I must commend Andy McCarthy at National Review for taking on the often idiotic John Podhoretz. Podhoretz is annoying for a number of reasons: his excessive certainty, his attachment to liberal foundational principles, his inability to respond to critics, and his obvious dependence on nepotism for obtaining and keeping key positions in the right-wing opinion-making community. Today, Andy McCarthy completely destroys Podhoretz’s ideological faith in Mideast democracy:
There is something disturbingly Leftist about your penchant for shrill, uninformed criticism that scorns the interlocutor rather than dealing in a mature way with the substance of his arguments. I am not mocking the President. I believe he is wrong, that the mistake he is making has tragic implications for our security, and I am saying so. His remarks yesterday were not forthright. We just spent several weeks watching what he calls “Lebanon’s democratic government” aid and abet Hezbollah. Yet, yesterday, he gave Siniora & Co. a complete pass ââ¬â only Iran and Syria, according to the President, are sponsoring Hezbollah. It was not Iran and Syria that objected to an international force under rules of engagement that would allow the dismantling of Hezbollah. That was Lebanon. But Lebanon ââ¬â which chooses to support Hezbollah ââ¬â is somehow immune from criticism … because it is a “democracy” and, according to what passes for logic here, by definition it cannot be facilitating terrorism.
The basic thing you and those who agree with you insist on as an article of faith ââ¬â namely, that “of course terrorism and democracy are irreconcilable” ââ¬â is demonstrably wrong. Whether you like it or not, terrorists have great popular support in Lebanon. . . .
What is variously called “radical Islam,” “militant Islam,” “political Islam,” “fundamentalist Islam,” “Islamo-fascism,” etc., is not a fringe cult. It is a highly developed system the history of which traces back centuries and which counts among its adherents many highly educated, highly intelligent people. It rejects fundamental premises of Western democracy ââ¬â indeed, it blames Western democracy for the ills of the world.
Now, here’s what you don’t seem to get: it’s not just terrorists who believe this. The terrorists are the ones willing to fight over it, but there are tens of millions who agree with their beliefs and aims even if they are not willing to kill to see them actualized. That is why terrorism is not irreconcilable with democracy, but Islam may well be. . . . You insult these millions of Muslims profoundly because the logic of your argument is that no one who was truly free would choose the life they sincerely believe God has commanded. You are stuck in a pre-1979 mindset which refuses to acknowledge that a religion-based revolution is possible, and that the millions of people are freely choosing a belief system that opposes Western democracy.
Whenever democracy does not produce the desired results, the neoconservatives respond like Soviet apparatchiks, suggesting the situation is not “real democracy,” that the situation is not happening, or that this is just some detour on the historically inevitable road to success. The problem with ideological thinking like this is that it is immune to facts; the ideological faith supersedes, deflects, and selectively ignores facts. Just as Soviet apologists always spoke about the failure to realize “true communism,” today’s democracy fetishists suggest that we’ve yet to see “true democracy” in the Middle East. This is surprising; democracy ultimately means something like majority rule. Majority rule leading to illiberal results has been a negative possibility recognized by thinkers ranging from Burke to Fareed Zakaria. The historical examples include revolutionary France, Mexico, Venezuela, Weimar Germany, and many others. The only way neoconservatives can maintain their faith in democracy and continue to proselytize along those lines in conservative circles is the collision of their own certainty, a dash of dishonesty, and the historical ignorance of those they aim to convince, both within and without the conservative movement. Good for McCarthy for showing the most chirpy among them that he is, essentially, a complete fraud.
Subscribe To This Feed
Geezaloo Chris, democracy is more than a popularity contest, unless you think one man one vote one time counts.
It’s also about respecting the rule of law and accepting accountability. Hamas started this round of fighting to forestall a referendum in the Palestinian “authority” where they were about to get trounced 3-2, to wit, a referendum on permanently recognizing Israel with no ifs ands or hudnas. Hizb’Allah rode in ot bail them out, much to the discomfiture of the mad mullahs, who had uses for their pathetic little rockets later this month.
Would you feel better about the whole thing if we just called it “a republican form of government?”
I would. But I think there is a proper order of events, both temporally and as a matter of importance: Order, Law, Liberalism, Republicanism.
Bush & co. by using the phrase “democracy” at every turn have disarmed themselves morally and rhetorically when, for example, the Shias of Iraq democratically seek to impose Sharia. You end up with ridiculous things like Condy Rice praising Hezbollah and Hamas for joining the political process.
There is popular and republican government as an Anglo-American tradition. And then there is the Rousseauian tradition of “vox populi, vox dei,” the search for the government that transmits the people’s sacred general will. Bush and a lot of American liberals are truly confused about the difference and do not have much intelligent to say when the people do something illiberal. The very idea that the people as a whole may choose something evil, illiberal, or oppressive of minorities seem to be totally off of Bush and the neconservative’s radar.
So yes, I’d prefer that term, but I think that would only make me happier if it signified a sound understanding that democracy is something of a crown jewel or tertiary political accomplishment when compared to law, order, protection of property, and the rest.