Friday, February 04, 2011

Why is Egypt a vexing problem?

If you've read the newspapers there is this bit about President Obama that does illustrate a major problem with the Leftist thesis (such as it is) for government. This from 31 JAN 2011, ABC News:

As the situation on the ground in Egypt continues to evolve, the White House is constantly recalibrating its public statements, with President Obama and administration officials now issuing carefully worded statements that lean more into the notion of a significant change in Egypt’s leadership. After speaking with the leaders of the UK, Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia over the weekend, President Obama issued a statement saying that he supports “an orderly transition to a government that is responsive to the aspirations of the Egyptian people.”

Those words, which closely track comments made on Sunday shows by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, represent the U.S. more publicly demanding that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak either embrace democracy or cede power to someone who will.

These words represent a change in tone and substance from President Obama’s Friday night remarks that he told President Mubarak “he has a responsibility to give meaning” to words “pledg(ing) a better democracy and greater economic opportunity”….”to take concrete steps and actions that deliver on that promise.” They represent a clear departure from the words of Vice President Joe Biden, who on Thursday told the PBS NewsHour that Mubarak was an “ally” and disputed the notion that he’s a “dictator.” Mubarak, indeed, has been extremely helpful to the US in helping to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians, in opposing Iran’s nuclear program, and in recognizing the new Iraqi government.

Is there some reason to have situational ethics on this question of backing a government? Is it truly not to the best to accede that a nation is governed by the rule of law? Or is it required that we can only help a nation if the situation is 'right' or 'to our interests'?

This is a basic premise that we, as Americans, should know by heart, and yet through decades of Presidents putting forward situational responses, we now have a President who has problems even speaking the words 'due process of civil law'. Of course he came in with 'Hope & Change' to make civil law 'better' and more 'socially just', which means putting the law aside and having a government ruled by men who don't care much what a law actually says.

A people who adhere to equality of application of the law expect that it be applied dispassionately upon all classes, races, creeds, rich, poor and believers of all religions as the due process of law will determine who is innocent and who is guilty without respect to any of those things.

Those peoples who adhere to a government ruled by men with their distant adherence to law only when it suits their goals wind up with tyrannical regimes that rape women and girls, suppress basic liberties, and impoverish the many via the role of government to enrich the few who run the government. These are authoritarians, totalitarians, rogues, despots, dictators, and any government that feels it is above any law, whatsoever, and fit to rule society as the men in power see fit.

The United States is founded on the concept of equal application of the law via civil means that are well defined and adhered to. Hiring better lawyers can help some guilty parties, yes, but that is no reason to scrap a system that works well for the overwhelming majority of people so as to address the few that game the system. Scrapping that is to punish the many, the bulk of society, to get the few playing games with the system. And in some instances if you are the leaders of Enron or Bernie Madoff, it doesn't how much you pay out for lawyers, as justice still gets served, blindly.

With our understanding of a civil society creating a civil system that is equally applied to all, in all circumstances, in all aspects of law, what, then, should our response be in Egypt or, indeed, in any land seeking to depose a tyrant, dictator, autocrat, or other similar creature?

It is pretty simple.

1) The American People stand up for all peoples of the world to have a voice in their government via civil means and to not have that suppressed by ANY government run by ANY ONE, without respect to how rich or how poor they are, nor in any other respect to their position in life. Yes, that is a sane and rational basis for foreign policy.

2) The United States government rests upon the civil process of the transfer of power via normalized elections in which parties each are given the ability to speak, have votes for their members recognized, to have those votes counted in the tally of all votes. This requires having all members of society who are deemed of majority age, not insane or ineligible due to criminal acts, to not be intimidated while casting a secret ballot the contents of which is only known by the person casting the vote in the particular, and not to have that vote tied to a particular individual when counted so they have anonymity of the secret ballot.

3) To those ends the United States pleads with any dictator, despot, oligarchy, or any other authoritarian or totalitarian system to create the environment of freedom of expression in political thought, to listen to the people of their Nation as they give input to how they are governed, and to not exclude any party, no matter how vile, from the political process as suppression of that freedom of expression is anathema to a free people and a curbing of fundamental, unalienable rights due to each person born on this Earth.

4) The United States pleads with all protestors to adhere to civil means of protest, to support the civil transfer of power via known election systems, and to demand a change to any election system which discriminates against any of their fellow countrymen as stated in (2). Equality before the law is the greatest justice that can be brought against those that have corrupted a civil system to their own ends for it is a form of justice they have denied to everyone, and the equality and equanimity of its application to such leaders is something that requires civil restraint.

5) The United States mourn all those in the quest for the liberation of their fellow countrymen from any system which does not guarantee fundamental human liberty of freedom of speech, religion, self-defense, the press, and having their voices heard in their government. Those who die in this cause are the lifeblood of the Tree of Liberty, as is the blood of tyrants and despots unwilling to release their grip on power and who are then forced to release their grip on their lives. Those who temper their emotions to bring equal application of the law to all within their Nation are patriots, and those who seek to thwart or pervert those ends to any partisan end are traitors to the cause of human liberty for all mankind.

There, pretty simple.

State once, apply to all Nations, equally, without exception, without favor nor fervor.

And make our foreign policy payments favor those Nations that seek greater liberty for their people and who befriend us in this great cause.

All others need to read those five points and understand why they receive no favor, no fervor and no cash or goodies. Plus to be a 'friend' they must actually start to loosen their grip on power and establish equality of justice and uphold unalienable human rights for their population.

Mind you, this would shake up our foreign policy establishment no end, this concept of supporting absolute human rights and not 'social justice' which is all relative and has no real ground to stand upon because of that.

Then America could get into the business of encouraging all tyrants, dictators, despots, etc. to reform their system and themselves so that they are no longer part of the system, and what is left is a system that has equality of application to all members of society.

But then that takes morals and ethics from those we elect to govern us.

No wonder we are in such sorry straights these days.

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