Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Who Needs a Democratic Egypt?
Posted by Daniel Greenfield

"In the big marble halls of Washington, in the slow ambling pace of summer cocktail parties where veterans of the political establishment still shake their heads at the fall of the Graham dynasty and the sale of the Post to a parvenu dot comer, the second favorite topic of conversation is how to make Egypt fall into line.

All the cocktail party guests, the senators, their aides, the editors and editorial writers, the heads of foreign affairs think-tanks and generals angling for a lobbying gig with a firm that just might want to move some big ugly steel down Egypt way once all the shouting dies down, haven’t had much luck.

Or as the New York Times, the paper that has displaced the Washington Post as the foreign affairs leak hole of the administration, put it, “all of the efforts of the United States government, all the cajoling, the veiled threats, the high-level envoys from Washington and the 17 personal phone calls by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, failed.”

And all the community organizer’s horses and his men couldn’t put the Muslim Brotherhood back together again.

Not even 17 personal phone calls from a man who couldn’t get through his confirmation sessions without becoming a national laughingstock accomplished anything.

Washington isn’t giving up, but its foreign aid card has just been neutralized by the Saudis who have offered to make up any aid that it cuts. And unlike Israel, Egypt isn’t vulnerable to threat of being isolated. Not with a sizable number of the Gulf oil countries at its back and the Russians and Chinese eager to jump in with defense contracts.

Instead of asking how to make the Egyptians do what Washington wants, it might be time for the cocktail party goers to ask what they really want from Egypt and what they really need from Egypt.

The two aren’t actually the same.

We may want Egypt to be democratic, because it fits our notions of how countries should work, but that isn’t something that we actually need.
. . .
We’ll never be very good friends. A deep and meaningful friendship with a population that believes in chopping the hands off thieves and stoning everyone else was never in the cards. But most alliances aren’t built on enduring love or even mutual affection.

They’re built on something better. Cynical pragmatism.

We had a wonderfully pragmatic and lovingly cynical relationship with Egypt. If Chuck Hagel stops making 17 personal phone calls every hour telling the Egyptian government how not to shoot Muslim Brotherhood terrorists, maybe one day we’ll have a cynically pragmatic relationship with Egypt again.
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http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2013/08/...atic-egypt.html

@ThirstyMan @nicmarlo

You might like this article by Greenfield. When he speaks of democracy he is referring to our constitutional republic.

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Democracy was once viewed, rightly or wrongly, as a form of American Exceptionalism. But reducing that exceptionalism to open elections misses the point. It isn’t open elections that make Americans special; it’s Americans who make open elections special. Instead of looking to systems, we should look to values. Instead of looking to governments, we should look to peoples.

The assumption that exporting democracy also exports our values is clearly wrong. It isn’t democracy that makes free people; it’s individual responsibility. Democracy with individual responsibility makes for a free nation. Democracy without individual responsibility is only another name for tyranny.

We have spent too much time looking at systems, when we should have been looking at values. We have wrongly assumed that all religions and all peoples share the same basic values that democracy can unleash for the betterment of all. That has clearly been proven to be wrong.

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield...not-the-answer/

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Unfortunately cultural Marxismh as replaced our unique Judeo Christian values infused with a work ethic with moral equivalence. Meritocracy, self-reliance, and personal responsibility have been replaced by a 'just', 'compassionate', 'equal' outcome for all. Natural law and rights and rule of law have been replaced by whim of the latest group in power.

Quote: nicmarlo wrote in post #9

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@Thirstyman @algernonpj

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what is the rational basis for right and wrong? One's opinion? So let everyone decide how they should live. Every person becomes a law unto himself.

It isn’t democracy that makes free people; it’s individual responsibility. Democracy with individual responsibility makes for a free nation. Democracy without individual responsibility is only another name for tyranny.

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This is hits the nail on the head. This IS the major problem, especially when you look at Obama. He accepts responsibility for nothing, nor do any which head his administration levels/cabinets. They say there shouldn't be the Christian standard, but then they impose their own. And what standard really is that? None, because it fluctuates from day to day and year to year given the circumstances and their feelings. And that, by definition, is NOT a standard.

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@nicmarlo
This is why I've become a big fan of Greenfield. His way with the language is on point while almost poetic.