Interested People want it both ways, They don't want us to force values on another country - yet they do not want us to do business with a country that isn't of our standards. Except - oh yeah - don't raise the cost of goods.

domajot The subject gets even more complicated when you consider the many kinds of force available. China, for example, has used its power in the markets to stymie efforts to deal with the Darfur genocide. It has, in effect, forced the world to accept its 'let's make a deal' ideology. Here is an area where the world's moral force has been totally eviscerated.

Interested And, while we do - indeed need to figure out what we want out of China and the cost we pay for goods we buy. We also need to keep a weary eye on India.

domajot Yes, Interested. I'm getting the feeling that the world is totally out of control. We argue about itsy-bitsy parts of it, but no one is keeping an eye on the overall picture. Our squabbles over domestic issues pale in the broader context of: where the devil is the 'global community' going?

kritter I think you can foster changes that are already below the surface or in transition, but you cannot force a society to change its bedrock values because they are not the same as yours. The best approach is usually the carrot and stick. In any case , our top trading partner is the Chinese who treat their workers like slaves, are the world's worst polluters and sell people the organs of executed prisoners. Does anyone really think that someday we'll be able to influence them to be just like us? Or that we can decide they're not moral enough to have any dealings with? Why is it ok to deal with Communist China but not Communist Cuba?

Alan I wonder if it's even possible to force democracy upon a country before it's ready. I'm thinking of Iraq, which in spite of attempts to impose democracy, seems headed toward either theocracy or dictatorship.

kritter BTW- often we force democracy on countries and then don't know how to deal with the elected government, as when Hamas won in Palestine. Perhaps what we really want is to be able to influence other countries to choose governments that are friendly to the West, but may not work for their own people. Hamas won because the Fatah government was weak and corrupt. So just claiming we want free elections in other countries isn't always the case.

mvdg You all make some very good points. Thanks for that. Absorbing it...

in2thefray Democracy is deep. What I mean by that is it's more than just the the fact that the government is seated via an election. What the government does and how it does it is the essence of democracy. Being duly elected doesn't mean you still can't be a tyrant. On a completely unrelated not. MvdG thanks for the Hayek book tip.

mvdg You're reading or read it?

Marlowe Alan said: "I wonder if it’s even possible to force democracy upon a country before it’s ready. I’m thinking of Iraq, which in spite of attempts to impose democracy, seems headed toward either theocracy or dictatorship." Islam has powerful "cultural antibodies" against the western virus of democracy. China clearly does not have the same...as was evidenced by the "Spirit of Liberty" statue the students at Tiananmen Square raised to confront the image of Mao. The Chinese leadership have indicated publicly that they expect China to move towards democracy over the next 50 years or so. Parts of China - notably Hong Kong - have the virus of democracy in place. If China eventually swallows Taiwan, it will be absorbing a particularly virulent strain of democracy to be sure. Bush's neocon adventure in Iraq is pure Wilsonianism...very much contrary to the spirit of conservatism, IMO.

Nobody Iraq was not about Democracy and never was. There was never any intention of invading Iraq to create a Democracy. Certainly we never attacked Iraq for the Sole purpose of creating a democracy. That is the polar opposite of what we stand for. Democracy was to be the exit strategy. It still is. However now the Bush Administration must settle for something less then Democracy. The Neocon adventure into Iraq was about one thing and one thing only. Put the US Military smack dab in the middle of the terrorist town world headquarters and let the terrorists flock from all corners of the world to Iraq and take on our Men and women who are heavily armed and prepared and lets kill them there instead of killing them here. Now the antiwar can make of that what you will but it was discussed, analyzed and was on the drawing boards since 1973 right after the Arab Israeli war. Its always been a contingency of how to fight a worldwide surge of Terrorism that struck the shores of the USA before Neocons were even invented or the term had been coined.

Jim Martin Picture a country reasonably new to democracy, a country until recently ruled by the strongest man using force to maintain rule. They have an election where one candidate had the most votes, but lost due to a technicality. The technicality was in a document both sides agreed to, like a constitution. Would the opponent who lost on a technicality graciously accept defeat when all legal avenues had been explored or would he attempt to seize power? Most nations who do not have a tradition of democracy would spin into civil war. Democracy is a living breathing thing, it requires that parties be willing to live by the rules. We should promote the concepts of democracy and provide those things that make democracy possible. We should also live up to our own ideals. We should stop talking democracy and live it ourselves. We speak of democracy, liberty and freedom, but we don't practice what we preach.

Interested Hardly call an Article & an Amendment a "technicality" Especially considering the amount of people needed to pass an Amendment is far beyond what each individual candidate received in % fo the vote.

Jim Martin In this country, yes. In a new democracy it could just be a negotiated technicality. This is just a "what if " scenario trying to show how easily a democracy can devolve into something. We have a tradition of The Law that has been reinforced over the past 225+ years. What if our democracy was only 2 years old?

