’s because human nature, not democracy, still wants to deny the humanity of others.
    I guess the simple way to say this is that democracy’s not the disease; it’s the cure.
    I know you’re just counseling humility. I think this is the response I would give to the kind of criticism you’re concerned about.

  8. button Avatar
    button

    The BBC and WNYC radio did a special joint Global Call-in program on this topic on Saturday afternoon which I blogged. See *Adnan Pachcachi* entry:
    **http://eclectchap.blogspot.com**

  9. Lindon Parker Avatar
    Lindon Parker

    Well said piece, BUT we need to make sure our definition of un-democratic countries includes places like Saudi Arabia; that might be more of a test of our resolve, or at least the resolve of the oil industry and its politicians…