| April 02 , 2007 ... Suspect Device. "The
fact that Hamas won a democratic election which was held fairly and
peacefully shows that no one can discount the existence of Hamas,"
Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda.
And the fact that Mafia bosses, for example, do likewise is hardly a ringing endorsement for the validity of democracy with respect to the freedom of the individual as the hallmark of western culture. Democracy and freedom are antithetical concepts and are absolutely not interchangeable, as too many advocates of democracy allied to unlimited government believe. Thus, there can be no moral right to use democracy to destroy freedom. Only when the government is properly limited by the specificities of freedom of a rational and written constitution is there the possibility of freedom under government elected by due democratic process. This is because, if the popular will of the majority, as determined by a democratic process is deemed to be the standard by which freedom is measured, then the individual has no freedom, but merely has temporary privileges to be granted or withdrawn by the majority as is deemed proper for their purposes. Such freedom is no more than the tyranny of an absolute monarch, a dictator, the natural proxy or proxies of a supernatural entity, or the representative or representatives of any philosophy of faith. Genuine freedom--in so much as it can be genuine under government--is always in our interests. Unlimited majority rule is always detrimental to our freedom. To ensure freedom, as we understand it, in Israel and the wider middle east, it is imperative that democracy and the democratic process properly addresses the false concept of moral equivalence that is the seedbed for contemporary terrorism and the misunderstanding about when the outcome of a democratic process is valid, and not a suspect device to undermine freedom. |
