Alexis de Tocqueville的杰作。摘录一点。
一点关于中国的。
China appears to me to present the most perfect instance
of that species of well-being which a highly centralized
administration may furnish to its subjects. Travelers assure us
that the Chinese have tranquillity without happiness, industry
without improvement, stability without strength, and public order
without public morality. The condition of society there is always
tolerable, never excellent. I imagine that when China is opened
to European observation, it will be found to contain the most
perfect model of a centralized administration that exists in the
universe.
以下这段我看对中国很适用。
But epochs sometimes occur in the life of a nation when the old customs of a people are changed, public morality is destroyed, religious belief shaken, and the spell of tradition broken, while the diffusion of knowledge is yet imperfect and the civil rights of the community are ill secured or confined within narrow limits. The country then assumes a dim and dubious shape in the eyes of the citizens; they no longer behold it in the soil which they inhabit, for that soil is to them an inanimate clod; nor in the usages of their forefathers, which they have learned to regard as a debasing yoke; nor in religion, for of that they doubt; nor in the laws, which do not originate in their own authority; nor in the legislator, whom they fear and despise. The country is lost to their senses; they can discover it neither under its own nor under borrowed features, and they retire into a narrow and unenlightened selfishness. They are emancipated from prejudice without having acknowledged the empire of reason; they have neither the instinctive patriotism of a monarchy nor the reflecting patriotism of a republic; but they have stopped between the two in the midst of confusion and distress.
In this predicament to retreat is impossible, for a people cannot recover the sentiments of their youth any more than a man can return to the innocent tastes of childhood; such things may be regretted, but they cannot be renewed. They must go forward and accelerate the union of private with public interests, since the period of disinterested patriotism is gone by forever.
- Re: Democracy in America 銆婅缇庡浗鐨勬皯涓汇��posted on 03/09/2006
只能说有一部分适用。即使适用了，绝大部分中国人还是选择热爱自己的国家，不离不弃，只有这样，一个民族才有希望。
- posted on 03/10/2006
与其把时间浪费在云山雾罩、似是而非的帖子和讨论，不如安心读那些经过时间考验、清楚地讲授真实、真理的书。这本书有中文翻译，可以下载。
关于自由和宗教
"Concerning liberty, I observe a great mistake in the country about that. There is a twofold liberty, natural (I mean as our nature is now corrupt) and civil or federal. The first is common to man with beasts and other creatures. By this, man, as he stands in relation to man simply, hath liberty to do what he lists; it is a liberty to evil as well as to good. This liberty is incompatible and inconsistent with authority, and cannot endure the least restraint of the most just authority. The exercise and maintaining of this liberty makes men grow more evil, and in time to be worse than brute beasts: omnes sumus licentia deteriores. This is that great enemy of truth and peace, that wild beast, which all the ordinances of God are bent against, to restrain and subdue it. The other kind of liberty I call civil or federal; it may also be termed moral, in reference to the covenant between God and man, in the moral law, and the politic covenants and constitutions, among men themselves. This liberty is the proper end and object of authority, and cannot subsist without it; and it is a liberty to that only which is good, just, and honest. This liberty you are to stand for, with the hazard not only of your goods, but of your lives, if need be. Whatsoever crosseth this, is not authority, but a distemper thereof. This liberty is maintained and exercised in a way of subjection to . authority; it is of the same kind of liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free."
I have said enough to put the character of Anglo-American civilization in its true light. It is the result ( and this should be constantly kept in mind) of two distinct elements, which in other places have been in frequent disagreement, but which the Americans have succeeded in incorporating to some extent one with the other and combining admirably. I allude to the spirit of religion and the spirit of liberty.
The settlers of New England were at the same time ardent sectarians and daring innovators. Narrow as the limits of some of their religious opinions were, they were free from all political prejudices.
Hence arose two tendencies, distinct but not opposite, which are everywhere discernible in the manners as well as the laws of the country.
Men sacrifice for a religious opinion their friends, their family, and their country; one can consider them devoted to the pursuit of intellectual goals which they came to purchase at so high a price. One sees them, however, seeking with almost equal eagerness material wealth and moral satisfaction; heaven in the world beyond, and well-being and liberty in this one.
