Time after time, observers have questioned whether this country, or that people, or this group, are "ready" for democracy -- as if freedom were a prize you win for meeting our own Western standards of progress. In fact, the daily work of democracy itself is the path of progress. It teaches cooperation, the free exchange of ideas, and the peaceful resolution of differences. As men and women are showing, from Bangladesh to Botswana, to Mongolia, it is the practice of democracy that makes a nation ready for democracy, and every nation can start on this path.
— PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
The leadership of the Democracy Project joins President Bush in affirming that all persons of every nation are capable of achieving self-government. While the paths to liberty differ in character or degree of difficulty, Americans must press ahead for our own safety and for the sake of others. Self-governing peoples have far more respect for the inherent rights of life, liberty, and property than do those living under repressive regimes. Because free peoples have reasonable hope of a better future and the freedom to voice their demands without fear of oppression, they are far more likely to establish stable, prosperous societies in which the dignity of the individual is respected and economic opportunity abounds than are those living under illegitimate, repressive regimes.
The history of self-governing peoples in the Twentieth Century proves this thesis. Cynics asserted that democracy would never work in Japan, post-war Germany, or newly independent India. They were wrong then and their intellectual descendants are wrong today. Those who deem new immigrants to America incapable of adopting our values turn a blind eye to myriad fellow citizens of every continent and race who have embraced the American way of life with gratefulness and enthusiasm.
In his remarkable book Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World’s last Dictators by 2025, former Ambassador to Hungary Mark Palmer articulates a hard-nosed, workable plan to peacefully rid the world of dictatorships. We join him in this effort and hope you will, too.
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