Implementing Democracy 1.01 in Iran

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Class-ridden is precisely the thing that holds you back as a society. Americans of English descent (and one side of my own family came here from south of Norwich in the seventeenth century) in considerable measure came to America to escape that restraint. Americans are breakers of restraints. The English will draw a line and stay behind it; for Americans, lines are things to cross. This makes America a bit disorderly, but it is also the key to our successes.

The more you turn towards libertarian ways and away from the welfare state, the more you will succeed, even unto having wealth like you did in the days of empire, and on a better moral basis to boot. In my view, there's nothing here to not like.

I don't look for you to turn into a full-on republic vice a constitutional monarchy because overall you'd rather be a monarchy, being in that habit. (The ones out of the habit moved over here.) Having hit upon a way to have a national symbol in the person of a Sovereign, and a constitution however unwritten it be, you've got a good thing going, really.

"By what right do you and your ilk decide what is right for the world?" Oh, the same right by which you did, for the same reasons, and quite frankly in the identical spirit: you are of our ilk thereby. The just plain English idea that limited government is good government (and that government is best that governs least) is the core idea that we Americans try and spread. It is presently most successful in the lands of English speech, but since all other inhabited lands are peopled by, well, people, we suspect they can do every bit as well, as long as the slavemakers can't spoil things. In too many countries the slavemakers do. What an abomination.