Democracy American Style - Hogeye Bill

How wonderful that the US Empire is teaching democracy to the brown-skinned masses of Iraq! We are truly conquerors of a different color. And they sure need the tutelage. After all, they have no tradition of democracy to speak of. Some of the ragheads seem to think that democracy has something to do with individual rights or local self-determination. Nothing could be further from the truth. For the slow learners, I've compiled a short list of key points for democracy American style. The whole point, of course, is to legitimize the existing rulers. So obviously, the rulers need to make the rules so as to guarantee the proper outcome.

This rite of legitimization doesn't require majority vote. If your policy can't get that much support, rig the rules so you win with, say, only a third of the vote.
If notions of local self-rule and political autonomy get in your way, make it a winner-take-all election, where the regions that oppose you are overridden by the regions that support you.
Make it clear to opposition parties that political laws, and even Constitutions, are infinitely malleable - their objections can be remedied by political wheeling and dealing regardless of formal decrees.

The Iraqi people should appreciate and cherish our contribution. After all, it took the US Empire over two centuries to perfect our democratic system. We are saving them the trouble of reinventing the wheel. We had to learn the hard way. The American colonies, unfortunately, had a long history of self-rule, due to "benign neglect" of the imperial overlords. People were accustomed to self-government, and even ran parallel assemblies while ignoring official legislatures. Fortunately for the US Empire, the Iraqi people today have no pesky tradition of local sovereignty, nor subversive propaganda claiming an individual right to "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness," let alone the right to seceed from unpopular governments.

Early US founders, in retrospect, made many rookie errors. First of all, they made the ratification of the US Consititution subject to approval by each state. If a province/state did not approve of the US Constitution, then they were not part of the federation. This violates rule number two. In fact, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Vermont did not ratify the Constitution at first, so were not part of the original US constitutional confederation. In light of modern knowledge, these three laggard states should have been forced to join the Union, just as the three Iraqi provinces that rejected their constitution are forced to join that union.

A second profound error of the US founders was using the antiquated "majority rule" dogma. If the US founders had demanded a two-thirds vote to reject the Constitution like in Iraq, even the laggard states would have been forced to join the democracy. Why require a majority to win if you can set the rules to win with only a third of the vote? Obviously, James Madison was a rank amateur at democracy-building. After a century of empire-building we know better now.

The founders' third error was perhaps unavoidable in that primitive time. In the late 1700's, people generally believed in outdated ideas like "inalienable rights," and incredibly, that constitutions were supposed to *limit* governments! It took a century and a bloody civil war before people realized that the purpose of a constitution is to justify and increase the power of the State. The Neanderthal notion of "enumerated powers" gave way to a more sophisticated understanding - that anything goes so long as it is remotely related to commerce or "the general welfare" of somebody or something. And what isn't?

To summarize, those Iraqis should be happy we took over and set up a democracy for them. We saved them a lot of time and trouble. Our brave soldiers are imposing the best democracy on earth. And we'll keep imposing until they get it right. The Iraqi people should live free or die, and by God with our help they will.