Under their hand, political principles, laws, and human institutions seem malleable, capable of being shaped and combined at will. As they go forward, the barriers which imprisoned society and behind which they were born are lowered; old opinions, which for centuries had been controlling the world, vanish; a course almost without limits, a field without horizon, is revealed: the human spirit rushes forward and traverses them in every direction. But having reached the limits of the political world, the human spirit stops of itself; in fear it relinquishes the need of exploration; it even abstains from lifting the veil of the sanctuary; it bows with respect before truths which it accepts without discussion.
Thus in the moral world everything is classified, systematized, foreseen, and decided beforehand; in the political world . everything is agitated, disputed, and uncertain. In the one is a passive though a voluntary obedience; in the other, an independence scornful of experience, and jealous of all authority. These two tendencies, apparently so discrepant, are far from conflicting; they advance together and support each other.
Religion perceives that civil liberty affords a noble exercise to the faculties of man and that the political world is a field prepared by the Creator for the efforts of mind. Free and powerful in its own sphere, satisfied with the place reserved for it, religion never more surely establishes its empire than when it reigns in the hearts of men unsupported by aught beside its native strength.
Liberty regards religion as its companion in all its battles and its triumphs, as the cradle of its infancy and the divine source of its claims. It considers religion as the safeguard of morality, and morality as the best security of law and the surest pledge of the duration of freedom.
- posted on 03/11/2006
网上很多人吵吵着爱国，我看下面这段才是中国的实际。
There are countries in Europe where the native considers himself as a kind of settler, indifferent to the fate of the spot which he inhabits. The greatest changes are effected there without his concurrence, and (unless chance may have apprised him of the event ) without his knowledge; nay, more, the condition of his village, the police of his street, the repairs of the church or the parsonage, do not concern him; for he looks upon all these things as unconnected with himself and as the property of a powerful stranger whom he calls the government. He has only a life interest in these possessions, without the spirit of ownership or any ideas of improvement. This want of interest in his own affairs goes so far that if his own safety or that of his children is at last endangered, instead of trying to avert the peril, he will fold his arms and wait till the whole nation comes to his aid. This man who has so completely sacrificed his own free will does not, more than any other person, love obedience; he cowers, it is true, before the pettiest officer, but he braves the law with the spirit of a conquered foe as soon as its superior force is withdrawn; he perpetually oscillates between servitude and license.
When a nation has arrived at this state, it must either change its customs and its laws, or perish; for the source of public virtues is dried up; and though it may contain subjects, it has no citizens. Such communities are a natural prey to foreign conquests; and if they do not wholly disappear from the scene, it is only because they are surrounded by other nations similar or inferior to themselves; it is because they still have an indefinable instinct of patriotism; and an involuntary pride in the name of their country, or a vague reminiscence of its bygone fame, suffices to give them an impulse of self-preservation.
- posted on 03/12/2006
咖啡店之所以如此吵闹, 以我之愚见, 是诸多网友尽管博览群书，理解层次却相差甚远, 有人已经超越到异兽的阶段, 有人甚至对基本概念模糊不清, 其结果是大家回归最低级的沟通频道, 也就是幼儿园大班的水平, 脾气暴躁的开始骂娘, 性格温和的就找班主任。 不过即使把保育院院长请来, 她还能怎么样? 该转学的转学, 该记过的记过, 总之一句话, 咖啡店不设门槛, 更兼分科不明, 虾米遇到鲨鱼, 除了搅浑水还能唱啥好戏?
