In reading the Chicago Tribune article, one has to remember that a "mission" for many Americans, especially American politicians, is "to make the world safe for democracy". Yet, the question arises: should the rest of the world consist only of an American-style democracy? The "super-patriots" in the United States seem to think the rest of the world should be like America. Yet, this article clearly points out that "Democracy is not a franchise, an advertising gimmick to be handed out to any ruler who cozies up to us" (Grossman 2003 4). This is somewhat of an imperfect description. We certainly are not imposing democracy on Saudi Arabia or Jordan -- two nations in the Middle East that are our presumed allies. In fact, democracy is far from the minds of American oil executives who continue to lobby for leaving the Saudi dynasty and its totalitarian/theocratic ways in place. China then and now, is another example of overlooking social ills. Grossman calls Chiang Kai-Chek's party "A bunch of sticky-fingered thieves"(4). One remembers an American politician, talking about a Central American dictator, claiming he was a son-of-a-bitch, but OUR son-of-a-bitch. It seems, therefore, that American democracy is selective in its view of other nations' leadership.
Grossman delves into history, when he writes "Kings and emperors give structure to society" (4). That "structure" has seen the fall of emperors from ancient Rome to Wilhelm in Germany, Franz Josef in Austria and Nicholas in Russia. However, their fall did not automatically translate into a democratic form of government. As a matter of fact, neither the German nor Austrian nor Russian successors to emperors, Kaisers and tsars produced anything close to an American-style democracy.
This article produces two ideas about what Americans call "democracy". First, we need to understand that that noble phrase in our Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal" is...