“Global Democracy,” Neocon Style

The dictator Musharraf of Pakistan must be a former “Lincoln Fellow” at the Claremont Institute. More likely, the U.S. government probably dispatched a Claremontista to advise him on how to go about destroying constitutional goverment in his country — by quoting precedents set by Abe Lincoln.

When Musharraf announced he was “suspending” his constitution and establishing a dictatorship a few months ago, he did indeed “justify” it by saying that the sainted Lincoln did the same thing, therefore it must be OK. Here’s what he said:

“Lincoln . . . broke laws, he violated the Constitution, he usurped arbitrary power, he trampled individual liberties. His justification was necessity. . .”

He forgot to mention that he also micromanaged a war that murdered some 350,000 fellow citizens, but that’s also supposed to be kosher because, well, he was Abe Lincoln. And even though he was a non-believer, he quoted the Bible to justify it all. So there.

A wise man once said that political pleas of “necessity” are the ways of the tyrant and the credo of the slave. Thomas DiLorenzo