For the last several months I've been reading Democracy In America by Alexis de Tocqueville. So famous is this work that it needs no introduction from me, and its reputation is richly deserved. Tocqueville was indeed a man of great insight.
And for such a thick book, written by an early-19th-century French aristocrat, it's an amazingly smooth read! (not bad for a dead French guy!)
Anyway, here is a passage that I thought interesting, given the times we live in:
Mohammed had not only religious doctrines descend from Heaven and placed in the Koran, but political maxims, civil and criminal laws, and scientific theories. The Gospels, in contrast, speak only of the general relations of men to God and among themselves. Outside of that they teach nothing and oblige nothing to be believed. That alone, among a thousand other reasons, is enough to show that the first of these two religions cannot dominate for long in enlightened and democratic times, whereas the second is destined to reign in these centuries as in all the others.
For the lefties whose shrill voices scream about President Bush and the insane idea that we in the US now live in a theocracy, wait until the Caliphate is restored. If Tocqueville is right, and I believe that he is, infer from the passage above what would happen if today's radical Islam were to dominate.
1 comment:
I think you misunderstand not only de Tocqueville's quote, but also the meaning of theocracy.
Tocqueville was saying that democracy will not flourish under Islam but will under Christianity.
And a theocracy is a form of government by religious leaders, *not* by a deity himself.
Post a Comment