“The Democracy Hits Egypt….a year plus after its “Revolution”…..the Dictatorship of the Majority

The Corner

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Brothers’ Day By Mark Steyn    Last year at NRO I wrote: “The short 90-year history of independent Egypt is that it got worse” — and was about to get “worse still.” Eighty years ago, Egypt was ruled by a ramshackle, free-ish monarchy in mimicry of the Westminster system; forty years ago, it was under the control of authoritarian, secular pan-Arab nationalists; and now the Muslim Brotherhood guy has won the election. But don’t worry, on the day Mubarak stepped down, America’s director of national intelligence, who presides over the most lavishly funded intelligence bureaucracy on the planet, was telling the world that the Muslim Brotherhood is “largely secular.” So that’s okay. The linked clip of me and Megyn Kelly aired an hour or so after Mubarak’s resignation, and is the same interview in which I said this was the dawn of the post-Western Middle East. “Experts” can get a lot of things wrong, but rarely on the scale of the Western media in February 2011, even as they were on the sharp end of the ”Facebook Revolution”: Within minutes of Mubarak’s resignation, the CBS reporter Lara Logan, covering events in Tahrir Square, was set upon by a 200-strong mob who stripped her, punched her, beat her with flagpoles, and subjected her to a half-hour sexual assault by multiple participants while shouting “Jew! Jew!…” What’s striking about this story is not so much that her own employer, CBS News, chose not to run it until over three days later - on the following Monday – but that in the intervening period they pumped out the same sappy drivel as everybody else – ”Egypt’s New Age Revolution” (60 Minutes), “Egypt Proved Change Is Possible, Sexy And Cool!” (CBS Sunday Morning) – even as they knew there was another side to the story, and that their own correspondent was lying in the hospital traumatised because of it. We can’t do anything about the disposition of the Egyptian electorate, but we could at least stop deluding ourselves. Mubarak, according to various reports, is in a coma, or “clinically dead,” or near death. Let’s suppose the “Facebook Revolution” had never happened, and he’d continued ruling until stricken by ill health a year or so later. Does anyone suppose his successor would have been any worse than the Brotherhood/military carve-up Egypt’s wound up with? Or, as CBS would put it, any less “sexy and cool”?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prager University and the Fourth of July, 2012

PRAGER UNIVERSITY PRESENTS  THE

 

4TH OF JULY DECLARATION

 

Welcome to our Fourth of July Declaration Ceremony. This short ceremony is designed to help us remember what the Fourth of July is really about, and to remind ourselves how fortunate we all are to be Americans.For many of us, the Fourth of July is a day for barbecues, baseball, shopping, and fireworks. There is nothing wrong with any of this. But in 1776, our founders didn’t sign the Declaration of Independence (and then go to war) only so that later generations would spend July 4th at the department store. They knew Americans needed to be educated and informed in order for our hard-won liberty to survive. As Thomas Jefferson put it: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

As Americans, we need to reconnect to our heritage, channel the wisdom of the Founding Fathers, and rediscover the meaning behind our country’s creation. And we need to do it every year. That’s point of observing the Fourth of July: To help us remember why this country was founded, and to help us transmit that collective memory to the next generation.

How can we do this? Through ritual.

We Americans need a ritual to remind ourselves of our national origins and our national purpose. That is why Prager University has created the Fourth of July Declaration Ceremony, which draws its inspiration from one of the most enduring rituals in the world: the Jewish Passover Seder. (“Seder” means “order” in Hebrew.)

For thousands of years, the Passover Seder has helped Jews around the world to remember that they are descendants of an enslaved people who were liberated by the mighty hand of God. The Founders of the United States (including

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George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and others) were all well-versed in the Bible and knew the story of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt. They viewed their break from England as a new exodus; so much so that Franklin and Jefferson wanted the seal of the newly-formed United States to depict the Israelites escaping across the Red Sea.Even though that design was not chosen, the original historical inspiration still remains. Like the Passover seder, the Fourth of July Declaration Ceremony can be a powerful ritual that helps us transmit our love for this country to our children and grandchildren.

In keeping with our philosophy at Prager University that profound concepts can be taught in five minutes or less, we have kept the Declaration Ceremony brief. In our experience, adults find it meaningful and children find it fascinating.

If you follow our simple guide, the Fourth of July will be more than just another barbecue or fireworks display. It will become the kind of day it was meant to be: a celebration of the birth of our exceptional country, and a way of showing gratitude for the gift of liberty that has been bestowed upon us all.

