WE ARE LIVING IN A REVOLUTIONARY AGE

But the revolutions are not the Leftist type, fortunately

"We are living in a revolutionary age, that started more than a quarter century ago in Spain after the death of Generalissimo Francisco Franco. At that time, hardly anyone believed it possible to go from dictatorship to democracy without great violence, and most Spaniards feared that the terrible civil war of the 1930s - which ended when Franco seized power and installed a military dictatorship - would begin anew. Instead, thanks to a remarkable generation of political leaders, some savvy priests, and the grossly underrated King Juan Carlos, Spain passed smoothly and gracefully into democracy.

It was the beginning of the Age of the Second Democratic Revolution. Spain inspired Portugal, and the second Iberian dictatorship gave way to democracy. Spain and Portugal inspired all of Latin America, and by the time Ronald Reagan left office there were only two unelected governments south of the Rio Grande: Cuba and Surinam. These successful revolutions inspired the Soviet satellites, and then the Soviet Union itself, and the global democratic revolution reached into Africa and Asia, even threatening the tyrants in Beijing.

The United States played a largely positive role in almost all these revolutions, thanks to a visionary president - Ronald Reagan - and a generation of other revolutionary leaders in the West: Walesa, Havel, Thatcher, John Paul II, Bukovsky, Sharansky, among others.

During the Reagan years, the revolution began on the periphery of the major conflict, in Iberia. Following 9/11, the revolution was brought violently to the periphery of the Middle East, in Afghanistan. It swept through Iraq, taking time to liberate Ukraine (against whose independence Bush the Elder spoke so shamefully), and now threatens Syrian hegemony over Lebanon, if not the Syrian regime itself, and has forced the Egyptian and Saudi regimes to at least a pretense of democratic change....

Our most lethal weapon against the tyrants is freedom, and it is now spreading on the wings of democratic revolution. It would be tragic if we backed off now, when revolution is gathering momentum for a glorious victory. We must be unyielding in our demand that the peoples of the Middle East design their own polities, and elect their own leaders. The first step, as it has been in both Afghanistan and Iraq, is a national referendum to choose the form of government. In Iran, the people should be asked if they want an Islamic republic. In Syria, if they want a Baathist state. In Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Libya, if they want more of the same. We should not be deterred by the cynics who warn that freedom will make things worse, because the ignorant masses will opt for the fantasmagorical caliphate of the increasingly irrelevant Osama bin Laden. Mubarak and Qadaffi and Assad and Khamenei are arresting democrats, not Islamists, and the women of Saudi Arabia are not likely to demand to remain shrouded for the rest of their lives.

Faster, please. The self-proclaimed experts have been wrong for generations. This is a revolutionary moment. Go for it".

More here

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ELSEWHERE

The recent multiple signs of democratic change in the Middle East and the emphatically pro-American revolution in Ukraine have now got a lot of Leftists really on edge. They are having to face the possibility that the man they call "Chimpy" may in fact be one of the great American Presidents. As someone who has never wavered on the rightness of the Iraq intervention and as one who cheered GWB's re-election, I think I am entitled to membership of the "I told you so" brigade. Here is a small excerpt from a grudging admission in The Guardian: "This leaves opponents of the Iraq war in a tricky position, even if the PM is not about to rub our faces in the fact. Not only did we set our face against a military adventure which seems, even if indirectly, to have triggered a series of potentially welcome side effects; we also stood against the wider world-view that George Bush represented. What should we say now? First, we ought to admit that the dark cloud of the Iraq war may have carried a silver lining.... But we should be big enough to concede that it could yet have at least one good outcome. Second, we have to say that the call for freedom throughout the Arab and Muslim world is a sound and just one - even if it is a Bush slogan"

Thousands Cheer Guard Unit's Return Home : "As Staff Sgt. Nicholas Rose cradled his 3-month-old son against a late-winter chill Tuesday, his thoughts drifted back to the sometimes deadly missions his unit endured during a year in the deserts of Iraq. "It's great to be back. I just wish everybody was back with us," the 26-year-old said after the Army National Guard unit received a hero's welcome that drew about 5,000 people to this small southeastern Illinois city near the Indiana border.... Delivering supplies and mail around Baghdad, the 160-member unit drew more than 100 mortar attacks and came under enemy fire 60 times, sustaining injuries that earned 32 Purple Hearts, said company commander Brandon Tackett. Crowds stood up to 10-deep along flag-lined streets as three charter buses dropped off soldiers for the long-awaited homecoming. In desert camouflage, guardsmen paraded past pole-mounted signs bearing their names as people cheered and cameras clicked. Two fire department ladder trucks draped a massive flag across Main Street. "They told us to expect a crowd, but I didn't expect anything like this," said Lt. John Harvey, 26. "It's overwhelming."

Constitution killers: "The Supreme Court's judicial activists are cutting off the branch on which they sit. By rejecting the law and putting their personal opinions in its place, the justices invite the people to imitate them and disregard their decrees with the same willfulness they disregard the Constitution. If Anthony Kennedy isn't bound by the framers' words, why are the people bound by his? The authority of Supreme Court justices derives from the authority of the Constitution: once they deny its authority, they deny their own. The Roper v. Simmons decision is a stunningly stark illustration of this despotism that masquerades as jurisprudence."

Interested Participant notes some whining about being ignored from the Canadian ambassador. Since Mr Ambassador does not seem to know the difference between imprecations and implications, perhaps his being ignored is inevitable.

I have recently received an interesting email about the nature of Leftism which I have posted here

Carnival of the Vanities is up again with much to read.

My latest posting on MarxWords notes Marx's contempt for democracy. My latest posting on "A scripture blog" discusses the book of Ecclesiastes.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

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