>>At 06:30 PM 07/19/2001 -0400, you wrote:
>>>But we do agree that Israel is "the only half-democratic country in
>>>the area" (save perhaps for Iran; Egypt, I think, counts as a quarter
>>>democratic)...
>>
>>Sure, and Athens was democratic too...if you don't count the slaves.
>>
>>Joanna Bujes
>
>And the point is... what? That Athens (where 20% of the people had
>the vote) was no better than Sparta (where 5% of the people had the
>vote) or the Persian Empire (where 0.001% of the people had the
>vote)?
Limited democracy (not too much, not too little) is useful for the acquisition, expansion, & maintenance of an empire in this modern world. As Machiavelli suggests, the Prince can't afford to fight two wars -- one at home & the other abroad -- at the same time.
***** ...[P]rovided it is well known that he is an excellent man and revered by his people, he can only be attacked with difficulty. For this reason a prince ought to have two fears, one from within, on account of his subjects, the other from without, on account of external powers. From the latter he is defended by being well armed and having good allies, and if he is well armed he will have good friends, and affairs will always remain quiet within when they are quiet without, unless they should have been already disturbed by conspiracy; and even should affairs outside be disturbed, if he has carried out his preparations and has lived as I have said, as long as he does not despair, he will resist every attack, as I said Nabis the Spartan did.
But concerning his subjects, when affairs outside are disturbed he has only to fear that they will conspire secretly, from which a prince can easily secure himself by avoiding being hated and despised, and by keeping the people satisfied with him, which it is most necessary for him to accomplish, as I said above at length. And one of the most efficacious remedies that a prince can have against conspiracies is not to be hated and despised by the people, for he who conspires against a prince always expects to please them by his removal; but when the conspirator can only look forward to offending them, he will not have the courage to take such a course, for the difficulties that confront a conspirator are infinite....
<http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/text_version/academic/digitexts/machiavelli/the_prince/chapter19.html> *****
To keep the state while fighting against external powers, the government had better be just democratic enough to keep its citizens content & to have them consent to la raison d'Etat, without being so democratic as to allow them to refuse to bear the inevitable costs of war altogether.
Yoshie