COP: Revisiting Churchill on Democracy

Tom Trinko

If Obama had been President in 1933, would he have condemned the German military if they had staged a coup against Adolf Hitler? One would hope so, but given Obama's actions on Egypt it's far from clear.
We know Obama is not keen on Democracy given repeated statements that he wished he didn't have to deal with Congress and that ruling America the way Chinese Communist dictators rule China would be so much easier.
Yet he seems strangely enamored with the Democratic process in Egypt; a feeling that was completely lacking when Iranians were trying to start a Persian Spring in Iran; then Obama was silent.

Part of the problem is the infatuation of so many in America with the concept that Democracy is always right. But we know from history that that is not the case.
That the majority of Germans supported Hitler does not mean that he was right. A coup by the military would have prevented both WW II and the Holocaust.

Even in America, it took a war to end the horror of slavery, since the democratically elected officials would not end it.

It's good to read the entirety of the famous quote by Churchill on Democracy

Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

The simple fact is that while democracy is not perfect it is the best form of government we know of in most cases; but not in all cases. So long as everyone in a country is reasonable, democracy is great. But as soon as the majority begins to believe it can persecute or oppress the minority democracy becomes problematic at best. Our Founding Fathers realized that, which is why they created the Senate and wrote a Constitution that dramatically limited the power of government.
In Egypt, the democratically-elected government was a party that believes that all should be Muslims and those who refuse to convert need to be oppressed and taxed differently. Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood supports Sharia law that discriminates against non-Muslims -- and women. The Muslim Brotherhood is supportive of terrorism and hates Christians and Jews. They've been accused of killing political opponents and have a history of using violence.
Essentially, the Muslim Brotherhood is the epitome of all that is wrong with radical Islam; they make the Crusaders look like Neville Chamberlin.
Yet Obama, and many Americans, are all upset that Democracy has been thwarted. Democracy is a process whereby people of good will can resolve differences peacefully. It's not a tool to wrap intolerant and oppressive groups like the Muslim Brotherhood in a cloak of legitimacy.
The surge of attack on Christian Churches, rather than on the military that are killing Muslim Brotherhood members, is a sign of both the cowardice of the Muslim Brotherhood -- the Churches don't have guns but the Egyptian Army does -- and the hatred Muslim Brotherhood members hold for Christians.
The Muslim Brotherhood is not good for Egypt -- look at the mess Islamist governments have created whenever they've been in power -- and they're not good for the rest of the world. It's never good to have any country run by violent, terrorist-supporting, intolerant bigots.
Most Americans, when presented with the truth about the Muslim Brotherhood, will probably recognize the obvious -- a well-oiled political machine managed to win an election because everyone else was less well organized and less ruthless -- Chicago, anyone? --but Obama already knows that so why is he so hesitant to support an end to Islamic fanaticism in Egypt?
It may be Obama is just so emotionally entangled with the thought of democracy that he can't see it's not the right solution when the majority wants to kill or oppress the minority. Or maybe he thinks it will hurt his ratings in America if he opposes "democracy" in Egypt -- Heaven only knows that Obama has had little success explaining anything to the American people.
Or it may be that Obama actually doesn't see the Muslim Brotherhood as bad. Perhaps Obama believes that Christians should be willing to ride in the back of the bus in Muslim-run countries; he's certainly never done anything significant to use the love he believes Muslims hold for him to reduce the oppression of Christians in Muslim lands.
Obama is consistent. In every country where Obama has supported the Arab Spring the country has turned from being either an ally or a friend of the U.S. to either an enemy or a safe zone for terrorists. In Iran, soon to be nuclear threat to the U.S., however, Obama was totally silent to demands for true democracy. Perhaps Obama thinks that Islam is the wave of the future, at least in the Middle East, and that our best bet is to ensure that

The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.

But by Muslim definition, all those pesky Coptic Christians in Egypt slander the prophet of Islam as does the Declaration of Independence. That leaves one wondering how fanatics can be stopped under Obama rules once they become the majority in a democracy and how the minority can protect themselves against the majority.
But in the end, it may just be that, as with all liberals, Obama is unwilling to acknowledge the existence of evil in the world. The core of liberal foreign policy, from Chamberlin to Obama, is that conflicts are due to miscommunication and that if we could all just talk we'd find mutually agreeable, and peaceful, solutions to any international differences.
As the Holocaust, communist aggression, and the current extremist Muslim war against all non-Muslims have shown, there are always men who want what is not theirs and have no compunction about oppressing or killing all who stand in their way.
At some level liberals realize that radical Muslims like the Muslim Brotherhood are not like the Tea Party -- after all liberals know enough to not mock Muhammad the way they mock Jesus because liberals know Muslims will kill you and Tea Party Christians won't -- but they haven't managed to let that subconscious realization bubble to the surface of their actions.
When a democratically-elected government in some foreign country doesn't like us, we have an obligation to honor their election as the will of their people. But we never have an obligation to honor that which is evil.
Most of what we in America disagree on is not objectively evil, abortion being one of the few exceptions, and most democratically-elected foreign governments who are not friends of the U.S. are not evil, but the Muslim Brotherhoods expansionist and hate-filled religious fanaticism is evil.
It's time to say that yes, democracy is great, but that a democracy run by bullies and haters intent on killing or oppressing all those that object to the ruling party is no democracy.
You can read more of tom's rants at his blog, Conversations about the obvious and feel free to follow him on Twitter

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