> RoMunn wrote: > Democracy is a lifestyle? Yes. You were linking intelligence and democracy and I was saying that that the 2 are mutually exclusive. I know a few East Germans that lived behind the wall and they see no huge comparative advantage to their lives today versus their lives then.
Put another way, they'll tell you that there's positives and negatives of both - that they're different, but that one isn't necessarily better than another. These are people with PhDs that travel internationally and are viewed are leaders in their fields. So appreciation of democracy is not a function of intelligence. > As Tip O'Neill said, "All politics is local." That has no relevance here, at least not to my point. Mr. O'Neill was referring to the fact that Senators, in the end, are most motivated by what will get them re-elected and that's not necessarily what's best for the country, but what's best for their district. I'm referring to the fact that every developed democracy in the world has started from the ground up. Local people forming interest groups and lobbying local government for that new stop sign. It bubbles up from there to national gov't which becomes a consensus of these local interest groups. Iraq, in contrast, is democracy from the top down. Citizens are being asked to vote for a national leader before they form local interest groups. In other words, America is attempting to nation build a democracy from the top down. Historically that's not worked. In this case, who knows? Bush #1 did have a ground up democracies building, but he neglected to protect those groups and Hussein slaughtered them. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Discover CFTicket - The leading ColdFusion Help Desk and Trouble Ticket application http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=48 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:185330 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
