Quote:
Originally Posted by MR2
But when a people, a culture finally grasps the concept of freedom... boy howdy watch it take off!
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I've always believed that too; unfortunately, as I look around the world today I see a general decrease in individual freedom and an increase in totalitarianism. It seems as though true freedom is an uncomfortable responsibility that a significant percentage of humanity cannot manage so they create governments to regulate it and make it more "comfortable" for those who are threatened by the implications. (And by the success of those who can function in an environment of personal responsibility and achievement.) Even our own experiment in freedom is currently imperilled by the rise of the dependant classes who want government to manage everything to ensure their own comfort.
I wish Afghanistan good fortune as they negotiate the minefields looking for a balance point between security and freedom. Sadly, I'm not sure they'll have the time given that our "helping hand" will be withdrawn at some point; probably relatively soon and almost certainly before they've matured enough to control the genuine cleptocracy that has flourished throughout their history. We didn't start from as disadvantaged a position (Islam plus tribes plus bandit/warlord leadership - what a petri dish for a culture to grow out of  ) and as LR 1945 pointed out, our successes didn't happen overnight (and are as susceptable to attack and decline as everyone else's).
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A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.
~ Marcus Tullius Cicero (42B.C)
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