如果一定要搞个市井大混战, 就请各位同学先把几个概念的定义先做个统一标准, 个人, 民族, 国家, 政府, 政治, 统治, 尤其是概念之间的关系(考试的重点!!), 然后再考虑添加诸如”热爱”,”进步”,”发展”等等动词。 本人在学校混了二十多年没有机会弄明白, 倒是后来遇到不同的台湾人, 日本人, 美国人, 印度人, 伊朗德国土耳其韩国巴勒斯坦人……, 当然更多形形色色的大陆同人, 才得到相互交流与独立思考的可能, 从而也意识到原始定义的最终决定意义。
玛雅开咖啡店不容易, 结果不小心成了补课基地, 被党的教育忽略了的诸多问题, 如果开战前不得以澄清, 混战就永远不会有输赢。 尽管上面的摘录有些断章, 语言也略显陈旧, 我想若读完全文将有会更多收获。 谢chloe一片好意。
- posted on 03/12/2006
“如果一定要搞个市井大混战, 就请各位同学先把几个概念的定义先做个统一标准, 个人, 民族, 国家, 政府, 政治, 统治, 尤其是概念之间的关系(考试的重点!!), 然后再考虑添加诸如”热爱”,”进步”,”发展”等等动词。 本人在学校混了二十多年没有机会弄明白, 倒是后来遇到不同的台湾人, 日本人, 美国人, 印度人, 伊朗德国土耳其韩国巴勒斯坦……, 当然更多形形色色的大陆同人, 才得到相互交流与独立思考的可能,从而也意识到原始定义的最终决定意义。
玛雅开咖啡店不容易, 结果不小心成了补课基地, 被党的教育忽略了的诸多问题, 如果开战前不得以澄清, 混战就永远不会有输赢。 尽管上面的摘录有些断章, 语言也略显陈旧, 我想若读完全文将有会更多收获。 谢Chloe一片好意。”
———————————————————————————————————
你没有弄明白是你的思维有问题，而不是所有的人都不明白。
看你的意思你好象认识了，“台湾人”日本人，美国人才明白了什么叫民主。
然后呢你又认识了“形形色色”的大陆人。相对比较才明白似的不是吗？最后你把自己的能力归咎于“被党的教育忽略了的诸多问题”！
真可笑明明自己不会游泳非怪水草刮自己的脚。
还有，就是你把“台湾人”故意和大陆区分，看来你是不承认台湾是中国的。
你说你在学校都混了二十多年了，看来你的年龄也不小了，你能否说说你心中的民主“圣地”在什么地方？
- posted on 03/12/2006
果然是个路过的赤脚大夫， 一下就把我的要害切中！ 向毛主席保证，我从前真的各科平均九十五，但就是没弄懂那几个简单关系。
先不管台湾究竟是国家还是政府（目前我认为它只是一个政府），请你给我解释一下“中国”的定义。你所指的中国究竟代表一个民族，还是代表中华人民共和国？考党史没有出过这个思考题吧？意识到囫囵吞枣的危害了吧？还是回去先把脚洗洗干净，再来参加刮水草比赛不迟。
路过 wrote:
你没有弄明白是你的思维有问题，而不是所有的人都不明白。
看你的意思你好象认识了，“台湾人”日本人，美国人才明白了什么叫民主。
然后呢你又认识了“形形色色”的大陆人。相对比较才明白似的不是吗？最后你把自己的能力归咎于“被党的教育忽略了的诸多问题”！
真可笑明明自己不会游泳非怪水草刮自己的脚。
还有，就是你把“台湾人”故意和大陆区分，看来你是不承认台湾是中国的。
你说你在学校都混了二十多年了，看来你的年龄也不小了，你能否说说你心中的民主“圣地”在什么地方？
- Re: Democracy in America 銆婅缇庡浗鐨勬皯涓汇��posted on 03/12/2006
看来人真是具有好斗性,不管他有多大年龄或者读过多少书,思想都狭隘的可笑,就不能辨证的看问题吗? - Re: Democracy in America 銆婅缇庡浗鐨勬皯涓汇��posted on 03/13/2006
大是大非面前，我糊涂多次，不过从没有含糊过。你要是还拎不清，给你个通俗说法，省得浪费时间补课。民族是只能爱不能骂的，国家可以爱也可以骂，政府则是不能爱只能骂，这个放之四海皆准，也就是阿删所说的Meta层次。
过客 wrote:
看来人真是具有好斗性,不管他有多大年龄或者读过多少书,思想都狭隘的可笑,就不能辨证的看问题吗?
再请上楼去看看谁在好斗?? 估计你九年的义务教育也完成了，贴子没读透，怎么只懂得辨证地笑呢？ - posted on 03/13/2006
据说这本书是关于民主的最好的书，也是关于美国的最好的书。我认为它值得仔细读。
Montesquieu, who attributed to absolute power an authority peculiar to itself, did it, as I conceive, an undeserved honor; for despotism, taken by itself, can maintain nothing durable. On close inspection we shall find that religion, and not fear, has ever been the cause of the longlived prosperity of an absolute government. Do what you may, there is no true power among men except in the free union of their will; and patriotism and religion are the only two motives in the world that can long urge all the people towards the same end.
