Oh, Democracy! Don't play so hard to get, you vixen!

In 1776 a bunch of dudes got together in Philly and--PRESTO!--democracy reigned and today I have a blog and all is well with the world. Now in Iraq the same thing is about to happen. Man I feel all squishy inside about it, like watching a puppy rest his head in the lap of Santa Claus on Valentine's Day. It's a good thing that we are out in the world spreading the democracy and the freedom, just like the Founders would want us to do.

Sadly...

I read a history book and now I feel bad because none of the above is true. You see, the American Colonies in the 18th century were, by some wonderful accident of history, host to an incredible collection of geniuses and statesmen, often both incarnate in the same individual. Let's run down the list: Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, Adams (both of them), and it goes on. Hell, Cheif Justice Marshall gave us judicial review not long after the founding. It's like Augustan Rome, or the medieval Caliphate in Spain--some particular place and period becomes an axis for the rest of the world for a time. But just like Augustan Rome and Al-Andalus, Revolutionary America wasn't merely a date, but it is an ongoing era (one that may be ending, but that is another story). The point is that Revolutionary America contained a population as prone to democratic self rule as any in history and it was still a tough row to hoe.

So back to Iraq. The President has compared the, ahem, difficulties in establishing an Iraqi democracy--I think it will end up a fascist theocracy, but whatever--to the birth pains of this country. After all, it took years to sort out the path of America from the 1770's to the adoption of the Bill of Rights in 1791. But if Iraq really does track to the birth of American democracy I say we should have a functioning Iraqi democracy sometime in the late 22nd century. Right after the massive Civil War that redefines martial brutality. You see we didn't stop the enslavement of a fifth of Americans until the end of the first century of freedom. And the campaigns of genocide against the earliest inhabitants stopped sometime around the First World War...but we haven't begun to try to turn that around until the last 30 years, and not yet in earnest. The birth of self rule and freedom finally extended to the neglected half of the population a mere 144 years after we understood that all MEN are created equal (just not girls until 1920 because 'ginas make you bad vote-casters). Oh, and all other minorites were effectively given full citizenship about 40 years ago.

So congratualtions Iraq, welcome to the family of nations whose promise of democracy only extends to the upper classes of the dominant ethno-religious group, or at least the males of that group anyway. Better hurry up, full democracy is only 200 years off! Maybe. We hope.

Thank God we went into Iraq, after all we only wrote our Constitution after the Frech occupied us and selected the first government of the US. What? We threw off our occupiers once the random violence we inflicted in nonconventional warfare was more than their empire was willing to tollerate and could barely convince the French to even send us aid, and still we turned into oppressors ourselves? And yet the President promises a new birth of freedom in the Middle East in the near yerm? Oh, bother!