{"id":19629,"date":"2013-07-10T05:57:34","date_gmt":"2013-07-10T09:57:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=19629"},"modified":"2013-07-10T05:57:34","modified_gmt":"2013-07-10T09:57:34","slug":"democracy-in-egypt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=19629","title":{"rendered":"Democracy In Egypt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Andrew McCarthy\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/celebrity\/andrew_mccarthy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"rottentomatoes\">Andrew McCarthy<\/a> is one of the best authorities on the <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Muslim Brotherhood\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ikhwanonline.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"homepage\">Muslim Brotherhood<\/a> and how the <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Middle East\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Middle_East\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">Middle East<\/a> works. He posted an article at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/corner\/352973\/breaking-egypt-transitional-government-names-economist-hazem-al-beblawi-prime-minister\">National Review<\/a> yesterday about the latest developments in <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Egypt\" href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?ll=30.0333333333,31.2166666667&amp;spn=10.0,10.0&amp;q=30.0333333333,31.2166666667 (Egypt)&amp;t=h\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"geolocation\">Egypt<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The article reports:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong><em><a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Al-Ahram\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ahram.org.eg\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"homepage\">Al-Ahram<\/a><\/em> is <a href=\"http:\/\/english.ahram.org.eg\/NewsContentP\/1\/76108\/Egypt\/BREAKING-Liberal-economist-Hazem-ElBeblawi-appoint.aspx\">reporting<\/a> that Haze El-Beblawy has been appointed Egypt\u2019s interim prime minister.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Andrew McCarthy then goes on to explain that after <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Hosni Mubarak\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hosni_Mubarak\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">Hosni Mubarak<\/a> was ousted Haze El-Beblawy was deputy finance minister and, later, finance minister, under the government led by the <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Supreme Council of the Armed Forces\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Supreme_Council_of_the_Armed_Forces\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">Supreme Council of the Armed Forces<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The goal of the military currently in charge of Egypt is to establish a stable, functioning government that writes a constitution that will insure rights for all religious groups and then move to elections. Because the elections were rushed after Mubarak was removed, the only really organized political party was the Muslim Brotherhood. They wrote the constitution, ran a candidate for president (after promising that they would not do that), and took over the country. The idea this time is to move more slowly, allow other political parties to get organized (which should be interesting, since the Brotherhood removed a lot of the opposition leadership), and have an election after the rights of minorities have been guaranteed by the new constitution.<\/p>\n<p>So what are the chances?<\/p>\n<p>Andrew McCarthy comments:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>There is a good chance that it won\u2019t work. After all, this is Egypt and, given the opportunity, Egyptians have repeatedly shown that they will vote by lopsided margins\u00a0for anti-democratic Islamic supremacists over <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Western world\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Western_world\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">pro-Western<\/a> democrats and progressives.\u00a0As Mark trenchantly <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/corner\/352847\/gang-raping-your-way-democracy-mark-steyn\">observed<\/a> yesterday, \u201cEgypt is imprisoned less by its passing dictators than by its own psychoses.\u201d Nevertheless, what\u2019s done is done, and the present course is the best chance some semblance of democracy has to take root. We should be cautiously encouraging it.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>&#8230;So now, as the\u00a0mosques stoke opposition to the transition government against a background of shooting on the streets and an economy in ruins,\u00a0there will also be a vivid sense that the leaders elected by the people have been shoved aside in favor of politicians decisively rejected by the people. This is going to be very uphill.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Democracy only happens with well-informed, rational voters. If the culture is not leaning in the direction of freedom (or if freedom is being denounced from the pulpits of the mosques),\u00a0 the chances of establishing a democracy are reduced drastically. Until the voters in Egypt can get past the idea that voting for their own freedom is a betrayal of their religious beliefs, there will be no freedom in Egypt.<\/p>\n<p>Watching the unfolding of the &#8220;<a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Arab Spring\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Arab_Spring\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">Arab Spring<\/a>&#8221; gives me a whole new appreciation of the gift to America that the Founding Fathers were. The wisdom and selflessness of America&#8217;s Founding Fathers is the only reason America has lasted as long as it has.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"zemanta-pixie\" style=\"margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;\"><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/?px\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" style=\"border: none; float: right;\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" src=\"http:\/\/img.zemanta.com\/zemified_e.png?x-id=9027741d-1a6d-44ae-aebf-34cf412417d4\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Andrew McCarthy is one of the best authorities on the Muslim Brotherhood and how the Middle East works. He posted an article at National Review yesterday about the latest developments in Egypt. The article reports: Al-Ahram is reporting that Haze &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=19629\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5883,108,2459,85,1100,245,900,5882],"class_list":["post-19629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-al-ahram","tag-andrew-mccarthy","tag-arab-spring","tag-egypt","tag-hosni-mubarak","tag-middle-east","tag-muslim-brotherhood","tag-supreme-council-of-the-armed-forces"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19629"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19629\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19632,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19629\/revisions\/19632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}