One of the best things about publishing stuff on the web, particularly on your own site, is that there is no one to stop you from speaking your mind. And when I say best, I mean worst. Because all sorts of idiots speak their minds, and if the proliferation of racist, jew hating, militia sites means anything, it is proof that noblesse oblige is the only form of stable government and that the last thing this country needs if for people to have self determination.

It is kind of funny that people talk about democracy and the Founding Fathers in the same breath as talking about the masses and everyone having a say, because if you actually bother to read what the Founding Fathers wrote, it had nothing to do with power to the people. In fact they were getting this stuff fresh from the French, and it is very clear what they wanted, because they spelled it out explicitly. They said they wanted white, land owning gentlemen to run the show, have the vote, whatever, by which they meant themselves. And they were basically the aristocracy of America, representing a tiny handful of the richest, most elite group. The constitutional framers were very careful about language and if they meant that peasants and farmers should vote, they would have said so. They were mostly worried about the return of the monarchy, which was a real enough threat, since right after they wrote it, the King sent troops to kill them.

Of course it is easy to see their bias against non-whites and women today was a mistake and a product of their times, but I don't think we want to throw out the baby with the bathwater and let wrestling fans determine laws in a country we all have to live in. In 35,000 years of human history it never worked, so why start now? Athenian democracy, on which we modelled ourselves, did not all the 50 million Elvis fans to attend the senate, that was just philosophers and politicians. And little has changed, people, most people, are still stupid and the last thing you would want is to give them a say over the way everyone else lives.

My point is I have been thinking about international politics lately, since the population is really mobilized politically here. I get flooded with all sorts of slogans on the way to work, and everyone is protesting everything from the Easter Bunny to SUVs. (The Easter Bunny is a target because KMart sells baskets with chocolate bunnies and toy soldiers, SUVs because they symbolize affluent, oil wasting consumers.) It is my contention that most people are fine with simply getting on with their lives and are politically docile, but there is and always has been a smattering of people keen on world conquest. Not just Saddam Hussein, but dozens of people in the 20th Century came to power by killing anyone who disagreed with them, held power by conquest and went down swinging. And I think there is a basic reluctance among the docile mass of people to accept that some people are different, that they don't want to live at peace, or, more accurately, while most people want to live at peace, it can't be done because a small fraction of people are out to oppress everyone else. And I know the far left says Bush is like a dictator who seized power in a judicial coup, and it is true that he lost the election and was imposed in a corrupt judicial coup, but even though our government might video tape you or tap your phone and make a file on you if you dissent, at least in America they don't just disappear you, which is more than most countries can claim. What I'm getting at is that I love America. It's a great country, despite social inequities and the fact that a military-oil junta runs the show. It's miles better than any other superpower. And while passive aggressive Canadians might grouse, or puny Europeans criticize us, the fact, the simple, incontrovertible fact, remains that if not for our bristling military build up, the balance of world power would be very different. I'm not saying the rape of the environment is good, or that the WTO dumping radioactive barrels of waste in Africa is something I'm proud of, but at least, as superpowers go, we are relatively benign domestically.

Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan were not at all nice, but consider some of the other contenders for our title of heavyweight champion of the world: Stalinist Russia, China, Tito, Mugabi,Quaddaffi, Kim Sung Il, and so on, including incredibly savage Monarchic regimes all through the arab world, maniac dictators in South America, particularly Paraguay and Bolivia that repress, slaughter and torture people the way most people eat popcorn. Really, if you spin a globe, there are more places like that than not, where most of the American left doesn't bat an eye. Burma/Myanamar has been under the boot of a brutal dictator since 1962, who slaughters and tortures anyone who tries to institute any sort of reform. Which is just another reason I can't believe the anti Israel sentiment out here. I think Israel is about like America, which is to say, not above reproach by any means, but if you look at their human rights record in context to their neighbors, they come out smelling pretty sweet. How anyone can carry a posterboard saying end the occupation and keep a straight face is beyond me. Have these people never heard of Jordan, Syria, Lebannon, Egypt and Saudi Arabia? These are countries that border Israel, and have virtually zero human rights. Wholesale butchery of dissenting groups, torture, and crushed free expression is just the beginning. Look at how they dealt with the Palestinians, when they formed a refugee camp. They killed them all, drove them out of their borders. I'm not advocating moral relativism here. But you have to look at things as they are, not as you wish they would be. And the reality is that you have to break a few eggs to make an omlette, so America, with a very modestly repressive, blood-stained past against it's own people, and an international report card darkened by a smattering of assasination, coups, backing of dictators and oppression, is still fifty million times better than any of those royal families or generals. And even domestically, while our police occaisionally frame people and are corrupt, I'd much rather get pulled over as a black man in Compton than as any color person in a place like Afghanistan, where there is no form of recourse if they decide to beat your head in with a rock and barbeque you on the side of the road.