Laws cannot rekindle an extinguished faith, but men may be interested by the laws in the fate of their country. It depends upon the laws to awaken and direct the vague impulse of patriotism, which never abandons the human heart; and if it be connected with the thoughts, the passions, and the daily habits of life, it may be consolidated into a durable and rational sentiment. Let it not be said that it is too late to make the experiment; for nations do not grow old as men do, and every fresh generation is a new people ready for the care of the legislator.
It is not the administrative, but the political effects of decentralization that I most admire in America. In the United States the interests of the country are everywhere kept in view; they are an object of solicitude to the people of the whole Union, and every citizen is as warmly attached to them as if they were his own. He takes pride in the glory of his nation; he boasts of its success, to which he conceives himself to have contributed; and he rejoices in the general prosperity by which he profits. The feeling he entertains towards the state is analogous to that which unites him to his family, and it is by a kind of selfishness that he interests himself in the welfare of his country.
- Re: Democracy in America 銆婅缇庡浗鐨勬皯涓汇��posted on 03/14/2006
The main object of the political jurisdiction that obtains in the United States is therefore to take away the power from him who would make a bad use of it and to prevent him from ever acquiring it again.
- posted on 03/15/2006
Reader2 wrote:
咖啡店之所以如此吵闹, 以我之愚见, 是诸多网友尽管博览群书，理解层次却相差甚远, 有人已经超越到异兽的阶段, 有人甚至对基本概念模糊不清, 其结果是大家回归最低级的沟通频道, 也就是幼儿园大班的水平, 脾气暴躁的开始骂娘, 性格温和的就找班主任。 不过即使把保育院院长请来, 她还能怎么样? 该转学的转学, 该记过的记过, 总之一句话, 咖啡店不设门槛, 更兼分科不明, 虾米遇到鲨鱼, 除了搅浑水还能唱啥好戏?
ha ha ha ...
如果一定要搞个市井大混战, 就请各位同学先把几个概念的定义先做个统一标准, 个人, 民族, 国家, 政府, 政治, 统治, 尤其是概念之间的关系(考试的重点!!), 然后再考虑添加诸如”热爱”,”进步”,”发展”等等动词。 本人在学校混了二十多年没有机会弄明白, 倒是后来遇到不同的台湾人, 日本人, 美国人, 印度人, 伊朗德国土耳其韩国巴勒斯坦人……, 当然更多形形色色的大陆同人, 才得到相互交流与独立思考的可能, 从而也意识到原始定义的最终决定意义。
No way. :) Concepts made clear? If you got it sorted, you got the universe sorted. You have to be then the God.
Mathmaticians are lucky to agree on 1+1=2, so it appeared Number Theory. Politician would never find that kind of luck. Nobody except those mathmaticians got that kind of sheer luck, but we know, mathmatics is pure mind game. Politics is on the other endless end. :) - posted on 03/15/2006
chloe wrote:
Alexis de Tocqueville的杰作。摘录一点。
一点关于中国的。
China appears to me to present the most perfect instance
of that species of well-being which a highly centralized
administration may furnish to its subjects. Travelers assure us
that the Chinese have tranquillity without happiness, industry
without improvement, stability without strength, and public order
without public morality. The condition of society there is always
tolerable, never excellent. I imagine that when China is opened
to European observation, it will be found to contain the most
perfect model of a centralized administration that exists in the
universe.
以下这段我看对中国很适用。
But epochs sometimes occur in the life of a nation when the old customs of a people are changed, public morality is destroyed, religious belief shaken, and the spell of tradition broken, while the diffusion of knowledge is yet imperfect and the civil rights of the community are ill secured or confined within narrow limits. The country then assumes a dim and dubious shape in the eyes of the citizens; they no longer behold it in the soil which they inhabit, for that soil is to them an inanimate clod; nor in the usages of their forefathers, which they have learned to regard as a debasing yoke; nor in religion, for of that they doubt; nor in the laws, which do not originate in their own authority; nor in the legislator, whom they fear and despise. The country is lost to their senses; they can discover it neither under its own nor under borrowed features, and they retire into a narrow and unenlightened selfishness. They are emancipated from prejudice without having acknowledged the empire of reason; they have neither the instinctive patriotism of a monarchy nor the reflecting patriotism of a republic; but they have stopped between the two in the midst of confusion and distress.
