I am preparing a letter to the editor of the UnHeard Herald. But before I send it, I'm inviting you to read it and let me have your thoughts, especially if you find anything ambiguous or unclear, or mistyped.
Seriously. Thanks.
Letter to the editor:
Sloppy terminology and lazy thinking have made a mess in Iraq. We wish the people of the Middle East could live in peace and prosperity, but then we assume that all it takes to achieve that is an election.
In the West we've come to believe the sloppy mantra that "democracy is a good thing" (for the Middle East) and "the more democracy the better" (for our own society). In truth, democracy alone is useless - the reason Western societies are relatively stable and peaceful is that they spent centuries building and maintaining our civil liberties and the rule of law. Our electoral systems could not work otherwise.
That's why we call it "liberal democracy", not plain "democracy".
No wonder the people of Iraq are now disillusioned over their experiment with the ballot box. They wanted to believe our rhetoric that democracy would fix things for them, without the need first to establish the rule of law and guarantee civil rights.
To understand the folly in Iraq, imagine an experiment at the Flat Island jail - we sack the governor, send all the warders home, take the doors off the cells, and give the prisoners a ballot box and voting slips. It's hard to say exactly what would happen, but it wouldn't be peace, prosperity and individual liberty.(I might scrub the last paragraph)
And meanwhile we're letting our politicians continue to dismantle our own civil liberties in the name of the fighting terrorism. One day we could wake up with all our liberties gone except the right to vote, and we'll wonder why our democracy no longer works.
Signed, A. Doll-Fiddler.
Please let me know if there's anything you think I could clarify, delete or amplify. I'm not asking you to agree with what I'm saying, in fact feel free to disagree.