You can always add more to your 4th of July Declaration (and we have lots of suggestions as to how) but we’ve given you the basics here.

Doing a little will mean a lot –to you, to your family and friends, and to the nation. Happy Fourth of July!

Materials and Ingredients Needed for the Ceremony:

• Iced tea
• Salty pretzels and salt
• Strawberries and blueberries and whipped cream
  (Be creative! you may also use cake, cupcakes or any other white-red and blue sweet treats)
• A small bell
• An American coin
  (For example a quarter)
• An American flag
• A printed Declaration of Independence
  Download an unsigned copy to print

 

GET THE 4TH OF JULY KIT:

Donate to Prager University and receive the 4th of July Declaration ceremony kit as a gift!

In this kit you will find:

• An unsigned Declaration of Independence
• A Liberty Bell
• An American Flag
• A ceremony book and an American Trinity pin for the leader
• 10 Chocolate Coins
• And a couple of other surprises…

Minimum donation $35 per kit
All requests for kits must be submitted by June 20th

More About What’s in the 4th of July Declaration Kit

Order the 4th of July Kit

Download the ceremony for print PDF

THE CEREMONY BEGINS

DIRECTION: Everyone gathers around the table
	HOST SPEAKS: Today we take a few minutes to remember what the 4th of July is about and to remind ourselves how fortunate we are to be Americans. Before America was a nation, it was a dream – a dream shared by many people, from many nations, over many generations. It began with the Pilgrims in 1620 who fled Europe so that they could be free to practice their religion. It continued through the 17th century as more and more people came to the place that came to be known as the New World. In this new world, where you came from didn’t matter; what mattered was where you were headed. As more and more people settled, they started to see themselves as new people – Americans. They felt blessed: The land was spacious. The opportunities limitless. By 1776, a century and a half after the first Pilgrims landed, this new liberty-loving people was ready to create a new nation. And on July 4 of that year they did just that. They pronounced themselves to be free of the rule of the English king. We know this statement as The Declaration of Independence.
DIRECTION: Host invites the young people (generally ages 7 and older) present to read and to answer the following:
	YOUNG READERS: Q: Why do we celebrate the 4th of July? A: Because the 4th of July is the birthday of the American people – the day we chose to become the United States of America, a free nation. Q: Why was America different from all other countries? A: Because in 1776, all countries were based on nationality, religion, ethnicity or geography. But America was created on the basis of a set of ideas. This is still true today. Q: What are those ideas? A: Three ideas summarize what America is all about. They are engraved on every American coin. They are “Liberty,” “In God We Trust,” and “E Pluribus Unum.”
DIRECTION: Host passes around an American coin and chooses readers from the group to read the following:
	READER #1: “Liberty” means that we are free to pursue our dreams and to go as far in life as hard work and good luck will take us.
	READER #2: “In God We Trust” means that America was founded on the belief that our rights and liberties have been granted to us by the Creator. Therefore they cannot be taken away by people.
	READER #3: “E Pluribus Unum” is a Latin phrase meaning “From Many, One.” Unlike other countries, America is composed of people of every religious, racial, ethnic, cultural and national origin – and regards every one of them as equally American. Therefore, “out of many (people we become) one” — Americans.
	HOST: We have on our table items that symbolize the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War that won our freedom.
DIRECTION: Host holds up each symbolic item as he explains its symbolic meaning.
	HOST: We drink iced teato remember the Boston tea party. “No taxation without representation” was the patriots’ chant as they dumped British tea into the Boston Harbor. We eat a salty pretzelto remember the tears shed by the families who lost loved ones in the struggle for freedom in the Revolutionary War and all the wars of freedom that followed. We ring a bellto recall the ringing of the Liberty Bell which was rung to announce the surrender of the King’s army. On the Bell are inscribed these words from the Book of Leviticus: “Proclaim Liberty throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof.” We eat strawberries and blueberries dipped in whipped cream to celebrate the red, white and blue of our flag, symbol of the United States of America.
	HOST: We celebrate America’s greatness without denying its flaws. There are no perfect individuals, so there can certainly be no perfect country. Our national history has its share of shame. The greatest of these is the shame of slavery which existed at our founding, as it existed throughout the world at that time. But let it never be forgotten that we fought a terrible civil war in which hundreds of thousands of American died. And the reason for that war was slavery. Let it also not be forgotten that America has fought in more wars for the freedom of other peoples than any nation in history. America’s history is one that we can be proud of.
DIRECTION: Host holds up a copy of The Declaration of Independence.
	HOST: We now close with one more ritual. Let each of us sign our names to the Declaration of Independence. While it is a replica of the one our founders signed, the words and sentiments are eternal.
DIRECTION: Everyone present signs their name to the Declaration of Independence. As each one signs, the host hands each person the lyrics to “God Bless America.”
	HOST: Everyone sing with me. DIRECTION: Everyone sings (hopefully). HOST: Happy Birthday, America. Happy 4th of July. Now let’s eat! TELL US HOW IT WENT! SEND US FEED BACK. 4TH@PragerUniversity.com

