News Could the U.S. Government Abandon Democracy for Stability?

[snoopies622]

Lately I keep hearing and reading that my government (the American government) supported an undemocratic state in Egypt for 30 years, for the sake of "stability". I have also read that this has not been the only case - that in the past it backed the Shah in Iran and Pinochet in Chile, and today it supports undemocratic states in Saudi Arabia, among other places.

My question: under what conditions would it decide to abandon democracy and become a dictatorship here at home? "Stability", after all, means not changing in a particular way. What kind of change might we - the general population - some day hope to achieve that it would find so objectionable?

 

[apeiron]

Check out US state of emergency powers to see recent history...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_emergency#United_States

The United States is formally in an ongoing limited state of emergency declared by several Presidents for several reasons. A state of emergency began on January 24, 1995 with the signing of Executive Order 12947 by President Bill Clinton. In accordance with the National Emergencies Act, the executive order's actual effect was not a declaration of a general emergency, but a limited embargo on trade with "Terrorists Who Threaten To Disrupt the Middle East Peace Process".[28] This "national emergency" was expanded in 1998 to include additional targets such as Osama bin Laden,[29] and has been continued to at least 2008 by order of President George W. Bush.[30] There are a number of other ongoing national emergencies of this type,[31][32] regarding for instance diamond trade with Sierra Leone. Especially noteworthy are the ongoing states of emergency declared on November 14, 1979 regarding the Iran Hostage Crisis,[33] that declared on March 15, 1995 with respect to Iran,[34] and that declared on September 14, 2001 through Bush's Proclamation 7463, regarding the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.[35]
President Barack Obama extended George Bush's Declaration of Emergency regarding terrorism on September 10, 2009[36] and again on September 10, 2010.[37

 

[russ_watters]

Lately I keep hearing and reading that my government (the American government) supported an undemocratic state in Egypt for 30 years, for the sake of "stability". I have also read that this has not been the only case - that in the past it backed the Shah in Iran and Pinochet in Chile, and today it supports undemocratic states in Saudi Arabia, among other places.

My question: under what conditions would it decide to abandon democracy and become a dictatorship here at home? "Stability", after all, means not changing in a particular way. What kind of change might we - the general population - some day hope to achieve that it would find so objectionable?

The question doesn't follow from the premise. I don't see that it is answerable.

 

[D H]

Lately I keep hearing and reading that my government (the American government) supported an undemocratic state in Egypt for 30 years, for the sake of "stability". I have also read that this has not been the only case - that in the past it backed the Shah in Iran and Pinochet in Chile, and today it supports undemocratic states in Saudi Arabia, among other places.

You mentioned Iran, which serves as a very good example of why the US sometimes supports regimes that are not quite optimal. The Shah, with his SAVAK, most certainly did commit many atrocities. However, due to pressure from the US and others, the brutality of the SAVAK was significantly reduced in the 1970s, and the Shah began modernizing and making democratic reforms to Iran.

The Iranian Revolution was not so much a revolt against the Shah as it was against his modernizations and his democratic reforms. The very first moves made by the post-revolutionary government were to ensure that those democratic reforms were gone, gone, gone and to put in place a regime orders of magnitude more repressive than the very worst done by the Shah. The atrocities committed by SAVAK at its worst pales in comparison to those committed by post-revolutionary Iran.To make matters worse, external pressure has no effect on that brutal regime.

My question: under what conditions would it decide to abandon democracy and become a dictatorship here at home? "Stability", after all, means not changing in a particular way. What kind of change might we - the general population - some day hope to achieve that it would find so objectionable?

Why would you want a dictatorship here at home? What ever makes you think that this could be a desirable outcome, under any circumstances?

 

[WhoWee]

Lately I keep hearing and reading that my government (the American government) supported an undemocratic state in Egypt for 30 years, for the sake of "stability". I have also read that this has not been the only case - that in the past it backed the Shah in Iran and Pinochet in Chile, and today it supports undemocratic states in Saudi Arabia, among other places.

My question: under what conditions would it decide to abandon democracy and become a dictatorship here at home? "Stability", after all, means not changing in a particular way. What kind of change might we - the general population - some day hope to achieve that it would find so objectionable?

Would you agree that OUR national interests outweigh others? Your peaceful enjoyment of your rights and freedoms has a cost (sometimes) - do you agree?

 

[snoopies622]

Why would you want a dictatorship here at home? What ever makes you think that this could be a desirable outcome, under any circumstances?

