Mr. Ahmadinejad was credited with more votes than anyone in Iran’s history. If the results are to be believed, he won in all 30 provinces, and among all social and age categories. His three rivals, all dignitaries of the regime, were humiliated by losing even in their own hometowns. This was an unprecedented result even for the Islamic Republic, where elections have always been carefully scripted charades.— Iran’s Clarifying Election - WSJ.com
In a democracy, the two major parties spend the majority of their time and energy trying to inform an ignorant electorate that the other party is unfit to rule. And both do that admirably. And both are right.— H.L. Mencken (via azspot)
No man, no matter how high his office, how strong his mandate, how historic his victory, deserves the exaltation our new president will receive this week. No matter, though, for today’s president is no longer a man: he is hope bringer, protector, decider, curator and Commander-in-Chief of our National Destiny. The celebration surrounding the modern inauguration is as fit for our Imperial President as it is for caesars and kings and rulers by divine right. For the religious, this sort of adulation is an affront to God; for Americans, it is an affront to our republic.— Super Hamburger America: Apotheosis in Washington
Once, presidents shunned ceremony, and took care to avoid ostentation.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage.— Alexander Tyler (via seagull) (via robot-heart)
Despite numerous controversies ahead of the Games — turmoil over the Olympic torch relay, the bloody suppression of Tibetan riots in March, and so on — the Games went spectacularly smoothly. Senior party cadres can give themselves a pat on the back for a job well done. Not for long, though. It is hard to exaggerate just how important the answers to those fundamental questions will be for China. Chinese society has reached a point where maintaining the status quo is simply not an option. Beijing is barely able to keep a lid on the tremendous social dislocation caused by the country’s pell-mell economic growth over the past 30 years, and the consequent misery suffered by untold millions — the unemployed, the landless, tens of millions of migrant workers laboring under inhuman conditions, the countless victims of widespread corruption. Government officials have acknowledged that up to hundreds of so-called mass incidents occur every day. These often violent eruptions of frustration occasionally threaten to spread into chaos; as the Olympics loomed, they were more tightly controlled, or often simply ignored by the media. Now that the Games are over, it’s a good bet that the turmoil will resurface.— Where China Goes Next - TIME
Some of us see some differences between a coalition of democracies invading a dictatorship and a dictator unilaterally invading a democracy.— Jim Geraghty
WITH American troops poised to move into Georgia to provide humanitarian aid, some in Europe are voicing concerns about its muscle-flexing in the region. “Echo of Cold War” was the headline on a commentary piece in the Times of London this morning.—
A testing time for the trans-Atlantic alliance | Certain ideas of Europe | Economist.com
Fair enough, but at the same time the EU is slow to act. Perhaps the slowness is wisdom and restraint? Or does it simply allow unnecessary delay to an issue that needs a quick response? And there you have the balance of US vs. European Int’l deplomacy.
(via dostendorff)
Still, there are echoes of the Cold War in the criticism of McCain. Then as now, the liberal left seems to have great faith in the power of language to palliate antidemocratic adversaries and a corresponding fear of pro-democratic rhetoric, which it sees as provocative or aggressive. But didn’t Reagan win that argument? He spoke in terms that unsettled the left, and the result was Soviet accommodation, then collapse.— James Taranto
…nothing McCain has said is as aggressive as the actions of Russia. It strikes me odd right now to complain of aggressive words in the defense of democracy rather than condemning aggressive actions against a democracy.— Seth Leibsohn
[W]hen I’m President, I will set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year. This means that by the time you graduate college, you’ll have done 17 weeks of service.
We’ll reach this goal in several ways. At the middle and high school level, we’ll make federal assistance conditional on school districts developing service programs, and give schools resources to offer new service opportunities.
The Obamas’ rhetoric troubles me on the policy front, but my aversion gets even more acute at the philosophical level. The above quote, for example, may not seem invidious on its face—and indeed, more youthful community service is a worthy and high-minded goal to have. But I believe the federal government should not force it on students. Besides, it probably doesn’t work. Powerline (hat tip for the headline) nails it in the conclusion:
Modern-day liberals are expert in finding small ways to extend the power of the government and to diminish individual freedom. And they specialize in using deficiencies they have helped create as their pretext. Under the influence of liberal administrators and teachers whose approval of this country is less than wholehearted, our schools probably aren’t doing as good a job at “teaching young Americans to take citizenship seriously” as they used to. Americans sense the change. The liberal solution — meddle in the lives of students outside the classroom.
Obama’s prescription for change always seems to include government expansion into our lives. “We will ask Americans to serve, [and] this will be a central cause of my presidency,” writes Obama in the same speech. And later on:
“[G]overnment depends not just on the consent of the governed, but on the service of citizens. That’s what history calls us to do. Because loving your country shouldn’t just mean watching fireworks on the 4th of July. Loving your country must mean accepting your responsibility to do your part to change it. If you do, your life will be richer, and our country will be stronger.
All true. But I have the right not to be a responsible citizen. Aristotle wrote that private property allows for virtue, and I would expand that to freedom in general. The state cannot and should not force virtue on its citizens.
