Natan Sharansky's "The Case for Democracy": The Book Behind the State of the Union Ad

[*******]

Natan Sharansky's "The Case for Democracy": The Book Behind the State of the Union Ad

Natan Sharansky's "The Case for Democracy": The Book Behind the State of the Union Address
David Horowitz
Friday, Feb. 4, 2005

[exerpts]

Sharansky's theme is simple, which is part of the beauty of this book. There are "fear societies" and "free societies." A free society is one in which a citizen can go into the public square and say what's on his mind without fear of being imprisoned or killed. A free society is one in which the interests of the leaders are tied to the interests of the people.

Sharansky's revolutionary idea – democracy first, then peace will follow – is now the policy of the United States. Read this book.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/2/3/143003.shtml

 

[*******]

I have heard Mr. Sharansky interviewed. One story I like was how he described being imprisoned and the nature of freedom. He could tell jokes about the leadership to the guards and laugh while they could not even when they found the joke funny. That made him realize that he was freer than the guard. What more could the state do to him?

 

[NonSexWithHer]

Do you think Bush is more in favor of this "free society" in America than previous presidents?

 

[*******]

I just read your other thread and first you're going to have to convince me that you want to have a discussion, just not partisan slander...

I'm not in the mood for LT-ian antics this morning.

I want to have fun.

It's Saturday!

 

[NonSexWithHer]

I just read your other thread and first you're going to have to convince me that you want to have a discussion, just not partisan slander...

I'm not in the mood for LT-ian antics this morning.

I want to have fun.

It's Saturday!

I've been a registered Republican since I was 18. So yeah, I'm partisan.

Now talk motherfucker.

 

[Morwen]

Re: Natan Sharansky's "The Case for Democracy": The Book Behind the State of the Unio

Sharansky's theme is simple, which is part of the beauty of this book. There are "fear societies" and "free societies." A free society is one in which a citizen can go into the public square and say what's on his mind without fear of being imprisoned or killed. A free society is one in which the interests of the leaders are tied to the interests of the people.

Mr. Sharansky's theme is fundamentally flawed. There are "fear" societies and there are "free" societies (I am fixing your egregious misquoting).

Name one capitalist democracy that is not exploiting half a dozen third world oligarchies for natural resources. And when you say "Iceland" you kind of prove that point that okay maybe Iceland isn't stealing most of the world's resources but everyone else is.

"A free society is one in which the interests of the leaders are tied to the interests of the people."

An empire is one in which the interests of the leaders are tied to the interests of the people. Bread and circuses.

Random, poorly-conceived grandiose statements an argument do not make.

 

[*******]

I think time will tell.

For example, with elections in Palestine and Iraq over, will the violence subside?

The Mideast is holding a summit next week featuring the main players in the conflict with the US playing a "minimal" role (observing mainly) even while Condi is in the region. So as these societies become freer, will the violence subside. I am betting it will, I think it already has.

Another great under-reported story was the small town just south of Baghdad. Prior to the elections, the thugs came into town and threatened everyone who voted with death. The people still voted. When the insurgents came to exact their retubution, the locals used some of those weapons that "Bush failed to secure" and killed five of the fawkers and wounded eight others.

And then we look to the societies which most oppose us, Iran, North Korea, China, Russia, France (because of their proclivity to vote Socialist and Communist) and would take up arms against us and we see, the don't have free, or at best, nominally free, but fear societies. Everyone in France and Russia scared to death that government won't provide for their livlihoods, medical, and retirement benefits.

 

[*******]

I'm sorry Non, I had you confused with another poster...

Newbies tend to look all alike.

tee hee
tee hee

Do you agree that a government powerful enough to give can also take and doesn't that create an economic fear in it's "free" citizen?

 

[Morwen]

I think time will tell.

For example, with elections in Palestine and Iraq over, will the violence subside?

This is delusional, oversimplified geopolitics, served up Rush Limbaugh style.

You touch on so many issues, lash out blindly and emotionally in so many directions, it is hard to kind of clamp down on all of them. But I will try.

Any Mideast summit held next week is irrelevant. Not a single one of those countries is "Free" or "democratic" and when will they ever be? The U.S. financially supports blatantly non-democratic regimes such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf States. We also support them militarily.

We give billions of dollars every year to Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islamic fundamentalism and the home country of the 9/11 hijackers. But their government does what we tell them to do, so they are not invaded. Instead Iraq, which had not a thing to do with 9/11, is.

Oh so it's all about Weapons of Mass Destruction -- in other words nukes. Iraq never even got close to building nuclear weapons. Pakistan, our "ally in the war against terrorism" has them already, and has been actively exporting them to every other third world dictatorship willing to pay.

If our government really cared about protecting us from terrorist nuclear weapons we would be carpet-bombing Saudi Arabia and Pakistan into the fucking Stone Ages right now, then invading them and "givng them democracy." Because that's what we are doing to Iraq, right?

Tool is you.

 

[NonSexWithHer]

I'm sorry Non, I had you confused with another poster...

Newbies tend to look all alike.

tee hee
tee hee

Do you agree that a government powerful enough to give can also take and doesn't that create an economic fear in it's "free" citizen?

You didn't answer the question I posed. I guess that's your thing.

I can't support Bush because he doesn't believe in a "free society" in America, let alone in other countries. I can't imagine protestors not going on some sort of list available to Homeland Security.

Republicans everywhere should be ready to take back our name. This isn't what we asked for or what our party has stood for in the past. We've never been a group of lock-step Christians or fiscal free spenders. This administration is no more Republican than Clinton was a virgin.

 

[*******]

Quit telling me I am too stupid to understand the geopolitical layout of the world and that you are smart enough to 'splain it to me.