I don't think it would be desirable for us at all. My premise is: if a government decides to oppose democracy abroad (by backing repressive, undemocratic states) then it may one day decide to oppose (abandon, in this case) democracy domestically as well, by stopping elections, suspending the Constitution, etc.

So I ask: under what circumstances might it decide to do so?

 

[snoopies622]

Check out US state of emergency powers to see recent history...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_emergency#United_States

Thanks, apeiron. Good stuff.

 

[snoopies622]

Your peaceful enjoyment of your rights and freedoms has a cost (sometimes) - do you agree?

What do you have in mind?

 

[D H]

My premise is: if a government decides to oppose democracy abroad (by backing repressive, undemocratic states) then it may one day decide to oppose (abandon, in this case) democracy domestically as well, by stopping elections, suspending the Constitution, etc.

Your premise is faulty for many reasons.

1. You are implicitly assuming that one government not only has a right but the responsibility to poke its nose into how some other country governs itself.
2. You are implicitly assuming that one government poking its nose into how another country governs itself will have the desired outcome.
3. By way of analogy (this is a physics forum), you are asking the equivalent of what the laws of physics say will happen to some system when the laws of physics stop working.

Your question is nonsensical.

So I ask: under what circumstances might it decide to do so?

Since your question is nonsensical, I'll give a nonsensical answer. When pigs fly.

 

[WhoWee]

What do you have in mind?

Do you know where the products you use and consume on a daily basis actually come from - where produced or areas transported through?

 

[BobG]

Lately I keep hearing and reading that my government (the American government) supported an undemocratic state in Egypt for 30 years, for the sake of "stability". I have also read that this has not been the only case - that in the past it backed the Shah in Iran and Pinochet in Chile, and today it supports undemocratic states in Saudi Arabia, among other places.

My question: under what conditions would it decide to abandon democracy and become a dictatorship here at home? "Stability", after all, means not changing in a particular way. What kind of change might we - the general population - some day hope to achieve that it would find so objectionable?

Heck, why stop there?

In World War II, the US, and the rest of its European allies, provided support to a dictator in the Soviet Union.

The US isn't the only nation that has offered some seemingly conflicting support. During the American revolution, France, a monarchy, supported the US revolution against England. And, in a rather ironic twist, that support indirectly led to a French revolution against France's monarchy.

The purpose of a nation's government is to serve the interests of its own people, not to serve the interests of the people of other nations (unless there happens to be a benefit to its own people by doing so).

There's no inherent conflict in the situation you describe - unless the country's foreign policy backfires and winds up hurting American people instead of furthering their interests.

There's only a measure of success or failure. France's policy of supporting the American revolution could probably be considered a failure (although France had enough other problems that I don't think it would be fair to say support for the American revolution was the major cause of the French revolution). Some of the US foreign policy moves have been successful and some have been unsuccessful.

Or, probably more accurately, the short term success of some policies have wound up requiring expensive payments later on. I think supporting the Soviet dictator was worth it, even though we paid for it with a decades long cold war. Some of our other policies have had less clear cut results when considered as a whole.

 

[apeiron]

The purpose of a nation's government is to serve the interests of its own people, not to serve the interests of the people of other nations (unless there happens to be a benefit to its own people by doing so).

Except that the US frequently states that it wants to export democracy - its free way of life - to the rest of the world. So there is frequently a conflict between idealism and realpolitik. Not that anything else should be expected. And it is even OK if expediency in the short-term achieves the ideal in the long term.

However the OP was really about what could happen within the US. Could a nation founded on longterm ideals (its constitution) sucumb to expediency? Would it even take much of a shove?

The starting place for a serious debate about this would be to look at the actual powers of emergency that exist and the scenarios under which they would be exercised. For instance there is FEMA - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Emergency_Management_Agency. And then the famous fuss over Halliburton building mass detention camps "just in case". http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/04/n...r=1&ex=1147233600&en=b3db9152b67cd47d&ei=5070

If it is of any interest, I live in a democracy which recently suspended the rule of law in a big way. We had an earthquake and extraordinary powers to over-ride existing legislation were put in the hands of an earthquake minister. But this was a good thing as the intention is to enable getting on with fixing things without a lot of planning hearings or budget debates. Yet it also a constitutionally worrying thing because "what if" the government of the day wanted to slip stuff through (as happened with the war on terror and bugging of citizens)?

 

[Al68]

I don't think it would be desirable for us at all. My premise is: if a government decides to oppose democracy abroad (by backing repressive, undemocratic states) then it may one day decide to oppose (abandon, in this case) democracy domestically as well, by stopping elections, suspending the Constitution, etc.

