Democracy comes from within

Years ago, I told my Bushie friends that you can't impose democracy on another nation at the end of a gun, it has to come from within.  But, Bush went ahead and tried to impose something like democracy on Iraq with pretty mixed results.  One despot was removed, but with tens of thousands dead and in it's wake a nearly failed state, with constant terrorism and foreign nations still with troops on the ground to maintain this imposed "democracy".

Turn to 2011 and people rising up in Tunisia and  Egypt and now Bahrain and Libya and protests in other places as well.  Why are we seeing this now instead of immediately after the fall of Saddam?  Because you can't impose democracy on other nations, and when it comes from within like all successful democracy movements others under the thumb of despots are emboldened to change their situations as well.  So, they take to the streets when they see the power of people in neighboring nations, NOT when they see the power of the United States military.  They know that democracy isn't granted by the weapons of Western nations, they know it comes from themselves.  It is only THE PEOPLE who can change their own government.  They learned from the US Revolution, the French revolution, from Gandhi who demanded change for themselves and made it happen.

I hope that the spirit of democracy continues through the world and extends to other places.  I hope that the military leadership supports that spirit, but I'm not confident that we'll see exact repeats of how the Egyptian military responded and we're already seeing  a different response in Libya and Bahrain.  I hope the Egyptian military supports more democracy and we can't get pissed off if democracy leads to Islamic leadership (they're Muslims after all who else would they elect???), but military leadership of countries doesn't have the best track record for non-oppression.  Hopefully the Egyptian military returns power to civilians and that government is interested in serving the best interests of the people and not simply enriching themselves.

Best of Luck to everyone fighting for democracy around the world

Some more truth about the Reagan Mythology

Now that the Right has conceded that Reagan had nothing to do with the fall of USSR and that it was the Soviet Space program that was responsible while Reagan was still a B-movie actor, SAG president and host of a TV show, here some forgotten reality about his "small government, fiscal responsibility" silliness.

http://www.salon.com/technology/how_the_world_works/2011/02/04/david_stockman_and_ronald_reagan/index.html

From David Stockman- Reagan's 1st Budget Director:

The Reagan Revolution was a Lincoln Day Dinner speech. It never happened in the real world of fiscal policy. During the 1980's, Big Government got bigger and the Federal tax burden was just shuffled, not reduced. The main fiscal legacy of the Reagan era is that the Federal debt was raised from $1 trillion to $3 trillion. Unfortunately, when the economy rebounded after Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker's conquest of runaway inflation, Republicans embraced the dangerous shibboleth that deficit-financed tax cuts are good for growth.

The reason spending went up is that there was no reform of the big entitlements like Social Security and Medicare and not a single department or function of government was eliminated.... Further, many of the initial cuts in discretionary programs were restored over the years, and the cost of interest on the ballooning Federal debt rose significantly.

The tax burden rose during the Reagan era as well. Specifically, when Reagan left office Federal taxes accounted for 18.4 percent of GDP -- a figure slightly higher than the 1960-80 average of 18.0 percent. More importantly, nearly half of the massive 1981 tax reduction -- festooned as it was with every manner of special interest tax breaks that K-Street lobbyists could conjure -- was recouped during the next four years in a series of annual deficit reduction bills that a bi-partisan majority was able to persuade the President to sign.

At the end of the day, during the 1980s income tax rates were lowered, the tax base was broadened through loop-hole closing and the 1986 tax reform act and the payroll tax was raised by a full percentage point of GDP as part of the 1982 Social Security rescue plan. On net, however, there was no reduction in the total Federal tax burden during the Reagan era. What survived was an anti-tax religious catechism which has left the country with two free lunch parties and no prospect of responsible fiscal governance.