The US has a long list of weaker countries that it wants to "gift" with "their" form of democracy. I just can't understand why those countries would resist, can you?
Most Americans are 1) authoritarians and 2) they are statists. Both of those things stand in opposition to the concept of natural rights. Freedom. Most Americans today believe that any rights we enjoy are granted by the laws created by men, protected by the armies of men, and are limited to those people who live under the protection of those states which recognize the rights in their legal systems.
The traditional American notion, long since abandoned, is that we all (every human being by virtue of our humanity) possess certain unalienable rights (we cannot be separated from them; they are inherent). The men who enshrined this belief in the American Declaration of Independence believed so strongly in natural rights that they considered it a "self-evident" truth; in other words, they believed it was an obvious truth that didn't need further justification. At that time, if you'll recall, the concept of natural rights certainly wasn't obvious or recognized by those who believed in the so-called "Divine Right of Kings", the monarchists or Tories who believed that defying the will of the King was heresy, the King ruled by divine appointment, not by the "consent of the governed."
Most Americans are authoritarians. It surprised me when I realized that. I had been so steeped in the "myth" of the rugged, courageous and independent American, I wasn't able to see how badly the myth differs from reality. Americans are largely followers. And while I thought for awhile that the Democratic Party offered an alternative to the "goose-stepping" obedience of the Republicans that surrounded me in the Deep South, that notion was shattered when Democrats gave their unquestioning support and allegiance (especially in the first two years of his 1st term in office) to the war policies of President Obama. Because he was "their" leader, everything they criticized the former President for was suddenly A-OK. Authoritarian followers.
Most Americans are statists. Statists believe that a large, powerful, central government is desirable; they may argue endlessly over whether that government should be be primarily a "welfare state" or a "warfare state," but in the end, neither side being willing to compromise on its goals for society, Americans will continue to live with government attempts to have both. And, in the end, they'll live under a totalitarian state, essentially one that is financially unsustainable, and an enemy to liberty.
In short, Americans believe that the government grants them their rights; and the government can rescind those rights. And I don't accept that belief. Do you? To the contrary, that implicit trust in government is all that is necessary to guarantee that those rights will be abridged.
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Charles
Editorial Note:
Canadian attitudes are not very different, in spite of official propaganda to the contrary.
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