Elections do not a true democracy make

The St@te o’ the Union certainly gave me plenty of blog fodder, so it’ll be a while before I get through it all.

But in the meantime, something that I’ve been thinking about over the last week, and something the President (albeit briefly) mentioned last night, is the recent election of H@mas to represent the “Palestinians.”

Now, I’m fairly certain that everyone who frequents this blog knows my opinion on the Israeli/”Palestinian” conflict, so there’s no point in rehashing that. Rather, most of my thoughts on the matter have been revolving around the idea of whether H@mas’ victory can be considered Democracy.

I’ve always believed that there is more to democracy besides free and fair elections. Scientifically, I guess free and fair elections could be classified as a ‘necessary condition’ for Democracy, but fall well short of a ‘sufficient condition.’ That is to say, for a Democracy to exist, free and fair elections must be present. The presence of free and fair elections, however, does not merit the title ‘Democracy.’

As I see it, democratic institutions like elections only constitute the bodily functions of the culture in which they reside. The point of elections cannot simply be to perpetuate more elections, any more than the purpose of a heart is to pump blood for the sake of pumping blood.

There is a certain consciousness on behalf of the citizenry required to make the whole process worthwhile — an awareness of the responsibilities that accompany liberty, universal acceptance of inalienable rights, and a general sense of decency, just to name a few. Otherwise, the institutions constitute a glorified form of mob justice.

The victory of H@mas, in my opinion, more closely resembles the latter. Granted, the election of H@mas isn’t necessarily a wholesale, vox populi acceptance of the entire H@mas platform — but in the eyes of H@mas it’s all the same.

It doesn’t matter that a main reason for H@mas’ victory is that a substantial part of the Palestinian electorate was alienated by the F@tah party’s massive corruption and general incompetence. What matters is that now the Palestinian electorate is now being represented by a fascist, violent, extremist group that doesn’t even recognize the existence of Israel.

Moreover, H@mas is now likely to impose oppressive Islamic law in the territories, ala Saudi Arabia.

Conservative philosopher Edmund Burke once said: “The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please. We ought to see what it will please them to do before we risk congratulations, which may soon be turned into complaints.”

Before we start cheering the advent of Democracy for the Palestinians, we should probably wait and see what H@mas has in mind.

Personally, I think the election of H@mas will be a giant leap backwards for the “Palestinian” cause. In voting for a group that seeks to limit personal freedoms, minority rights and the free flow of ideas, as well as destroy a democratic nation, the Palestinians have not engaged in an exercise in democracy, but rather democracy’s bastard cousin.