The article is, indeed, excellent - but it only lays the foundation, failing to follow founding notions laid within to their logical conclusion.
Why is it, when we've made numerous attempts since the Second World War to export our unique brand of democracy-drive republicanism abroad - that it has failed with such regularity outside of its natural habitat?
Vengeance. High stakes. Transition of Power. Fanatics/True Believers.
Wolf comes close with this paragraph:
The fact that we are at this point in America should be chilling indeed. America is founded upon Enlightenment ideals. It is those ideals - tolerance of dissent, objective truth, reason, democracy - that have allowed our nation to prosper and to do so peacefully for nearly one hundred and fifty years since the end of our civil war. But clearly, those Enlightenment ideals have no hold over the far, post-modern left. Indeed, the far left seem far more animated by Josef Stalin than John Locke.But doesn't quite bring it home.
Our special form of a democracy-driven republic is founded on the peaceful transition of power from one administration or office-holder to the next.
We can believe that all our office holders are such noble, saintly, and self-sacrificing sorts that they will peacefully leave office to face tribunals for political crimes and acts of state, the persecution of their families and friends, and face a barely-disguised pseudo-rational inquisition.
Or we can believe they are human.
And assume that, at most, such a thing can occur just about once in any given nation before folks catch on and decide that they will employ every means at hand to stay in office perpetually in order to evade the wrathful vengeance of their foes, cloaked behind an imitation of investigation and blessed by a kangaroo court.
Look at Africa, or South America.
Probably one of the bravest and most self-sacrificing acts I've seen on the political stage in my life, that I only came to appreciate years later, was Ford's pardon of Nixon. With that one act, he effectively ended his political career and pulled our nation back from the brink.
Our system works, as clumsily and fumblingly as it does, as long as the stakes are low enough when it comes time to hand over the reigns of power. We vote (with greater or lesser amounts of fraud), our pundits (print, electronic, or net - depending on the era) either celebrate or throw hissy fits, hand over the reigns of power, and then wait the requisite number of years (depending on the office) and try again.
When the whole "hand over the reigns of power" piece becomes to dangerous to the office-holder, it all falls apart. That, my friends, is what the DNC, Barack Hussein Obama*, and their followers on the left propose to meddle with...and the logical completion of Wolf's insight.
Worry is appropriate.
*Barack Hussein Obama's full name is used here for a variety of reasons. It seems to get the collective panties of the DNC and their fellow travelers all balled up in a capsicum-marinated knot (a worthwhile goal in and of itself) ; so many have made so much of how it's "not nice and not Politically Correct to use the middle name of Barack Hussein Obama (and PC just annoys the crap out of me, bringing out my mischievous side); and if someone is dumb enough to vote against Barack Hussein Obama because they were exposed to his dread middle name - I'm willing to take it in an electoral situation this foul. As for the other? They desperately need their chain yanked - frequently.
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