In this predicament to retreat is impossible, for a people cannot recover the sentiments of their youth any more than a man can return to the innocent tastes of childhood; such things may be regretted, but they cannot be renewed. They must go forward and accelerate the union of private with public interests, since the period of disinterested patriotism is gone by forever.
所以我们总说，他山之石，可以攻玉嘛。:)
很多海龟是假石头，就能把真玉给骗得一愣一愣的。:) - Re: Democracy in America 銆婅缇庡浗鐨勬皯涓汇��posted on 03/15/2006
John Stuart Mill的评论也是我的感受。
We feel how impossible it is, in the space of an article to exemplify all the features of a work, every page of which has nearly as great a claim to citation as any other. For M. de Tocqueville's ideas do not float upon a sea of words, none of his propositions are unmeaning, none of his meanings superfluous; not a paragraph could have been omitted without diminishing the value of the work.
- posted on 03/15/2006
法官的品质
Not only must the Federal judges be good citizens, and men of that information and integrity which are indispensable to all magistrates, but they must be statesmen, wise to discern the signs of the times, not afraid to brave the obstacles that can be subdued, nor slow to turn away from the current when it threatens to sweep them off, and the supremacy of the Union and the obedience due to the laws along with them.
The President, who exercises a limited power, may err without causing great mischief in the state. Congress may decide amiss without destroying the Union, because the electoral body in which the Congress originates may cause it to retract its decision by changing its members. But if the Supreme Court is ever composed of imprudent or bad men, the Union may be plunged into anarchy or civil war.
- posted on 03/16/2006
想搞革命的书生们可借鉴下面两段。
It has been observed, moreover, that the intensity of human passions is heightened not only by the importance of the end which they propose to attain, but by the multitude of individuals who are animated by them at the same time. Everyone has had occasion to remark that his emotions in the midst of a sympathizing crowd are far greater than those which he would have felt in solitude. In great republics, political passions become irresistible, not only because they aim at gigantic objects, but because they are felt and shared by millions of men at the same time.
A proposition must be plain, to be adopted by the understanding of a people. A false notion which is clear and precise will always have more power in the world than a true principle which is obscure or involved. Thus it happens that parties, which are like small communities in the heart of the nation, invariably adopt some principle or name as a symbol, which very inadequately represents the end they have in view and the means that they employ, but without which they could neither act nor exist. The governments that are founded upon a single principle or a single feeling which is easily defined are perhaps not the best, but they are unquestionably the strongest and the most durable in the world.
- posted on 03/17/2006
结党
All the skill of the actors in the political world lies in the art of creating parties. A political aspirant in the United States begins by discerning his own interest, and discovering those other interests which may be collected around and amalgamated with it. He then contrives to find out some doctrine or principle that may suit the purposes of this new association, which he adopts in order to bring forward his party and secure its popularity: just as the imprimatur of the king was in former days printed upon the title page of a volume and was thus incorporated with a book to which it in no wise belonged. This being done, the new party is ushered into the political world.
The two chief weapons that parties use in order to obtain success are the newspapers and public associations.
- posted on 03/20/2006
中国的科学为何停滞不前？
Because the civilization of ancient Rome perished in consequence of the invasion of the Barbarians, we are perhaps too apt to think that civilization cannot perish in any other manner. If the light by which we are guided is ever extinguished, it will dwindle by degrees and expire of itself. By dint of close adherence to mere applications, principles would be lost sight of; and when the principles were wholly forgotten, the methods derived from them would be ill pursued. New methods could no longer be invented, and men would continue, without intelligence and without art, to apply scientific processes no longer understood.
When Europeans first arrived in China, three hundred years ago, they found that almost all the arts had reached a certain degree of perfection there, and they were surprised that a people which had attained this point should not have gone beyond it. At a later period they discovered traces of some higher branches of science that had been lost. The nation was absorbed in productive industry; the greater part of its scientific processes had been preserved, but science itself no longer existed there. This served to explain the strange immobility in which they found the minds of this people. The Chinese, in following the track of their forefathers, had forgotten the reasons by which the latter had been guided. They still used the formula without asking for its meaning; they retained the instrument, but they no longer possessed the art of altering or renewing it. The Chinese, then, had lost the power of change; for them improvement was impossible. They were compelled at all times and in all points to imitate their predecessors lest they should stray into utter darkness by deviating for an instant from the path already laid down for them. The source of human knowledge was all but dry; and though the stream still ran on, it could neither swell its waters nor alter its course.
