Dear Friends,
It seems to me, to believe that because a group of people are fighting to overthrow a tyrant, they must want to establish a liberal democratic republic, is ignorant. History shows, more often than not, the group trying to overthrow a dictator… simply want to be the dictator. To immediately come to the conclusion, that anyone who fights against a tyrant is a freedom fighter, is at best, merely projection on the part of the speaker. To constantly reach the wrong conclusion, about the motivations of those that rise up to take power, shows ignorance of human nature, or some form of duplicity. The last thing we need in our media, leaders and intelligentsia is more fraudulence. The World is too full of it now.
This is not a new phenomenon. After WWII many Americans, especially those in the halls of academia, were ecstatic that Chiang Kai Shek was overthrown by Mao. They proclaimed that a new day in China was dawning. Indeed it was. Mao ushered in a period of repression, famine, and terror that has few, if any, precedents in human history. His purges murdered millions as did his fabricated political famines. Now the heirs to Mao foist a one child policy on the Chinese people. A policy that has led to the forced abortions of 400 million babies. All while Chiang Kai Shek escaped to Taiwan and established a liberal democracy. The Taiwan republic is a virtual copy of the American Constitutional republican system. The Taiwanese people live under limited government.
When the uprisings in the Arab World started, Obama likened the guy who set himself on fire in Tunisia, to Rosa Parks. Obama supported the nascent rebellions wholeheartedly. (Except the one in Iran). The people went into the streets and protested their oppressors. When that didn’t work in Libya, Obama and the leaders of the European Union, backed up the armed rebellion with air power. Three tyrants were overthrown and democratic elections were implemented. As we all know now, there wasn’t liberal republics established… instead Islamofascists came to power. The Christian communities in those countries are now in great peril as is the Egyptian Israeli peace accord. History repeats again.
When Lenin usurped power he was hailed a man of the people by Western intellectuals. The encyclopedias were filled with glowing stories about the freedom and high standard of living in the USSR. The rights and privileges afforded the people under the Soviet Constitution were expounded on incessantly. The unbiased media proclaimed that the Soviet model was the wave of the future, and that the US should give up our outmoded Constitution, a charter of negative liberties, and replace it with a more forward thinking document… like the Soviet one. Of course, now that the history is open for anyone to see, it is clear that the glowing editorials and encyclopedia entries, were foolishness at best and complicit at worst. Tens of millions murdered in the name of politics, Industrialized famine, and absolute repression were the norms in the former USSR.
To conclude, as a knee jerk reaction, that everyone who fights a tyrant is a freedom fighter, is to show absolute ignorance of history and the human condition. Such ignorance is not becoming of a leader. It demonstrates a lack of wisdom of a leader who is so easily swayed by pretty baubles. People who have such leaders are at sea, with a fool at the rudder… subject to any shoal that comes along.
Unfortunately we are burdened with such leaders in the West. They call everyone who rises up against a dictator, a freedom fighter, and when their predictions are proven wrong, they ignore the facts and make the same mistake again. Look at their reaction to the uprisings in Syria.
The defenders of our Constitution, opine how the “new democracies” should ignore the American Constitutional model, and instead, take the path of China or South Africa. They love the fact that in China only one person makes all the decisions. How efficient they exclaim! Look at the glistening airports and high speed rail! Behold the rapid economic growth of the State controlled economy. Look at the efficiency of the socialist model… Forget the history of it… or the reality. The ignorance, or fraudulence, of our leaders is boundless! The unbiased media remain silent about history, and reality… hoping we will forget the past and present folly of our leaders. Yet we forget at our peril.
To call our leaders fools is to be generous to them. For, if they are not fools, they are duplicitous and cannot be trusted. If they, in fact, seek more violence, want, and repression in the World, then they are evil. To be evil disqualifies anyone from being a leader of men. It is self evident in that such a leader will only visit calamity on his or her people… and the World. God knows, we have had enough of that.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
