Picking Up in the Middle of the Argument...

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by DanaC

The second those same democracies become the unwelcome and overweening power in the world at large, then they become part of the disease and are no longer the cure.

Not to pooh-pooh, Dana, but are there any examples of this? Ever? I ask because democracies simply don't make trouble for other democracies. The occasional trade tiff is about as nasty as it ever gets.

Besides which, we in the 'enlightened' West are less interested in creating/installing actual democracies than we are in creating/installing sympathetic governments.

Is not the former naturally going to be the latter, and the latter unlikely to be actually sympathetic enough without being the former? Too, is not the art of politics the art of the possible?

Times of great excitement tend to be those times somebody tries to recast just what is possible. Lincoln, Kennedy, and Reagan come to mind. Edmund Burke on the other side of the pond.