So I ask: under what circumstances might it decide to do so?

The federal government logically cannot suspend the constitution, since the constitution isn't authorized by, or subject to, decisions of the federal government. It's a contract between member states that charters the federal government, and delegates to it certain powers. It's simply not subject to any decision of the federal government. That's like asking what if my plumber decides to "suspend" my deed so he can remove whatever piping he wants. It's a nonsensical question.

Of course our legitimate government could be taken over by those who oppose it, and operated outside the constitution as an "outlaw government", operating illegally by exercising power it doesn't legitimately have, but that would be a different story altogether. That would be the story of our current government.

 

[snoopies622]

You are implicitly assuming that one government not only has a right but the responsibility to poke its nose into how some other country governs itself.

Not at all. I'm saying that my government has a history of doing that, not that it ever had a right to, or a responsibility to, either.

You are implicitly assuming that one government poking its nose into how another country governs itself will have the desired outcome.

I'm not assuming that, either.

 

[Amp1]

Wow AL68, you stated that so well. I wonder who will find that absurd since we are living in these times. I wonder - IMO ,what if an underground or shadow org. tries to attempt what snoopies622 is wondering?

 

[snoopies622]

Do you know where the products you use and consume on a daily basis actually come from - where produced or areas transported through?

Ah. When you said "rights and freedoms" I thought you were referring to political and civil rights, not the consumption of domestic and imported products.

 

[Al68]

Wow AL68, you stated that so well. I wonder who will find that absurd since we are living in these times.

Lots of people. But they won't be able to logically explain why.

 

[WhoWee]

Ah. When you said "rights and freedoms" I thought you were referring to political and civil rights, not the consumption of domestic and imported products.

Do you think they're not linked?

 

[BobG]

I don't think it would be desirable for us at all. My premise is: if a government decides to oppose democracy abroad (by backing repressive, undemocratic states) then it may one day decide to oppose (abandon, in this case) democracy domestically as well, by stopping elections, suspending the Constitution, etc.

So I ask: under what circumstances might it decide to do so?

However the OP was really about what could happen within the US. Could a nation founded on longterm ideals (its constitution) sucumb to expediency? Would it even take much of a shove?

That may be his real question, but his premise seemed pretty clear and the latter doesn't follow from the former.

In any event, during the last decade, US policy has been aggressively pro-democracy, to the point where we've even imposed it on a couple of nations. And during the two decades prior to that, we've even had Presidents resort to covert means to bankroll pro-democracy military actions. Perhaps that would console snoopies a bit, but I'm not sure the results have been better. At least you know what you're getting in the short term if your foreign policy is based on pragmatic goals rather than idealistic goals, even if you're not sure what you'll have to pay in the long term.

 

[Al68]

If God meant for man to count higher than 1,048,575 he would have given him more fingers and toes.

How high does God intend for http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/gallery?section=news&id=7962209&photo=1" (12 fingers/14 toes) to be able to count?

 

[Proton Soup]

The purpose of a nation's government is to serve the interests of its own people, not to serve the interests of the people of other nations (unless there happens to be a benefit to its own people by doing so).

"[URL
"National Interest"[/URL] is certainly the stickler. it's a nice fuzzy term that pretty much means whatever you want it to mean. generally, i think it's simply a polite way of saying that we like getting cheap oil and other resources. it's not as if the US requires these resources be cheap to sustain ourselves. unless of course you mean sustaining ourselves as the most financially and militarily dominant power on earth.

 

[D H]

Except that the US frequently states that it wants to export democracy - its free way of life - to the rest of the world. So there is frequently a conflict between idealism and realpolitik. Not that anything else should be expected. And it is even OK if expediency in the short-term achieves the ideal in the long term.

This raises the question of what is the best way of exporting democracy to some country that is less than democratic in some sense.

There are relatively few choices if the country is completely hostile to us and is ignores all diplomatic pressures placed on them. Providing overt and covert aid to insurgents, sending radio signals and flyers to the citizenry, invoking sanctions against the country, and of course invading the country. All are rather hostile, some have political/diplomatic downsides with regard to relations with other countries, and the effectiveness of any these is questionable.

Now suppose the country is at least partially open to us. This opens up a lot of other avenues, some of which are considerably more effective than the hostile approaches outlined above. Some of these new avenues are stupid, and naively-applied idealism is the source of a lot of that stupidity. It can make the somewhat friendly but not-quite democratic leadership of a country partially open to us become hostile to us or it can lead to a change in leadership to an even more repressive group that is already in the hostile-to-us camp. Now we're stuck with the lousy options for hostile nations.

