WSJ letter

Congrats to Rob who had another letter published in the WSJ on 2/6/06. The published letter was a slightly abridged version of the following:

Beware Democracy Without Protected Individual Rights

When asked about the possibility of Middle Eastern countries voting themselves Islamic governments, the President replies to your interviewer that he sees "no alternative" to democracy as a long-term stabilizing force (1/26/06).

For an alternative, perhaps the President should cast a glance to our own Founding Fathers, who recognized that the tyranny of the majority (unlimited democracy) is just as dangerous as the tyranny of Kings. For this reason, the Founding Fathers set out to design a political system to protect the rights of the individual--the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--against both the mob and the tyrant.

But such a political system can only take root and flourish in a culture that values life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In contrast, Islamic fundamentalists openly tell us that they value death (martyrdom), Sharia, and the pursuit of the Will of Allah. To the extent that these core values are shared by the wider populace, "democracy" will only serve to replace secular tyrannies in the Middle East with far worse religious ones.

The President should be campaigning to spread, not some contentless vision of "democracy", but rather the revolutionary political philosophy that gave rise to the freest and greatest nation in history.