SHARE YOUR 4TH OF JULY DECLARATION CEREMONY EXPERIENCE:

Contact Form: First Name:   Last Name:   Email:   Phone Number:   Comments:     *In the comments, please include links to your photos or videos.

We look forward to hearing from you about your 4th of July Declaration ceremony. We are interested in finding out what worked and what didn’t.Email us: Videos and photos of you, your family and friends celebrating this special event Write us about your experience If you have ideas for next year please share them with us!

DONATE $35 OR MORE TO PRAGER UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION
And we’ll send you The 4th of July Declaration Kit as a token of appreciation!

If you’ve watched one of our courses or enjoyed some of our programs, consider paying some “tuition.” It’s a way you can “pay it forward,” by helping us make more courses, come up with more programs, add faculty and staff, build up our website, and market our message.

If you contribute at least $35 by June 20th we’ll send you our 4th of July Declaration Kit so you can use it during your Independence Day celebration.

Please make sure to fill in all the required information and process your contribution via PayPal. Once your donation is confirmed, we will make sure to get the kit to you before July 3rd.

To receive the kit, all orders must be fully processed by June 20th

Order the 4TH OF JULY DECLARATION KIT

First Name:   Last Name:   Email:   Phone Number:   Street Address:   City:   State: ALASKA ALABAMA ARKANSAS ARIZONA CALIFORNIA COLORADO CONNECTICUT DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA DELAWARE FLORIDA GEORGIA HAWAII IOWA IDAHO ILLINOIS INDIANA KANSAS KENTUCKY LOUISIANA MASSACHUSETTS MARYLAND MAINE MICHIGAN MINNESOTA MISSOURI MISSISSIPPI MONTANA NORTH CAROLINA NORTH DAKOTA NEBRASKA NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW JERSEY NEW MEXICO NEVADA NEW YORK OHIO OKLAHOMA OREGON PENNSYLVANIA PUERTO RICO RHODE ISLAND SOUTH CAROLINA SOUTH DAKOTA TENNESSEE TEXAS UTAH VIRGINIA VERMONT WASHINGTON WISCONSIN WEST VIRGINIA WYOMING Other-Not Shown Zip Code:   Notes:   Donation Amount: $ (Minimum $35) Would you like us to email you a tax receipt?: Yes No   All donations are processed via PayPal. You must place your order by June 20th in order to receive the kit before July 3rd.

What’s in the kit? (We recommend one kit per 10 guests) A Small Replica of a Liberty Bell 10 Milk Chocolate Replicas of an American Quarter An American Flag A Replica of The Declaration of Independence Without Signatures The Ceremony for the Leader For the complete list of items required for the ceremony you will still need to acquire: Iced Tea Salty pretzels and salt Strawberries and blueberries and whipped cream (Be creative! you may also use cake, cupcakes or any other white-red and blue sweet treats) Extra printed ceremonies More About What’s in the 4th of July Declaration Kit

Even the Majority of Democrat Voters Support Photo IDs Requirement to Vote

The People Say Check For Photo IDs On Election Day

http://news.investors.com/articleprint/615415/201206191853/broad-support-for-voter-id-requirements.aspx

 

Elections: Democratic politicians consider photo ID requirements discriminatory, but the people disagree. There’s broad support for preventing illegal voting, a reflection of how precious Americans hold the right to vote.

Through our history Americans have defended and died for the right to vote. Daniel Webster called voting “a social duty of as solemn a nature as man can be called to perform.”

So it should be no surprise to find that across virtually every grouping, the IBD/TIPP Poll found majority support for making sure that only those eligible to vote should do so. Of 912 adults surveyed nationwide during the first week of June, 67% believed voters should be “required to show a state-issued photo ID at the polls before being allowed to cast a ballot.”

