210. David Brooks's Bad People

Do you hear what I hear in David Brooks's column yesterday (7-5-13) in the Times?  In his words describing the Muslims running Egypt and justifying their removal?  He says "they have absolutist, apocalyptic mind-sets."  He says "they have a strange fascination with a culture of death."  I hear, "These are bad people."

In democracies being bad can't be admitted as a justification for throwing people out before an election.  You have to do bad.  Do something that prevents the election of somebody to replace you and you have done the one thing that democracies have to call bad, since it ends democracy. 

You can do something that will lead to the prevention of an election, or has a high probability of leading to prevention, and that could be bad enough to justify your removal, but still you must do something.  Do something. 

That's often complicated, tracing the doing, and that's where we rely on experts and columnists to show us what's been done, and where it leads.  They're like defenders and prosecutors, going over the evidence and following laws that define guilt.  Readers, like jurors, know that in democratic societies beliefs are not a crime.  Display bad ones to them and you're out of bounds.  "What are you, thought police?"

I think Brooks is a little embarrassed calling these people bad.  That's why he goes on to call them incompetent.  They are "incapable of running a modern government," they "lack the mental equipment," incompetence  "is built into the intellectual DNA of radical Islam."  I can believe what he says, and more.  Certainly Morsi and his Brotherhood didn't play it very smart after they took office.

The thing is, in a democracy we have a remedy for that.  At the next election we throw the evil, stupid rascals out.  That's what we have to do if our constitution does not provide for an impeachment process, as, I understand, the Egyptian constitution does not.

We in the West speak to the world for law and logic and constitutions.  We speak to the world for our national game.  America is Babe Ruth.  And oh what that does for us now when we think of trying to write a constitution that will fit in the actions we (Brooks, at least) are now approving.  "Governments will be removed by ballot, but if governments are run by very bad people, or very incompetent people, or very stupid people, they may be removed by the army."

I know.  You can hardly open your mouth now about Egypt without fourteen ironies and a satire leaping out of it.  But not all ironies are equal.  The ones roused by defenders of the army's action in Egypt take the cake.  And shove it down our throats.

But hell, gag on irony and there are many important actions you'll be incapacitated for.  Israel's security is important.  An Egyptian army in our pay ($1.3 billion a year) working with a sympathetic regime is a much firmer guarantee of that security than a regime sympathetic to Hamas promising that yes, yes, they will give us our money's worth.

So what, then?  Read Brooks and gag.  He's probably gagging too.  You just have to remember that watching Israel go down the tube could be lot more sickening than watching your democratic ideals go down.