I followed a link from one of Justin Raimondo's columns on antiwar.com to a radio interview he did in mid-November 2002 with Barry Farber.  Farber is a "conservative" of the school that says that whatever the U.S. has done, or will ever do, anywhere in the world, Is A Good Thing.  Including, of course, taking out Iraq.  An interesting conversation follows, and Raimondo presents himself well, during those brief moments when Farber allows himself a break from the pleasure of listening to his own voice (he does in fact have a pleasant, folksy style, even when he's stridently disagreeing with his guest).

Farber is outraged at Raimondo's statement in a Mother Jones article, "I cannot speak for 'the left,' but I can speak for many libertarians and conservatives who hate the thought of this rotten war: What we're for is a policy of non-interventionism, which will leave the Saddam Husseins and the Ariel Sharons to stew in their own juices, and leave us well out of it."  Farber says something like, "How DARE you compare Saddam Hussein to Ariel Sharon, when Sharon heads the only democracy in the region?"  Again and again, he uses the word "democracy" as if it bestowed magic qualities of goodness upon a country and answered all criticisms of that country's policies.

Mr. Farber is wrong.  Democracy is worthless as a predictor of good and bad government policies.

In fact, democracy can spawn some of the worst abuses of government.  In its purest form, it is mob rule.  Look at the crucifixion of Jesus, for example.  Pontius Pilate knew that Jesus was not guilty of the trumped-up charges against him, and tried his best to use a traditional loophole to save his life.  The people assembled to witness judgment could pick one man among the condemned to spare, and Pilate urged them to spare Jesus.  Whipped up by the demagogues of the day, and perhaps less interested in justice than comfortable companions, they picked the thief Barabbas instead.  When Pilate protested that Jesus was innocent, the crowd screamed, "Crucify him!" until Pilate feared for his own life.  And so it was that the Will of the Majority was brought to pass, as it has so many other times, resulting in the murder of an innocent.

Democracy also promotes sucking at the public teat more than any other form of government.  The ultimate fate of a democratic country may be that 51% of the populace votes to require the other 49% to support them in the manner to which they will become accustomed.  It's a looting game, pure and simple.  Need an example?  The United States of America, January 2003.  There are Professional Victims and Professional Victim Advocates everywhere.  If you're working, and haven't figured out how to fly under the radar of the IRS, you're paying close to 50% of your earnings for taxes at every level, a huge majority of which supports parasites of various stripes.  

It gets worse.  We should never forget that Hitler came to power, and did everything he did, under a democratic form of government.  People voted, in effect, to say, "The Jews are the problem.  Take care of the problem."  Mass murder was the Will of the People, and their will was done.

Today, the Middle East's only democracy, ironically composed largely of survivors and descendants of Nazi Germany's horrors, seems hell-bent on rivaling Hitler's record of brutality, conquest, and murder.  In electing and re-electing the war criminal, Ariel Sharon, the voters are, in effect, saying, "The Palestinians are the problem.  Take care of the problem."

And then we've got that acme of democracies, the United States of America, which, under Emperor W, is set to rampage around the world brandishing nuclear weapons, stepping on anyone W personally dislikes, or who might provide a convenient smokescreen for his failure to find Osama, as part of a strategy designed to get him re-elected in 2004.  Something just like his Daddy did (only better, since George the First lost in '92, in spite of Gulf War I and its slaughter of 100,000 people).  It's a game played by cynical career politicians, who use others' blood to build their own fantasy worlds, while pandering to the ignorant, but voting, public.

It is way past time to end the glorification of the 'D' word.

What is needed in society is not democracy, but respect.  Respect, first and foremost, for one's own individual sovereignty.  That's actually the hardest step, isn't it?  Freedom and self-responsibility are inextricably linked, and it's frightening to think of being left without the protective cocoon of government.  Until, that is, we wake up and realize that the cocoon is a tissue of lies, and that government is a slave-master, not a protector.

The mirror of respect for oneself is respect for the natural sovereignty of others.  Yes, even "undesirables," such as cocaine users, if you happen to hate cocaine users.  And people with strange-sounding religions.  And people who receive visitors whose looks you don't much care for.  Everyone, in fact, who is not actively trespassing upon your property or your person.  Again frightening, eh?

And yet this is actually the least frightening way to live.  The world shines back to us the spirit with which we approach it.  Surely we are best off, unless someone proves himself a criminal, to approach all our neighbors with a spirit of peace and honest trade.  The alternatives are self-fulfilling prophecies of war and death and injustice and theft.  And the certainty of constant fear.

Democracy has nothing to do with how to live one's life, or how to act toward others.  I shop at the grocery store I choose, not one that a majority has imposed upon everyone.  I earn money by offering my services to a willing employer, not by being elected by a majority to a position where my salary is assured.  I ponder the question of what to put into my own body without asking a majority of my neighbors for permission.  And I expect that my neighbors will make their own decisions on these and thousands of other questions relevant to their own lives.

To the extent that governments are legitimate at all, and not just another set of mafiosi with official uniforms, they exist only for the purpose of responding to perpetrators of force and fraud.  At best, democracy is tangential to this charter.  At worst, it provides a veneer of quasi-legitimacy to brutality, and therefore actually works against prosperity, health, and freedom.

Barry Farber, heal thyself!  Stop bandying the word "democracy" about as if it meant justice.  It does not.