Don't tell me I am regurgitating Limbaugh.

No, as I am pointing out, at that summit you have nations that WISH to become free societies because they have grown weary of the violence. They "get" it just like Momar finally "got" it just like the Chinese adding evil "Capitalists" to the parade of heros. They "get" free markets. Once their people "get" a taste of that freedom, they're going to want more.

In ten years, they may be freer than increasingly nominally Democratic Russia.

You do not attack Saudi Arabia because of Mecca and Medina.

We were not even militarily involved in that region until Saddam threeated to do just that and we were invited into Saudi Arabia.

Read Clancy's "Every Man a Tiger" which recounts the logistics required in defending the Holy Land from the Ba'athist infidel.

 

[*******]

Hey Non, I vote Libertarian or Constitution Party.

I did vote for Bush this time because I knew he would do things and not just talk about them like the way Clinton called for the very samed SS Security reforms in his STO address and got a standing "O" from the Dems who booed when Bush proposed it...

 

[*******]

PS - I never once heard Clinton claim to be a virgin...

 

[*******]

And as a conservative athiest, I fear the Liberals more than the Christians because the Christians are way more tolorant...



Liberals like to ban speech that offends them.

 

[NonSexWithHer]

Hey Non, I vote Libertarian or Constitution Party.

I did vote for Bush this time because I knew he would do things and not just talk about them like the way Clinton called for the very samed SS Security reforms in his STO address and got a standing "O" from the Dems who booed when Bush proposed it...

You're a Libertarian and you voted for Bush? That's insane.

We all have to pick our battles I guess.

Mine tend to be for state and local control over federal control of government money. I find that we spend less and have a better idea of what to do with it that way.

 

[Morwen]

Originally posted by ******* Read Clancy's "Every Man a Tiger" which recounts the logistics required in defending the Holy Land from the Ba'athist infidel. [/B]

What are you basing this on? How do you propose to generalize all peoples around the world? Is every historical, religious, and ethnic conflict in the world so easily broken down to your simplistic tautologies?

You refer to Libya's dictator, and his "coming around." What the fuck else could he do, and stay in power? Unlike some of these other countries, he's ruling a lightly populated desert kingdom within spitting distance of Europe. And his own failed multiculturalist policies have nearly ruined his country. Qadafi doesn't mean anything, he is the equivalent of the dictator of Baja California.

I'm not even going to talk to you about Russia since you're an idiot.

 

[*******]

No. The Libertarian candidate was an isolationist at the time the world needs us the most, so I voted against him and Kerry. I admire the way Bush stepped up to the plate after 9-11 and the way he weathered all the hate and stayed above it. I understand that standing up to Iraq was about standing up to the UN. I "get" it.

I think he deserved a second term based on his economic reforms alone and want much, much more of the same.

I want to sic him on the Judiciary too...

 

[RobDownSouth]

Liberals like to ban speech that offends them.

Had to go to the Bag o'Cliches early this morning, eh, AJ?

Looks like people ain't buying the lies you're peddling today.

You keep taking shots to the head like this and the ref is gonna stop the fight pretty soon.

 

[RobDownSouth]

... I voted against ... Kerry. I admire ... Bush ....and .. all the hate. I understand that .... I "get" it.

I ... want much, much more of the same.

Reader's Digest version of AJ.

 

[*******]

Morwen. Peaceful, free people simply don't attack their neighbors short of economically. When people are free economically, socially, and democratically, they have a chance to become vested in their society and hence hence a stake in every outcome. Nobody vested in a prosperous society wishes violence.

Another annecdote to highlight this. A mayor of one of the towns told a reporter that this election would change Iraq. His logic? Because women are voting and involved and no mother wants to see her child grow up to be a suicide bomber.

Most of the tension we see, as you obliquely point out, is that we are being attacked by the have-nots of some of the richest places on the face of the earth becasue they are in "fear" societies. You can't call them traditional anymore because traditionally they were as poor as fleas on a dawg...

Those places are in crux and under tension from within, especially Iran and Saudi Arabia. Don'tcha think, that as free societies, we should be there to help tip the scales at such a critical juncture?

 

[*******]

That is to say, they have no way to vest themselves in their societies so they vest themselves in Heaven.

 

[*******]

Okay Throb, so not being able to yell "Nigger" in Houston or Atlanta was a conservative induced law?

riiiiiiiiiaaaaaagggggggggghhhhhhhhhhttttttttttttt

 

[*******]

lavander, Throb is PRECISELY the way we see the modern Liberal as per your question...

 

[RobDownSouth]

Okay Throb, so not being able to yell "Nigger" in Houston or Atlanta was a conservative induced law?

riiiiiiiiiaaaaaagggggggggghhhhhhhhhhttttttttttttt

What are you talking about?

Your spiritual brethren yell "nigger" all the time down here.

 

[Ishmael]

Re: Re: Natan Sharansky's "The Case for Democracy": The Book Behind the State of the

Mr. Sharansky's theme is fundamentally flawed. There are "fear" societies and there are "free" societies (I am fixing your egregious misquoting).

Name one capitalist democracy that is not exploiting half a dozen third world oligarchies for natural resources. And when you say "Iceland" you kind of prove that point that okay maybe Iceland isn't stealing most of the world's resources but everyone else is.

"A free society is one in which the interests of the leaders are tied to the interests of the people."

An empire is one in which the interests of the leaders are tied to the interests of the people. Bread and circuses.

Random, poorly-conceived grandiose statements an argument do not make.

And the fatal flaw in your argument is that you cannot prove theft of anything. Any citical examination of the facts show that it is the oligarchies of the third world that are 'stealing' from their people. Which brings us full circle and returns us to the making a case for Democracy.

Ishmael