US Politics is a complicated beast. No wonder we have a President who seems to lead from a ship he ordered built and is sailing around the world in an attempt to “stay away from the Middle East.” Further, no one seems to know what President Bush is doing in Iraq, but the media portrays him as Mr. Popular. This is nothing less than dangerous for our democracy.
It is amazing to me that in reviewing the various predictions for US Politics in the future, there seems to be a general consensus that something like the Arab Spring, or the toppling of corrupt regimes will occur. This is insane. The Arab Spring resulted in the toppling of several governments, most of which were Muslim majority, including Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. And what did they accomplish? They allowed Free Speech in their countries, and they opened societies and markets to individual citizens. If the Tunisian people wanted to remove a oppressive government they could have done so, because it was the majority of their population that wanted change.
In examining this trend in US Politics, we should look at it closely. There is nothing about the uprisings or the Arab Spring that promotes freedom, open markets, and open communication. The uprisings were sparked off by a series of events; the first was the Tunisian people’s vote of confidence in Tunisia’s government; then a dispute between two governments, between an avowedly left-leaning government and center-rightist government, then the eruption of the Arab Spring uprisings. What did these events do? Absolutely nothing positive for the US Politics in any way.
Now then, what is it that causes individuals in regimes like Syria, Iran, or North Korea to side with the terrorists, loot private properties, or demand the dissolution of democratic governments? Why are these folks cheering for “sis” after thesis – Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, President Ahmadinejad of Iran, and various leaders throughout the Middle East who have strong authoritarian tendencies? Why is there an obvious push towards more authoritarian rule throughout much of the middle east, Africa, and Latin America? It’s not what you might think at first glance, because there is something about authoritarianism – in all its many guises – that appeals to the human species.
One thing that humans crave, yearning, yearn and thirst for, is order. In a society that leaves people to fend for themselves, without order and protection from others, people will become greedy, ambitious, sadistic, corrupt, lazy, venal, and even downright malicious. We are the product of our evolutionary past, and it is through our genes, through our ancestral history, that we are today. And that means that we have been conditioned, through social conditioning, into believing and expecting things that aren’t real, and that will never come to pass.
What does this say about the United States of America? That we are an extremely orderly and stable country, which prides itself on its ability to administer orderly and stable rule, while imposing punishments for those who threaten to challenge these laws. Now then, if you are wondering how to make sense of Hugo Chavez and the Iranian elections, or the Latin American uprisings, I’m going to have to disappoint you, because it simply isn’t going to make sense at all. There is nothing inherently wrong with either of those leaders, nor with their followers. What is wrong is the way in which our government has handled the situation, and its inability to protect its citizenry from political opportunism and unbridled amorality.