New Books Point Up the Power of Democracy | Newsweek Politics

Posted By: howiefineman @ 05/12/2008 4:52:55 AM

Comment: haha the biggest haters are the ones responsible for the republicans being in office in the first place: The NOBLE SPEAKING EVER RESPECTFUL BEVERAGE CHALLENEGED TEDDY KENNEDY, THE RESPECTFUL AND EVER LOYAL LOST IN A LANDSLIDE TO TRICKY DICK OF ALL PEOPLE GEORGE MCGOVERN, HAMAS LOVING JIMMY CARTER, SWIFT BOATED JOHN KERRY, JUST NOW SLITHERING OUT FROM UNDER A ROCK JOHN EDWARDS, VENGEANCE IS MINE I WILL CAST THE DECIDING VOTE AL GORE, YEEEEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAW HOWARD DEAN, ZERO DELEGATE WINNING DODD, NEVER EVEN GOT OFF THE BENCH BILL BRADLEY, FIRST SENATE LEADER IN HALF A CENTURY TO BE VOTED OUT OF OFFICE TOM DASCHEL AND WHO THE HELL CARES BILL RICHARDSON. haha if any of these gyne envy phallically challenged MEN? had done their job this country wouldnt be in this mess. THEY are the ones responsible for BUSH. THEY are the ones responsible for the mess the Democratic Party is in. THEY are the ones responsible for knocking out Senator Clinton because BANTAMWEIGHT BARRY couldnt. Clinton has had their t*ts in a ringer for 16 MONTHS and they still havent been able to do it. hahaha and theyve got the DNC and MSM and all the obamabots helping them out. GOD BLESS AMERICA. oops i mean NO, NO, NO, GOD DAMN AMERICA OFFICIAL ENDORSEMENT BY OFFICIAL CAMPAIGN SPIRITUAL ADVISOR TO OBAMA CRAZY OLD UNCLE JEREMIAH WRIGHT. Hahaha

Posted By: alex08 @ 05/08/2008 9:01:05 AM

Comment: The author writes: "The core concept of liberty and democracy???belief in individual rights and equality safeguarded by the rule of law???is really burned into the DNA of only the English-speaking countries: Great Britain and its former colonies." It seems to me too optimistic. If you avoid words like democracy and freedom and just specify things like 1. Affordable food and lodging; 2. Possibility of reasonable income; 3. Security including protection by law from criminals; 4. Minimal "everyday freedom" of partying and entertainment and having small business; 5. Political freedoms to discuss and elect government; and so on, and poll groups of different income - you will see that "immediate necessities" come first. Need for more general freedoms that are real democracy comes when these primary needs are satisfied. So different social groups understand democracy differently and have different attitudes to it. Plus you need to take into account that peoples of different ethnicities and religions also understand the very concept of Freedom differently. So, any general declaration that ALL PEOPLE want liberty and democracy is wishful thinking and leads to very wrong decisions. Iraq war is a good illustration.

Posted By: Lee Holmes @ 05/06/2008 6:23:34 PM

Comment: Evan Thomas was unable to grasp a fact crucial to the conversation of democracy. It was the lack of this as utilized by the Radical Republicans that brought forth the era of the Reconstruction Klan to begin with. Until Ex Parte Garland in 1869,ex-Confederates,even those who had pledged loyalty to the Union were forbidden the vote,often by force.''How I cannot vote yet the n....r can is not right''said one Pulaski Tennessee former rebel,the coicidental birthplace of the Klan. The Radicals failed to heed Lincolns words to ''Let 'em up easy'', which would have gone far in nullifying the formation of the Klan to begin with,and those still seen as traitors,in lands overrun with the scalawag,the carpetbagger,the freedman,[whose every existance puzzled even unionists who were still grasping the idea],and the federalized militias which acted as little more than freebooters,lashed out in rage,not merely directing their ire at the newly freed negro,but launching three decades of internecine war between white southerners and white unionists that would culminate in the famous Hatfield-McCoy feud of the 1870s-1890s.[legendarily began over the theft of a prize hog,its roots were vested in the same as these other wars. The Hatfields were ex-confederates,and the McCoys,unionists]. The Peacock-Lee War in Texas. The Lumbly War in North Carolina also involving native-Americans. The James-Youngers in Missouri. The Oppam War in Arkansas,and the Brownlow War in Tennessee,were replete with both sides engaging in wanton terrorism,murder and even ethnic cleansing that only the arrival of federal troops would later quell. Thus we find that from this period,all the way to the 1950s Little Rock,''democracy'',even in America,had to be ''shoved down throats''including our own.

Posted By: Thevail @ 05/06/2008 3:38:48 PM

Comment: Democracy is good...for us. It is not necessarily good for everyone. And it is a lot of elitist hot air to ASSUME that everyone everywhere wants to be just like the United States. Many, Many nations don't want to. AND THAT IS THEIR RIGHT.

The idea of democracy is out there. It's had a 200 year airing to the public of the world. If it is indeed what people want, then THEY will fight for it. America fighting to "give" (read that as "shove down their throats") democracy to other countries would be the same as England waging a war on us to "help us" achieve socialism.

This is the root elitism of the American people, to think that somehow, the least educated of us is infinitely smarter about what will work in a foreign country and for its people than the smartest people in their own country.

Just stop it.