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在线翻译:
szdaily -> Opinion -> 
The myth that is democracy
    2012-07-02  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

Jeff Byrne

jeffszdaily@yahoo.com

A POLITICAL observer once noted that North Americans would allow their children to be sent to the other side of the world to kill and be killed, but would not cross the road to vote.

As a result, the United States usually ends up with the best government money can buy, whatever the ruling party. No democracy there.

If we take a broader look at the world, such as the Middle East and North Africa, efforts to force democracy on Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya would seem to have failed miserably.

Add to that the so-called Arab Spring and the failure expands. Tunisia? No democracy there where news outlets, apart from “government” mouthpieces, have been shut down.

And Libya recently shut down 44 news outlets, because they were reporting the truth, just not the truth those in power wanted the populace to hear. After all, one revolution is enough, since it got rid of the mad Colonel Gadhafi.

Likewise in Iraq, where Madam Insane, also known as Saddam Hussein, came to an ignominious end after his brutal regime was deposed. No democracy there.

Of course, we must also look at Egypt, where the leader of the previously banned Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Morsi, was sworn in as the first freely elected president in the country’s long history.

But, with the military council sitting on the back benches, as it has always done, the country has no parliament, no constitution and, apparently, no direction. Apart from that which will be decided by those in power. Morsi declared at the weekend that he would rule for all Egyptians, to the cheers of his supporters. That remains to be seen.

But many Egyptians, if not most, believe they have been disenfranchised after the military council swept away the results of an earlier election. Morsi will do what he is told. No democracy there either.

But let us return to that master and enforcer of “democracy.”

U.S. President Barack Obama was delivered a major success last week when the Supreme Court ruled that Obama’s health care legislation was constitutional.

This will provide an umbrella for up to 50 million Americans who have been denied health care for decades. Thousands die each year because they cannot afford to pay hospital bills, and others are excluded from insurance — because they are sick.

Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, exposes himself as a blatant hypocrite when he says he will repeal the legislation if he wins office. What happens to democracy when a decision of the umpire is ignored? Democracy denied.

Romney, and others of his ilk, can afford health insurance so they have nothing to worry about.

But, the first obligation of any nation is to take care of those who are unable to take care of themselves, the deprived and the underprivileged.

Americans claim the United States is a Christian nation. People like Romney obviously have not read the parable in the Christian Bible that says it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.

Perhaps they have woken up to the growing belief that there is no heaven.

If that is true, then sadly, there is no hell. Because that is where so many of these people would belong.

(The author is a former Shenzhen Daily senior copy editor and writer.)

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