Only 28% thought they should not be required, while 4% were unsure.

Among Democrats the breakdown was 49% to 45% in favor of the ID requirement, with 6% not sure. Republicans were heavily in favor of voter ID, by 90% to 8%, with 2% uncertain.

Independents also came in strongly in support, 69% of whom favored checking IDs, with 27% opposed and 4% unsure.

Those describing themselves as conservatives were 85% to 12% in favor, with 2% not sure. Moderates leaned toward the ID check by 63% to 32%, with 4% uncertain. Self-described liberals, on the other hand, were against a photo ID rule 57% to 35%, with 8% not sure.

Like liberals, blacks were opposed to voter ID, by a margin of 58% to 39%, with 3% uncertain. Americans of color, of course, were for decades the victims of abuses in voter eligibility procedures.

But liberals and blacks were the only two categories found to oppose the requirements. Most significantly of all the results, Hispanics were found to be 75% to 23% in favor of voter ID, with 2% unsure.

Single women were in favor by 58% to 35%, with 7% unable to make up their minds; married women were 69% to 26% for the requirements, with 4% not sure.

Strong support for voter ID spanned every income group, with 67% of those earning under $30,000 in favor and 66% of those making $75,000 or more also in favor. Education levels also made little difference: 69% of those with only a high school education favored the requirements, with 71% of those with some college also in favor, and 65% of those with graduate degrees in support too.

City dwellers were 59% for voter ID, while those in suburban and rural regions were about 70% in favor. Northeasterners were 61% in favor, while Westerners were 74% in support.

Midwesterners and Southerners came in at 63% and 69% in support, respectively.

The message is loud and clear:

Far from being racist or anti-immigrant, significant majorities of Americans across most demographic lines consider modern voter ID requirements to be a protection of this country’s one-man-one-vote rule of the people, an assurance that the ineligible do not exercise a right to which they are not entitled.

Mark Waldeland forwarded the above article.

Are Americans Younger than Fifty Too Dumb to Maintain a Real Democracy?

Perhaps they are too narcissistic, the black neighborhood  too racist, feminists to hysterical, college grad whites and government  union members  too spoiled and greedy, or do we have too many ‘foreigners’ like president Obama who have not been raised traditional American to know what representative democracy means?

The following article is from the National Center for Policy Analysis:

Are Americans Too Dumb for Democracy?

Of late, there has been a spate of articles and op-ed pieces that suggest the answer to the question of whether Americans are too dumb for democracy is an emphatic yes: The majority of Americans are simply too hopelessly ignorant to make the kind of intelligent decisions that are necessary to preserve a healthy democratic system, says author Lee Harris.

A team of psychologists working under Dr. David Dunning of Cornell University concluded after researching the topic that “very smart ideas are going to be hard for people to adopt, because most people don’t have the sophistication to recognize how good an idea is.”

• For example, because it takes an expert in taxation to intelligently assess the worth of a proposed tax reform, the average person will obviously lack the competence to make a judgment on the reform in question.
• Worse, he will lack the ability to recognize who the actual experts in the field are, leaving him vulnerable to political charlatans who will appeal to his emotions and not his reason.

There are a number of reasons, however, to believe that Americans’ supposed ignorance will not spell the doom of democracy.

• The research team presumes that the promotion of dumb ideas is the true danger to democracies.
• Dumb ideas, however, are not the property solely of the ignorant.
• Rather, numerous incredibly intelligent people have held incredibly dumb ideas, often influencing vast multitude to their point of view.
• Therefore, an ignorant population in and of itself poses no direct danger.

The Cornell research team would likely be quick to respond that an ignorant population, nevertheless, is more susceptible to malicious manipulation by demagoguery and hyper-partisan characters.

• It bears mention that this was once the case in American history, when the learned elite believed that Andrew Jackson’s election by the ill-informed common man spelled the end for democracy.
• However, despite his bully tactics as president, Jackson still stepped down after two terms and American democracy survived.

This speaks to the most important point contradicting the researchers’ conclusion: our population is (arguably) no more ignorant now than at any time in our history.  That our democracy persists suggests that the ignorance of the population is not as fatal to democracy as the researchers suggest.

Source: Lee Harris, “Are Americans Too Dumb for Democracy?” The American, June 9, 2012.

For text:

http://american.com/archive/2012/june/are-americans-too-dumb-for-democracy

For more on Government Issues:

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_Category=33