Realpolitik sometimes dictates a slower approach. This slower approach might look reprehensible to those who want instant success, but instant success is something that exists only in the minds of naive idealists.

 

[BobG]

If God meant for man to count higher than 1,048,575 he would have given him more fingers and toes.

How high does God intend for http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/gallery?section=news&id=7962209&photo=1" (12 fingers/14 toes) to be able to count?

Technically, I could come with a method of counting in hexadecimal on her toes, using her fingers as pointers, with the 12 fingers being the limiting factor. The other limiting factor is that it would take around 8 million years or so to count that high.

In fact, actually, using that same method, you could count to 1,048,575 just using your fingers (with the fingers on one hand being the pointers for the other). It's just more fun to think of someone counting in binary and trying to get that little toe to stay up or down.

 

[turbo]

The US of A is not really keen on exporting democracy and freedom, as long as entrenched interests can maintain the status-quo in potentially changeable regions. Please Google on the School of the Americas to see how long our military and our intelligence agencies have been training state-sponsored terrorists for Latin-American autocracies. Foreign military officers and special police personnel are trained at Fort Benning in counter-insurgency, interrogation (including torture and coercive techniques such as familial threat intimidation) and are sent back home to torment native groups, poor people, laborers, and the organizers and religious volunteers that try to serve them.

Got a few nuns and female missionaries raped in El Salvador? Those poor women are grist for the mill that is our military-industrial complex. Priests and labor leaders killed execution-style? They must have had it coming. The US media and the public are complicit in this abuse for allowing it to continue for so long with no outcry.

The US MUST be better than this! Without recognition of the abuse, we cannot rise above it, and I don't see that recognition coming soon.

 

[apeiron]

The US of A is not really keen on exporting democracy and freedom, as long as entrenched interests can maintain the status-quo in potentially changeable regions.

Yes but the interesting part of the OP is the question of whether the US could change course radically from a democracy to a police state? What are the mechanisms that would allow this, and what are the ones that prevent it.

The mindset of those who make up the ruling elite is one factor. Then there are also the structural issues - whether the design of government involves a separation of powers that make such a change nearly impossible.

We are in for an interesting century that will test even the US. If things get tough, fascist state control may seem "the only option". It would start with as an enlightened temporary measure, then become enduring despotism (arguably).

So it seems fair to look around at the various laws already on the books, agencies charged with having an emergency plan B.

The threats that justify states of emergency can be external, like invasions and natural disasters. But also economic, like depressions, energy shortages, food riots.

Only the naive would really believe that the US priorities (like any other nation) are not a) self-interest and b) export our national ideology.

In good times, b can be made to sound the priority. And in bad times, it gets used as an excuse for actions like regime change in countries who had been under-performing when it comes to oil production.

Iraq is concentrating its drive to quadruple its oil output on its six “super fields,” which analysts say have the potential to produce in excess of 10.5 million barrels a day by 2017.

That’s just short of the Oil Ministry’s declared target of up to 12 million bpd in the next six years. There is a lot of skepticism in the global oil industry that Iraq will be able to meet such an ambitious target that would challenge Saudi Arabia’s supremacy.

But in recent months, some of the foreign oil companies awarded 20-year production contracts at the Super Six — Rumaila, West Qurna 1, West Qurna 2, Majnoon, Zubair and Halfaya — in 2009 have generally reported production increases.

http://todayiraq.com/2011/01/iraq-eyes-super-six-to-boost-oil-output/

Iran is another under-performer. So time to export some "freedom" there. Saudi has been an over-achiever, so let's not get too concerned with its civil rights, support of terrorism...we all know the score by now.

[edit: sorry, I also just got carried away with the very interesting question of the truth of US foreign policy, which is separate subject to the OP. ]

 

[snoopies622]

Do you think they're not linked?

Could you be explicit? I'm not sure what you're driving at.

I also just got carried away with the very interesting question of the truth of US foreign policy, which is separate subject to the OP.

Not entirely. I wouldn't be wondering about the possibility of our government abandoning outright its democratic ways here at home were it not for its behavior overseas. What did the Chileans of the early 1970's want? What have the Egyptians wanted for the last 30 years? What do the people of Saudi Arabia want right now? And what if one day we want it to?

(To clarify: by "we", I don't identify myself with the state, but with the civilian population. One of the premises of my question is that governments don't always behave in ways that their people want them to, whether they are democratic or not.)