"It profits me but little that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquillity of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life."

--Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Monday, October 24, 2011

File This Under "Be Careful What You Wish For"

The Arab Spring isn't quite turning into a democratic autumn.   Let's recap where we're at in October:
You get the picture.   Need we always be reminded of the wisdom of Edmund Burke, in writing about the French Revolution, and liberals of his day rejoicing at the new-found "freedom":
“When I see the spirit of liberty in action, I see a strong principle at work; and this, for a while, is all I can possibly know of it. The wild gas, the fixed air, is plainly broke loose; but we ought to suspend our judgment until the first effervescence is a little subsided, till the liquor is cleared, and until we see something deeper than the agitation of a troubled and frothy surface. I must be tolerably sure, before I venture publicly to congratulate men upon a blessing, that they have really received one.”

The world is a dangerous place.   It's even more dangerous when naive liberals are in charge.   Sure, Qaddafi is dead; sure, bin Laden is dead.   Good riddance to them.   But that doesn't mean that radical Islamist ideology isn't still moving forward around the world.   We ignore it at our long-term peril.  

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