Paving the road to an authoritarian government

Amitai Etzioni provides the description of what is needed to achieve a liberal democratic government.

First, there must be an effective government. Why?

Most importantly, political development can thrive only after basic security is established first.

Government exists first to provide security for the people.

Let me add: As long as the government effectively provides security and stability in the face of apparent strong threats, most people will accept that the cost of government in terms of graft, corruption and injustice can be pretty high, because the absence of security in terms of deadly violence, maiming, and torture is itself extremely expensive. So what if the cop on the beat is corrupt as long as he protects most middle class and especially wealthy people from muggings, robberies and murder?

In his response to Robert Kagan's article Dr. Etzioni describes what elements and institutions - in addition to and after security and stability - are required to achieve a liberal democracy.

Robert Kagan’s argument that “free elections come first” (Washington Post, Oct 28) is based on an elementary logical fallacy: that two negatives make one positive. Kagan shows that sheer economic development does not pave the way to democratization (see China). Furthermore, he demonstrates that the rule of law—by which he means a fair, even handed law, not the one that protects people from violence, terror, and anarchy (see China)—cannot be established in non-democratic nations. However, it does not follow, as he suggests, that free elections per se can produce a liberal democracy.

Democratic history shows that political development must include

• freeing of the press,
  
• the introduction of competitive political parties,
  
• a growing middle class, and
  
• increasing respect for a fair law,
  

in addition to free elections—all of these measures have to be introduced more or less simultaneously, albeit gradually (See the US, Western Europe, and India).

When free elections do come first, as Kagan wishes, we see the election of the representatives of terrorist organizations (e.g., Hamas), unstable governments and failing states (in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan), increasingly authoritarian governments (e.g., Russia ), and the rise of populist movements but not liberal democracy (e.g., Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan).
[I have reformatted Dr. Etzioni's writing with bullet points - Editor WTF-o]

This article is a welcome antidote to the simplistic idea that all you need for democracy is free elections.

Is it becoming clear what the Bush administration did the democracy thing wrong in Iraq after the misbegotten, understaffed, poorly planned and unnecessary invasion? It should be obvious from reading the above quotation.

Democracy is a lot more than just getting voters into a voting booth. If you get frightened voters who do not feel the government is providing security and stability, they will use the power of the vote to elect the candidates who promise the most extreme remedies.

Leaders, be they government leaders or leaders of corporations and private organizations, do not like to be interfered with by overseers. It complicates their job. In politican-speak that means that the overseers won't let the leader "Be efficient." "Being efficient" means that the leader simplifies the situation by ignoring many bad side effects of his actions. Those side effects usually cause more difficulties than the problem the leader was trying to solve. Democracy is an institution that allows all the effected groups to voice their opinions before they get hurt by intemperate and hasty government actions. Those groups who are being damaged by the government actions become opponents of the government.

A government leader who promises the most extreme measured to ensure security and stability will also, by their very nature, use the most extreme measures to eliminated political opposition their rule. Many of those extreme measures include eliminating or censoring press organizations which publicly disagree with them and, if possible, eliminating opposition parties.

This is done by the government in the name of providing safety and security to the nation. What it actually does is eliminate the approved methods of democratic conflict, forcing the opponents to themselves use more extreme measures. The government then responds with even more extreme measures. The downward spiral away from democratic government is obvious. If the voting population is sufficiently frightened and insecure, then the sacrifice of democracy for safety is easy to justify.

Without this mechanism, George W. Bush could have never justified invading Iraq, nor would he have been elected in 2004. Nor could he justify the use of torture, abandoning habeas corpus, abandoning the Rule of Law (which is what the theory of the Unitary Executive does) or conducting warrantless wiretaps on anyone the government decides they want to monitor.

Even with this fear-of-insecurity-and-instability mechanism working for him, Bush has had to resort to operating the government in secret so that the the American voting public does not know what he is doing. He claims that things like torture, warrantless wiretaps, abu Ghraib, or Guantanamo are justified, but refuses to respond to Congressional requests for the documents that purport to be the legal justification for those actions.

Then, to top it all off, Bush has not delivered on the promise to make us more secure. His intemperate, extreme and thoughtless actions have created more enemies for America than they have eliminated. His thoughtless fiscal actions have set America up for the next recession, one which will be a doozy. Bush has also destroyed the effectiveness of our Army and Marine Corps, including the Reserves and National Guard, obviously damaging our national security.

In short, in his ignorance, ineptitude and extremism, Bush promised us greater security, and America had paid the price for his undelivered promises in greater insecurity. Instead of giving us greater security, Bush (and Cheney) have been paving the way for an Authoritarian government in America. But Bush isn't the end of the story.

Rudy Giuliani wants more of the same, just more extreme and less rational. Giuliani is America's answer to Benito Mussolini, another prime example of an extremist politician who took power by promising to provide safety and security to the population.

Mussolini, like Bush and Giuliani, also promised to run a more efficient government - "Make the trains run on time" - and like Bush, he too failed. Giuliani's efficiency can be measured in the effectiveness of the radios the New York Firemen carried into the World Trade Center. The commanders could not communicate with them to recall the firemen before the collapse of the WTC. This was seven years after Giuliani was informed of the problem with the radios and had promised to replace them. Rudy's corrupt dealings with Motorola prevented the replacement of those radios, so over 200 New York firemen died needlessly in the collapse of the WTC.

So do we Americans want to abandon our democracy because some extremists are promising that their extremism will provide us greater security and more efficient government? If so, then vote Republican. But recognize that Bush was elected on that promise, and has failed to deliver. And it's not just Bush. Rudy Giuliani is, if anything, more extreme, more authoritarian and less effective running government than Bush and Cheney have proven to be.

Voting Republican in 2008 is the direct route route to more authoritarian, more corrupt, more expensive, and less effective government.