The Corner - National Review Online: "So the more Afghan soldiers Nato soldiers train, the more Nato soldiers Afghan soldiers kill. But as long as it’s proportional it’s no big deal:“Quite often people resolve their personal problems by resorting to the use of a weapon. It’s more of a cultural thing here.”
So that’s okay then.
This seems as good a time as any to dust off Burke’s line that “men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.” Which is not un-germane to Andy, Mario and Mark K’s back-and-forth on whether, in the Arab world, the Muslim Brotherhood is the path to democracy. “Democracy” – as in a polling station and ballot box – is the last piece of liberty’s puzzle. What comes first are property rights, legal systems, freedom of speech and of conscience, a civil society rather than a tribal one. Absent those, the “cultural thing” will out."
Hmm. Do we have a civil society in the U.S. anymore? Whoops.
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