Interested Cannot say that I see the validity of putting a what if scenario built after 225+ years onto a hypothetical of a democracy that's 2 years old.

kritter So do we need to stay in Iraq another 223 years to make sure democracy takes?

Interested Kim, I'm failing to see a thought process behind that comment. Especially given the - well - entire - thread.

harmonie22 I want to build on what Kritter says: "you can foster changes that are already below the surface or in transition, but you cannot force a society to change its bedrock values because they are not the same as yours." Democracy is a point in social evolution, other elements need to be in place before democracy can exist, such as an openness to divergent thinking, a basic premise of equity, and freedom of expression. Furthermore, this has to be an evolution that is in context to a respective culture; it must come from within. A Muslim preaching democracy to Muslims, for example, will allow the masses to focus on the higher truth being conveyed and won't be perceived as an act of outside force, which naturally meets resistance. People resist change and mistrust what they do not understand. There has to be a conviction and buy-in to change for true social evolution, or true democracy, to occur. Plus you can still strike a balance between social evolution and culture, but even that, as you pointed out, needs to occur over time like any maturation process- not unlike the concept of change management and organizational development in a corporate setting.

FurGaia Interesting to read such an opinion from a 'conservative' although I would be at pains to explain why I find that surprising. Anyway have a page just on this topic on my blog here for anyone interested. http://tinyurl.com/3dw3cd

Callimachus I think you're essentially right. And I'm not the only one who's said all along that "neo-conservative" is a misnomer, that the philosophy is essentially liberal, in the peculiar American strain of optimistic, crusading liberalism represented by Woodrow Wilson. It's a policy you make with your heart more than your head. It's often based more on our sense of our responsibilities than on what other peoples may really need, or want (not necessarily the same thing). Ideally, they run together. Often they don't. It has messy consequences. All liberating movements do to some degree. It has confidence in the indigenous force of people to run their lives, even if it takes decades and many bloody wrong turns. Ideally, in Iraq, we went to facilitate something, not to force it. Democratic forces have flowered under protective occupations before. America had a rare chance to make its mistakes behind the oceans, without predatory neighbors. Ideally, a light and benevolent occupation functions as the same sort of protective force in lands less favored by geography. As someone said back at the beginning of the operation, before Iraq began its present slow downward course, "America 'occupies' Iraq like a cast occupies a broken leg." The phrase "neo-con" describes the specific evolution of certain founders of the modern movement, not the nature of the movement. I am not such a great fan of untrammeled democracy. Neither were the ancient political philosophers, nor most of the founders of the U.S., who deliberately built us a "mixed government" constitution, which we have been deliberately tearing apart ever since. But that movement toward pure democracy is, again, classically American-liberal. Among the other acknowledged children of Wilsonian idealism, besides Iraq today, is the United Nations. A true conservative will have serious reservations about both, I would imagine. But flip your question: If the sober and thinking opposition to the Iraq experiment is essentially conservative and pessimistic, why does it call itself liberal?

C Stanley Some good thoughtful comments here. Callimachus: I'll take a stab at answering your question. Both 'sides' of our domestic political spectrum have tended to define themselves as 'not the other guys' for quite some time now rather than defining their philosophy. This has caused one party to morph toward the philosophy of the other, and then in reaction the other becomes more like the first. So no longer are we really defined as conservatives and liberals according to the correct definitions; the labels have come to mean little more than sports team names.

Callimachus It might be pertinent, too, to note that the conservative argument here is essentially similar to the early conservative critique of the civil rights movement (e.g. William F. Buckley), which, whatever its validity, does not redound now to the credit of those who made it.

Callimachus C. Stanley: I think that's a good, concise statement of where we are. And if it's to be sports team names, it would be the more absurd ones (Los Angeles "Lakers," nee Milwaukee; Utah "Jazz").

C Stanley LOL, exactly, Cal.

domajot As I watch the world change, I keep wondering how the global economy will change the discussions we have about topics like demoncrcy. Increasingly, daily lives are shaped by multinational forces, corporations, rather than the form of government in a particular country. The multinationals don't pledge allegiance to a country; they form subsidiaries to operate in multiple countries with different forms of government. By extension, then, they support all of them. I regret not being able to see into the future, as it would be fascinating to see how these forces affect man's progress. Recent problems with imported foods, for example, seemed to point to the diminishing power of our government to oversee our food supply. I wonder what other powers will be eroded. The right to vote in the ME seems to be just a power struggle deciding who will make the rules. Those elected to power seem willing to jettison the very bases of democracy in favor of a one party or one power rule. The old countries of the West appear to be the only ones struggling with the pros and cons of democracy in the classic sense, but their power to influence seems to be on the wane. Any other crystal gazers out there?

Callimachus Also, in asking the questions you ask, it's important not to exclude the Kurdish region of Iraq, where the grand Wilsonian experiment seems to be playing out somewhere along the hoped-for trajectory. It doesn't change your essentially correct notion of which side of this whole thing the liberal and the conservative belong on. But I'm unwilling to let the whole picture of Iraq be limited to the part that suits those who prefer to see only failure.