My compliments.

That is a good sentence. Thanks, Dr. Ledeen.

The current pres. seems to be the personification of this ambition. I used to think he was just making rookie mistakes due to inexperience, but the Honduras vs. Iran comparison makes his intention distinct.

The bulk of human experience is tyranny, whereas liberty is the ultimate unprobability, a.k.a., America. Government of the people, for the people, by the people cannot survive unless the people has enough intestinal fortitude to make it work.

Every individualist allowing himself or herself to fall into a state of sheepishness only helps his or her government to turn into a parasite. The trend can only be stopped, and reversed, by a grassroot awakening, which is why the tea parties give me hope.

Heh. Just yesterday I formally registered the region’s first Jewish Boy Scout Troop. I took-on the project some time back precisely as an antidote to PC soft tyranny.

“On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law;
to help others at all times;
to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.”

These lads aren’t as likely to end-up as O-Bots.

In velayat-e-faqih, Muslims (and everybody else) are treated as children. They effectively become wards of the state, with a Supreme Leader (or the Great White Father of Iran) supposedly knowing what is best for his “children”. In contrast, if adult Muslims were regarded as adults, each adult Muslim would be responsible for the welfare and the governance of his nation.

In a society of adults, each adult feels an obligation to be well informed so he or she can actively participate in the governance of his society. In a society of children, each child defers to the judgment of an expert for the governance of his society. Ideally, liberal democracy is the governance of a society of adults by adults.

Not only is velayat-e-faqih a morally bankrupt ideal of governance, but all ideologies promoting the power of experts over a well-informed citizenry should be questioned. For example, the legacy of Woodrow Wilson and his “progressive” ideology of public administration should be called into question. Sadly, I think Wilsonian elitism has corrupted the ideals of liberal democracy to such an extent that some self-proclaimed “experts” from liberal democracies would actually call the Iranian government “democratic” when the state ideology of Iran is so inherently anti-democratic.

A week earlier, on June 24, which is the nativity of John the Baptist, the province of Quebec (one of the 4 former colonies of the British Crown, which were the original provinces of Canada) celebrated its fete Nationale.

I have yet to find anything on June 24 that was particularly important in the life of Quebec, other than that was the day the nativity of John the Baptist was celebrated (and John the Baptist was a very important figure accorded respect in 1867 Quebec).

So, when you have the state absorbing attributes of the church, you have the same thing of the early Roman Empire. Emperor and
High Priest combined.

This is hardly the only example of the ancient
world, and yet the same mistakes are being repeated time and time again.

So, those who are willing to learn from the mistakes of others are viewed as dangerous as
a combination of the most virulent diseases of all time.

As long as distinctions between the various areas of life are not respected, and you have
one area of life seeking hegemony over other areas of life, then trouble is waiting in the wings.

I

It sounds like you’re talking about the Rez, writ large.

That which you are talking about here sounds like business as usual in the American West, particularly the Indian reservations. The idea of a “Great White Father” used by Thomas Jefferson is every bit as monarchial as the system he overthrew in the Revolution.

Here is an excerpt from a planned speech from William Clark’s Journal (July 26, 1806) intended for the Yellowstone Indians. Although he didn’t meet this tribe, he used similar rhetoric for other tribes. (Taken without permission from “The Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804-1806; Arno Press edition, 1969”, for educational purposes only.)

Children. The Great Spirit has given a fair and bright day for us to meet together in his View that he may inspect us in this all we say and do.
Children. I take you all by the hand as the children of your Great father the President of the U. States of America who is the great chief of all the white people towards the rising sun.
Children. The Great Chief who is Benevolent, just, wise & bountifull has sent me and one other of his chiefs (who is at this time in the country of the Blackfoot Indians) to all his read children on the Missourei and its waters quite to the great lake of the West where the land ends and the [sun] sets on the face of the great water, to know their wants and inform him of them on our return.
Children. We have been to the great lake of the west and are now on our return to my country. I have seen all my read children quite to that great lake and talked with them, and taken them by the hand in the name of their great father the Great Chief of all the white people.

William Clark went on and on and on for two more pages about Indians being children of the Great White Father. Later language in the Office of Indian Affairs (later BIA) archives is very similar.

Imagine the tyranny you describe as applied to international affairs. Imagine the tyranny you describe as applied to the American West. Or Appalachia. Even Indian removal in the 1830’s was explained as being done for the Indians’ own good!

Perhaps Alexis de Tocqueville may have realized that any government that would tyrannize Indians would eventually act precisely the same way toward everybody else.