On Democracy Worship

"Pharaoh Morsi I...I like the sound of that."

For those of you blissfully unaware, on Thanksgiving Day, Egypt's new "president," Mohammad Morsi, issued several decrees to grant himself vast power over Egypt with virtually no oversight.  Now, under normal circumstances, I would take the next paragraph or two to mock the people who did not see this coming.  Only the willfully ignorant would have missed the signs (for example, Morsi being part of the organization that spawned both Al Qaeda and Hamas).  However, for those who fell for the deception of the "Arab Spring," there is a much more serious issue at hand than a few popular uprisings, which goes right to the core of their way of thinking.

That issue is "democracy worship."

What do I mean when I say that?

An opinion that seems to be very prevalent among liberals is that many of the world's problems would be solved if only it would embrace democracy more.  Hence, they tend to cheer any time a despot is overthrown to pave the way for "free" elections.  The most obvious example of this is the reaction to the "Arab Spring" uprisings, generally lauded by liberals while looked upon with apprehension by conservatives.

So, why was the latter so standoffish about these coups and rebellions while the former embraced them wholeheartedly?  After all, it sounds good when tyrants like Muammar Gaddafi and Hosni Mubarak are overthrown, doesn't it?

Note: He was voted into power.

The thing that large numbers of liberals fail to understand is that democratic (or republican) forms of governance are neither inherently good nor bad.  Truly, no form of government is inherently good or bad.  It largely dependent upon the people placed in charge and the ideologies they carry with them into positions of power.  It is true that totalitarian forms of government are far more likely to result in abusive tyrannies due to the corrupting influence of absolute power.  However, that is the government itself that gets corrupted, not the form of government.

As such, elections, even those that are free and trustworthy, can result in great evil being voted into power.  This proved true in the early 1930s, when the citizens of the Wiemar Republic voted the Nazi party into power, which eventually brought about World War II and the Holocaust.  This proved true in the late 2000s when the people of the Gaza Strip voted Hamas, a terrorist organization, into power, effectively turning the region into a epicenter of terror against Israel.

And now it has proven true in Egypt in 2012, as the people there, in a free election, voted Mohammad Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood into power.

Democracy is not a cure for society's ills.  It is subject to the whims and desires of the people under it.  If those people desire more freedom, they will vote it in.

If they desire more government control over their lives, they will vote that in.

If they desire a theocracy, they will vote that in.

Whatever people desire in democratic forms of government, they will eventually get.

If we truly wish to cure the ills of societies under dictators around the world, then the cultures of those societies must be changed.  The reason the American republic works is not because of the form of government we are under.  It is because we have people living in the republic who understand the importance of being stewards of their freedom.  They are vigilant and protect it from those who would undermine it.

Without that mentality, democracy is just another form of government, subject to be abused by the people in and under it.