This is the problem.

You have stipulated to "the lesser of two evils" as being acceptable. By that yardstick, the Taliban was acceptable compared to the behavior of the warlords' forces after the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan. It cannot have escaped everyone's attention that the Taliban's extremist position on women's rights was welcomed as a protection from the rape epidemic that ensued as the Russian occupation waned. These policies were part of an overall use of religious identity to restore civil order in a land of violent chaos. The perceived benefit turned out not to be so, but at first, it was seen, by the people, as the lesser of two evils. Only after the immediate threat was eliminated were their excesses noticed.

Is justice meted out with favoritism greater or lesser evil? Is it justice? Or is justice merely what people will put up with at any particular time?

If labelling whole nations evil as a prelude to applying the sword, rather than resorting to anything resembling a legal code of behavior, is to be the way in which we justify acceptable use of force, then we need to say so out loud in public so that the world will know who we have become.

We are indeed lucky that our founding fathers recognized democracy to be an unstable equilibrium and put in many checks and balances to keep our government from straying outside the range of relative stability as so many other young democracies have.

The Founders were suspicious of power. I wonder what they would make of our exercise of it today.

They also had better raw material to work with than other young democracies have had. For one thing, the nation's democratic forms and republican structures were really not that young. The Founders had a relatively educated populace, with a tradition of town meetings and colonial legislatures going back over 100 years. They had British jurisprudence to lean on as well, which is founded on the concept that the highest authority is still subject to the law. They had a sound and thriving middle class.

In short, the Founders didn't invent American government. They improved, consolidated and codified what was already there. If the people hadn't already lived the idea of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, Jefferson's words would never have captured their imaginations.

I wonder that you continue to insist that "most people" want American-style government, when I doubt there has been a definitive survey on the subject. If there were, I wonder whether what we think of as sympathy to our way of life is actually ambition for our standard of living. Being secure in their persons and property has a broad appeal to people. I wonder if they understand that that means other people whom they don't like or are afraid of must have similar security in order for the social contract to work. I wonder if it's clear that, for a democracy to operate properly, the most important thing to shoot off is your mouth. I wonder if people not raised to or having studied about democracy actually understand the kind of work involved.

Lately, I wonder if we do as well.

Regards--
Mary Anne