The Rational Egoist

President Bush delivered a speech in which he stated that the former policy of the U.S. in accepting dictatorships and theocractic regimes in the Middle East is unacceptable.

Bush’s speech appeared aimed at complaints in the Arab world that the United States has long tolerated corrupt, undemocratic regimes in return for stability and a reliable supply of oil. Washington began to rethink its policy after the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001, and the emergence of deep hostility in the Mideast toward the United States. Fifteen of the Sept. 11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia.

“Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe - and in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty,” the president said in a groundbreaking conclusion.

“As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish,” he said, “it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment and violence ready for export. And with the spread of weapons that can bring catastrophic harm to our country and to our friends, it would be reckless to accept the status quo.”

Bush spoke before the National Endowment for Democracy, an organization formed during the Reagan administration to promote global freedom. In another step crucial to his policy in the Middle East, Bush later signed into law an $87.5 billion package for military and reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan

“With this act of Congress, no enemy or friend can doubt that America has the resources and the will to see this war through to victory,” Bush said.

What I love about this speech is that President Bush rejected the foreign policy of the U.S. in the past in tolerating the existence of dictatorships in the Middle East. What I strongly dislike about this speech is 1. the idea that Islam is a religion of peace and is compatible with democracy and 2. that he refers to our system of government as “democracy.”

1. Islam, in its fundamental interpretation, is inherently in contradiction with the principles of freedom and individual rights.
As Edwin A. Locke wrote in his recent op-ed,
Radical Islam’s Assault on Human Life:

First, in Islamic philosophy it is a moral duty and a moral virtue to kill “infidels"—those who do not accept Islam. The Koran is replete with such commandments as: “fight and slay the Pagans wherever you find them . . . those who reject our signs we shall soon cast into the fire . . . those who disbelieve, garments of fire will be cut out for them; boiling fluid will be poured down on their heads . . . as to the deviators, they are the fuel of hell.” This is not to say all Muslims agree with this idea, but the terrorists take these teachings of the Koran seriously and literally. In his “Declaration of War against the Americans,” Osama bin Laden repeatedly cites religious texts in addition to the Koran to justify his holy war. He especially favors martyrdom and boasts that Islamic youths “love death as you [the Americans] love life.”

……..
Second, Islam, unlike Christianity (since the Renaissance and Thomas Aquinas), has no respect for reason as a means of gaining knowledge or guiding actions. Islam advocates total domination of every sphere of life by religion, including the legal system, politics, economics, and family life. The individual is not supposed to think independently but to selflessly subordinate himself to religious dogma. The word “Islam” means literally: submission.

2. The ideal form of government is not a democracy, and we do not live in a democracy.
As I wrote in my 7/24/03 post, Democracy:

Today we hear numerous times that our government wants the rest of the world to enjoy “democracy” as the United States does, and that the system of democracy is the best there is. This representation of the American system of government as “democracy” is inaccurate, and democracy is not an ideal system at all. In fact, a democracy is merely another form of dictatorship.

In the system of democracy, the dictates of a certain majority determine what is right and what is wrong for the government to do. So, the purpose of the government in a democracy is to do anything that the majority (the people) wants them to do. If the majority decided that an individual in their society was “undesirable,” they could vote to have that individual executed, or imprisoned, or punished in some other way. An example of such a society was that of Ancient Greece, where the majority of Greece citizens voted to execute Socrates (considered to be the first major philosophical figure) because he advocated “unpopular” views. Or, the people could vote to enslave a section of society, or slaughter a group of society, any horrible thing they wanted to do as a “majority.”

Therefore, in a democracy, a human being does not have inalienable rights but rather is “provided” with their rights according to the majority, which can be revoked at any time whenever the majority dictates it. This means that, in such a society, you would only have your freedom by permission. You would only have “permission” to live and to pursue your happiness as long as a majority of people will it. Such a democracy is merely another form of dictatorship because there is absolutely no protection of the biggest minority in a society, the individual.

What makes the American system of government distinctly free is the fact that this country is founded on the profound notion that every human being regardless of race, sex, religion, etc., has certain inalienable rights: the right to life, and all of its deriviatives, the right to property, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. (While this notion was not completely recognized by the American government at our foundation, this profound notion was still the philosophical cause for the formation of our government).

This means that the American system of government can not be referred to as a democracy, but rather a constitutional republic. In a constitutional republic, there is an exact constitution which determines the powers of government and how such a government recognizes the inalienable rights of its citizens.

However, in America today, our system of government has become a combination between the dictatorship of a democracy and a free constitutional republic. According to the founding of this country, every individual has the right to their own life, which means, the right to be free from the initiation of force from others and that every individual has the right to take whatever actions they deem necessary by their own independent judgment to be beneficial to their own life as long as they do not violate the rights of others in the process. Today however, while most people still retain the protection of their rights, if people get a large enough group together and pressure their elected representatives, many times they “persuade” their elected representives to push for new laws which violate the rights of some individuals for the benefit of some group. For example, enough poor people get together to form a large enough majority, and then persuade their representatives to violate the rights of certain rich individuals by forcibly taking their money and giving it to the poor people (income taxes). In this example, a certain majority gets together and decides that they want to force certain “undesirables in society” (the rich) to do whatever the majority wills (they will that the rich do not really “need” all that money, so there is no problem in stealing portions of it from them).

The blatant violation of individual rights is not merely limited to the issue of income taxes. There are numerous other issues (and many more pending by more and more groups) which violate and threaten to violate the rights of individuals. These groups believe that a certain end is desirable and thereby attempt to amass a large enough majority in order to force the rest of the country to achieve that end by “persuading” their elected representatives to pass new laws doing so.

In America today, both “the right” and “the left” have accepted the premise that it is right for the government to force individuals to pursue certain ends regardless of whether or not those individuals choose to do so. The only difference between “the right” and “the left” is about in what ways the government should force individuals and violate their rights. The right typically believes that the government should leave individuals free in most economic affairs but should heavily legislate morality (religion, sexuality, abortion, etc.) The left typically believes that the government should leave individuals free in morality but should heavily legislate economic affairs.

The essential characteristic of a dictatorship is a certain group forcing all of its citizens to achieve ends regardless of whether or not the citizens choose to do so or not. Which group is doing the forcing determines what kind of dictatorship it is, but it still remains a dictatorship nonetheless. Therefore, a democracy IS a dictatorship, because in a democracy, the actions of individuals are not determined by the choices of the individuals themselves but rather a certain group, in this case, a majority.

The premise that the government should force individuals to achieve certain ends is the premise of only one kind of society…dictatorship. Fortunately, America has not accepted this premise fully…yet. However, as long as this premise in our society goes unchecked, a dictatorship will ultimately be the result.

Therefore, while Bush’s speech was valuable in that he condemned the past pragmatism of the U.S. government in support Middle Eastern dictatorships, it was flawed in terms of his multiculturalist attitude towards Islam and in his referring to our system of government as a democracy.