There is no question that democratic societies are more likely to respect human rights, less susceptible to ideological extremism, more respectful of neighboring countries, more easily trusted with nuclear technology. ~Michael Gerson

More likely to do these things than what?  Soviet communism?  All right, check on at least three of those.  But Swiss republicanism?  That would be a big negative.  I suppose it’s easy to take down vast overgeneralisations based on ideological slogans, but then a lot of official policy seems to rest on just this sort of reasoning: if we let the people rule, they would never tolerate an aggressive war!  Oops.  Scratch that. 

Less susceptible to ideological extremism?  Well, that all depends on what country and whose democracy we’re talking about.  Democracy was responsible for what Michael Burleigh calls the “franco-French” genocide in the Vendee; democracy elected You Know Who and led to further unpleasantness all over the place; universal male suffrage didn’t stop Japan from whacking every neighbour it had; the only state to ever drop a nuke on anybody was, you guessed it, a democracy (you’d think the Nagasaki anniversary would jog the old memory).  As for respecting neighbours, after a couple dust-ups with our neighbours (see 1812, 1846) our democratic republic thought it would be a fine idea to kick around small countries in various parts of the world (Philippines, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Cuba, etc.).  We stopped that for a while, but have since returned to a time-honoured tradition of projecting power with no clear sense of national interest against countries that couldn’t have beaten us in a conventional war if their lives depended on it (which, as it happened, they did). 

Democracies have a mixed record when it comes to aggressive warfare; there are no guarantees they won’t fight other democracies.  The two things they allegedly have going for them–accountability and a preference for peace–are not borne out by any of the evidence I’ve seen.  What, pray, is so desirable about it?  Here at Eunomia, we assume that the burden of proof is on the fans of democracy to vindicate their system, which has generally been ruinous of the liberties of every country that has ever experimented with it on a national scale.  (For any Swiss readers out there, I am willing to grant the merits of canton-level popular government.) 

Nearly everything that makes “democracy” worthwhile–guaranteed rights, rule of law, supposed checks and balances, stable public institutions–isn’t really democratic but the residue of aristocratic and republican politics that have not yet been completely wiped out in the bureaucratic, managerial democratic age.  So either praise the virtues of constitutionalism and republicanism, which are the only admirable things in our system, or stop pretending that “democracy” is any great shakes.