I regret not being able to see into the future, as it would be fascinating to see how these forces affect man’s progress. Recent problems with imported foods, for example, seemed to point to the diminishing power of our government to oversee our food supply.
I wonder what other powers will be eroded.

The right to vote in the ME seems to be just a power struggle deciding who will make the rules. Those elected to power seem willing to jettison the very bases of democracy in favor of a one party or one power rule.

The old countries of the West appear to be the only ones struggling with the pros and cons of democracy in the classic sense, but their power to influence seems to be on the wane.

Any other crystal gazers out there?

Callimachus: I’ll take a stab at answering your question. Both ’sides’ of our domestic political spectrum have tended to define themselves as ‘not the other guys’ for quite some time now rather than defining their philosophy. This has caused one party to morph toward the philosophy of the other, and then in reaction the other becomes more like the first. So no longer are we really defined as conservatives and liberals according to the correct definitions; the labels have come to mean little more than sports team names.

It’s a policy you make with your heart more than your head. It’s often based more on our sense of our responsibilities than on what other peoples may really need, or want (not necessarily the same thing). Ideally, they run together. Often they don’t.

It has messy consequences. All liberating movements do to some degree. It has confidence in the indigenous force of people to run their lives, even if it takes decades and many bloody wrong turns.

Ideally, in Iraq, we went to facilitate something, not to force it. Democratic forces have flowered under protective occupations before. America had a rare chance to make its mistakes behind the oceans, without predatory neighbors. Ideally, a light and benevolent occupation functions as the same sort of protective force in lands less favored by geography.

As someone said back at the beginning of the operation, before Iraq began its present slow downward course, “America ‘occupies’ Iraq like a cast occupies a broken leg.”

The phrase “neo-con” describes the specific evolution of certain founders of the modern movement, not the nature of the movement.

I am not such a great fan of untrammeled democracy. Neither were the ancient political philosophers, nor most of the founders of the U.S., who deliberately built us a “mixed government” constitution, which we have been deliberately tearing apart ever since. But that movement toward pure democracy is, again, classically American-liberal.

Among the other acknowledged children of Wilsonian idealism, besides Iraq today, is the United Nations. A true conservative will have serious reservations about both, I would imagine.

But flip your question: If the sober and thinking opposition to the Iraq experiment is essentially conservative and pessimistic, why does it call itself liberal?

Anyway have a page just on this topic on my blog here for anyone interested.

http://tinyurl.com/3dw3cd

“you can foster changes that are already below the surface or in transition, but you cannot force a society to change its bedrock values because they are not the same as yours.”

Democracy is a point in social evolution, other elements need to be in place before democracy can exist, such as an openness to divergent thinking, a basic premise of equity, and freedom of expression.

Furthermore, this has to be an evolution that is in context to a respective culture; it must come from within. A Muslim preaching democracy to Muslims, for example, will allow the masses to focus on the higher truth being conveyed and won’t be perceived as an act of outside force, which naturally meets resistance. People resist change and mistrust what they do not understand. There has to be a conviction and buy-in to change for true social evolution, or true democracy, to occur.

Plus you can still strike a balance between social evolution and culture, but even that, as you pointed out, needs to occur over time like any maturation process- not unlike
the concept of change management and organizational development in a corporate setting.