Wednesday, March 29, 2006

"Freedom Is Contageous"

Do you buy these two sentences articulated in some very long speechifying by the W?
Freedom is contagious, by the way. As liberty begins to spread in the Middle East more people will demand it.
Here's a question for all you historians out ther: When was the last time liberty was spread by the freedom contagion?

2 comments:

enigma4ever said...

so it is being compared to some sort of virulent disease....lovely-I am sure some of those countries are praying to their gods for the Bird Flu to strke first...rahter than the Democracy Influenza.....what are the Symptoms???

(1) Condi seen in clingbacks
(2) Bolton grooming his stache in a thoughtful Rant
(3) Scotty McCellen talking about some NEW Fictious Threat in a little foreign country ( that ahem has lots of oil)
(4) Sudden New articles on it in NYT
(5) Emergency Meetings at the UN about Emergency Sanctions?

okay ...but do I have the right idea????

RPM said...

I agree the contagion terminology is unfortunate. But would the relative domino effect in 1989-90 in E. Germany and onward in Eastern Europe count?

My big problem with this notion is that Eastern Europe was familiar with some semblance of "freedom" before the Iron Curtain, Stalin and Khrushchev. Returning to freedom after a break of one or two generations is much easier than establishing it. Then think how long it took representative government and the market economies to stabilize.

Think particularly about the struggles in former E. Germany with a powerhouse subsidizing everything. Now pretend that will work in the Middle East's stratified oil-dependent economies.