Another reason democracy is not a panacea... or even a prescription

Palestinian PM, Cabinet Resigns After Hamas Victory

Don't know much about Hamas? Here's a documented introduction. But really, everything you need to know about Hamas can be distilled into this:

The Hamas Covenant, written in 1988, declares: "There is no other solution for the Palestinian problem other than jihad [holy war]. All the initiatives and international conferences are a waste of time and a futile game."

Now this organization is in control of the destiny of the Palestinian people.

But wait - not so fast. Fatah is the group previously charged with power in the Palestinian Authority. And what is Fatah? This is best answered by these words:

Fatah was "never different from Hamas," said PLO political chief Farouq Al-Qaddoumi on January 3, 2003. "Strategically, we are no different from it."

Here's a decent analysis (from an Israeli POV) of the leadership situation in the Palestinian land - and precisely to my point that Democracy itself is not the answer to this problem. The author wrote this in Mid 2002:

What the Muslim world needs is not democracy, at least not yet, but a group of leaders - politicians and intellectuals - who will do nothing less than transform the culture. Simply replacing the current leadership is not enough - when Arafat, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, or any of the other despots in the region die, the problem will not automatically die with them - which is why President Bush did not merely call for a new leadership, but also for a different one.

Here you have probably the meat in this democratic Happy Meal, courtesy of one of my favorite orgs, the Future of Freedom Foundation:

... it would be wrong to mistake the sprouting of democratic procedures with liberalism, the philosophy of individual freedom, private property, and the rule of law. They are not the same, and thinking they are has done a good deal of mischief. Many thinkers over the millennia have taken pains to distinguish democracy from freedom. In F.A. Hayek’s third volume of Law, Legislation, and Liberty, we find this passage from Aristotle’s Politics:

Where laws are not sovereign ... since the many are sovereign not as individuals but collectively ... such a democracy is not a constitution at all.

Aristotle recognized that constitutions in an important sense are undemocratic, if by “democracy” we mean “the untrammeled authority of the majority.” When the U.S. Constitution enumerates a finite set of congressional powers or the First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law ...” they impose limits on what “the people” collectively may do. By doing so, they protect the people — individually.

This is from a piece entitled "Democracy, But Not Necessarily Freedom", which I heartily suggest a worldwide read.

And just a reminder to those who believe we live in the United States in a democracy:

The distinction between our Republic and a democracy is not an idle one. It has great legal significance.

The Constitution guarantees to every state a Republican form of government (Art. 4, Sec. 4). No state may join the United States unless it is a Republic. Our Republic is one dedicated to "liberty and justice for all." Minority individual rights are the priority. The people have natural rights instead of civil rights. The people are protected by the Bill of Rights from the majority. One vote in a jury can stop all of the majority from depriving any one of the people of his rights; this would not be so if the United States were a democracy. (see People's rights vs Citizens' rights)

In a pure democracy 51 beats 49[%]. In a democracy there is no such thing as a significant minority: there are no minority rights except civil rights (privileges) granted by a condescending majority. Only five of the U.S. Constitution's first ten amendments apply to Citizens of the United States. Simply stated, a democracy is a dictatorship of the majority. Socrates was executed by a democracy: though he harmed no one, the majority found him intolerable.