Cursed: from immediate bankruptcy to immediate bureaucracy. The dictatorial uses of democracy. Which rights to protect? Why government is worse than the governed. Who is assimilating whom? The careful choice of the conqueror.

1.Bailing out Detroit. "Bankruptcy now" has been avoided. However, the measure might bring only temporary relief. As so often, support is likely to finance the continued manufacture of products that not enough people want. Avoiding immediate bankruptcy also means that this ruin's place will be taken by "immediate bureaucracy." The control of automobile manufacture will be made the co-responsibility of a state-appointed "Car Czar." This person will in theory know more about car-making than the CEOs of the Big Three. Might pastry shops be next?

2. If his voters ultimately conclude that Obama has misled them, then they will be unfair. Obama did not mislead anyone: he did not have to. It is the voter who substituted his fears and hopes with the facts. Having done so he has, defying these particulars, empowered the candidate.

3. There is something inconsistent about the stance the EU prefers to take regarding minority problems. The scale of sensitivity tends to kick in if the complaint is situated on the left side of the middle of the political spectrum. The more left, respectively the more anti-Western a group, the greater the publicity given and the support extended.

4. Switzerland is unusual because practices direct democracy. If it so wishes, her people can govern themselves against the will of the legislature and the executive. A measure forbidding the construction of more minarets (not of places of Moslem worship) is to be submitted to a vote. The political class, the press  — forcefully seconded by preachers — predict dictatorship in case of passage. Passing the initiative will also be the end of religious freedom. Whatever the merits of these concerns, another argument could be injected into the debate. Even if minaret building is stopped, the law will not violate an important standard. It is the one set in Moslem countries for the construction of the edifices serving other religions.

5. Scroll the list of advanced modern industrialized societies. In doing so note the quality of their governors. The process might lead to a shocking conclusion. It is that individuals and parties govern us whose performance is well under the potential that the governed demonstrate in the non-political areas of life. Actually, one wonders whether the customer would tolerate, in whatever he pays for in the store, the quality he accepts from his government. Naturally, government we do not purchase directly. We just vote for it and then pay for it. It is a sign of falling expectations that government, whose standards match the ethics of the Blagojeviches, is tolerated as an unavoidable "act of nature." Besides this disillusionment, strong societies might be tacitly supporting bad politics because they assume that its blunders can be overcome. This, however, might prove to be an optimistic assessment that chooses to ignore the calamities inferior politics have caused. Meanwhile, one is left wondering when a "revolution of expectations" will dawn to bring an attitude that refuses to mindlessly elect the liar, the weakling, the corrupt and the tainted.

6. Hard to believe. Democratic procedures are easily deprived of their intended and assumed content. Just think of elections in places such as Zimbabwe. This often succeeds and mostly with the connivance of democratic countries that do not wish to be bothered by the problems of a far-away people about which one knows nearly nothing. The ably erected shell of disemboweled democracy can serve to protect abusive dictatorship. Today, only the stupidest systems are willing to admit that they are a tyranny. In name, democracy has won globally. The same is true with the rule of law, the protection of the weak, the guarantees of basic rights. The following case illustrates how, in this instance the protection of the rights of minors and women can be used to uphold inequity.

An eight-year-old has been married to a man aged 56. The divorced mother of the child has started action to have the marriage, which represents the sale of the daughter by the child's father, annulled. The court refused to hear the case. The bride, the injured party, must bring the complaint. Being a minor and as such lacking legal status, the girl cannot sue until she is 18. Case closed. We are left with a great example how formal legality is construed to protect an abuse.

7. Often it is asserted that, the evolution to a politically democratic, economically advanced society with general prosperity has taken from about "1776" till our own days. If so, why do we expect from societies that are shaped by Islam to accomplish the same result in half a century?

Granted, institutions function as mirrors that reflect the way of thinking dominating the context in which they operate. This is the reason why systems — being cultural products — are not transferable across cultural divides. On the other hand, having to pioneer and build an economic-political system from scratch — as was done in the countries originally influenced by the Enlightenment — takes more time than in later cases when a developed model's essentials can be copied. If you have to build a bike, it is of advantage if you have access to the inventor of the wheel.

Once Japan decided to do so, she became industrialized in the generation of the Meiji Restoration. Following her defeat in 1945, she set her mind to imitate the political ways of the victor. Within a generation, Japan became a functioning democracy. (Had she chosen to absorb the ways of her Eastern vanquisher, she would have made it into a Socialist state even faster.) By these standards, the cause of concern is not that Moslem societies do not produce instant success. The problem is that, given the culture's reaction to change, especially the political aspects of their growth point backwards and not forward.

In short: the gap in political development is not only not closing but it is widening.

8. History is in some ways the history of migrations. Regardless of nationalistic propaganda ("we have always been here") only the Neanderthal can claim exclusive possession by getting there first. Historic migration tended to differ from some of the phenomenon we register nowadays. For one thing, by current standards sparsely populated areas were involved. While differences between cultures were present, the developmental level of the peoples that met was generally comparable. (Not so, and with catastrophic consequences to civilization, in the case of the Romans and their assorted settlers. These forced themselves upon their host as squatters and were the stock from which the military conquerors of the empire were recruited.)

Today we have densely populated immigration areas. Furthermore, those entering do so as individual immigrants claiming to be refugees. At the same time they possess the reserves to become new majorities. Most problematic, however, is that the modern migrant is attracted because of the material advantages that can be extended to him thanks to the host's development.

Regardless of the systemic advantages, the new migrant does not understand and often consciously rejects, the "Godless" values that make the system benefiting him rotate. In doing so this element brings with it the order it claims to have fled and threatens to impose it via majority rule on the host country.

9. A sizeable portion of the new immigration that claimed asylum from alleged persecution at home has a quarrel with its protector. As a minority, it is unable to dominate and change its host and so it feels offended, persecuted and deprived of its rights. This being the case, this element feels justified resorting to any measure to assert what it considers being a just order.

10. One more thing. This serves the cause of a smile to interrupt the nervous hurry of the holiday season. Tongue-in-cheek a petition has been launched in Latvia. The signatories turn with a request to Sweden. What the Swedes are asked to do is to declare war. After the defeat, they are requesting annexation by the subjugator. Since something similar — but with malign consequences — has already happened in WWII, you can rest assured that the Latvians are wise in picking their conquerors if they are allowed to designate them. (Check this out: petitiononline.com.lugums18/petition.html)The last bit connects to item 9. The petitioners promise expressly to respect Swede's laws and values.