Comments on: Clean Hands, Dirty Hands

By: Crooked Timber » » March, 2003: On the Record

Crooked Timber » » March, 2003: On the Record — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 04:42:06 +0000

[...] 30th. Clean Hands, Dirty Hands. … David [Adesnik] speculates that critics are made insecure because “OxDem … is [...]

By: Bob

Bob — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

I favour democracy on Churchill’s utilitarian argument that, over time, it is the least worst system of government. Attempts to defend the principle of democracy in terms of rights seem ill-fated to me since rights depend on majority support for credibility and enforcement, so we are into a tautology. Moreover, we have the problem of how to interpret a situation where a majority votes to terminate democracy.

This is not just a hypothetical possibility. Popular plebiscites in Nazi Germany in November 1933 and August 1934 approved by huge majorities, first a one party state, and then the assumption of supreme power by the Fuhrer – as can be readily confirmed from William Shirer: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, among mny other sources. While the officially reported size of the majorities in the plebiscites is open to question, I know of no serious historian or reporter who doubts that there were, indeed, popular majorities for the issues put. Evidently, the electorate in Germany at that time did not regard fundamental political and human rights as inalienable.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Not that the situations are entirely comparable, but current evidence suggests that the electorate in the United States does not regard fundamental political and human rights as inalienable, either…

By: Drapetomaniac

Drapetomaniac — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

What do the targets of our benevolence think about all this intervention?

For what it’s worth, I tried to take measure of this in this post.

I haven’t been following the OxDem people very closely by any means, but I wonder how they handle, for example, reports that the State Depart has rewritten 600 pages of changes in Iraq’s criminal code, or that the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs has said that the US will do as is in its national interest, with Iraqis being able to consult but not determine.