Notwithstanding this, China had existed peaceably for centuries. The invaders who had conquered the country assumed the manners of the inhabitants, and order prevailed there. A sort of physical prosperity was everywhere discernible; revolutions were rare, and war was, so to speak, unknown.
It is then a fallacy to flatter ourselves with the reflection that the barbarians are still far from us; for if there are some nations that allow civilization to be torn from their grasp, there are others who themselves trample it underfoot.
- posted on 03/20/2006
Bush Still Upbeat on Outcome In Iraq
On Third Anniversary Of Invasion, President Foresees 'Victory'
By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 20, 2006; Page A01
President Bush and Vice President Cheney hailed the progress being made by Iraqi leaders to form a unity government yesterday, as the administration tried to dispel a growing perception that a continuing wave of sectarian violence has pushed Iraq into a full-fledged civil war.
Bush, speaking on the third anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, assured Americans that his administration is pursuing a strategy "that will lead to victory in Iraq," an outcome about which polls show the public is increasingly skeptical.
President Bush speaks to the media yesterday upon his return from Camp David to the White House on the third anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq. He said the U.S. strategy "will lead to victory in Iraq." (By Jonathan Ernst -- Reuters)
Photos
Rallies Mark Iraq Anniversary
Thousands of anti-war protesters around the world demanded coalition troops leave Iraq on the third anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion.
Monday, March 20, 12 p.m. ET
In Their Own Words
Mary Hadar, Washington Post's military life coordinator, and Post staff writer David Von Drehle will be online to field your questions about the 100 Iraq veterans they interviewed for the third anniversary of the Iraq war.
Monday, March 20, at 11 a.m .ET
Iraq Invasion: Three Years Later
Washington Post staff writer William Branigin, who was embedded with the 3rd Infantry Division during the invasion of Iraq three years ago, discusses what it was like to be in Iraq during the fall of Saddam Hussein.
News From Iraq
Bush Still Upbeat on Outcome In Iraq
Iranians See Talks With U.S. as Historic
Tehran Courts Support of Arabs
Clashes, Accusations Mark Anniversary of Iraq Conflict
As Iraq War Heads Into 4th Year, Bush Pledges 'Complete Victory'
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Cheney, meanwhile, dismissed assertions made by former Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi that the nation is in the throes of civil war. He said Iraq is holding together as a new constitutional democracy even as terrorists are desperately trying to cause its dissolution.
"What we've seen is a serious effort by them to foment civil war, but I don't think they've been successful," Cheney said on CBS's "Face the Nation."
The upbeat appraisals by Bush and Cheney came as other voices struck a more ominous note. Allawi contradicted Bush's progress report, saying the country is edging toward "the point of no return."
"We are losing a day as an average 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more," Allawi said on BBC's "Sunday AM" program. "If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is."
Three years after U.S.-led forces quickly swept through Iraq, the country remains in the grips of a bloody insurgency. The war and its aftermath have left dead more than 2,300 U.S. troops and at least 30,000 Iraqis. Negotiations to form a unity government to lead Iraq have been deadlocked since parliamentary elections in December.
The anniversary was marked by protests around the country and around the world, as thousands of antiwar demonstrators gathered in cities from London to Tokyo. In New York, a crowd of about 200 people marched down Fifth Avenue to protest the war. Demonstrators also marched through storm-ravaged New Orleans, saying the slow pace of recovery there illustrates the cost of the war in Iraq.
Meanwhile, a growing majority of Americans believe the effort is not worth the cost, both financially and in lives lost. A Washington Post-ABC News pollthis month found that two-thirds of Americans questioned whether the United States has a clear plan for handling the situation in Iraq.
As the administration offered optimistic appraisals of the war's progress, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), a frequent administration critic who is weighing a run for president in 2008, echoed Allawi's assessment, saying that Iraq is already in the midst of a "low-grade civil war."
"I think it's important that we stop this talk about we're not going to leave until we achieve victory," Hagel said on ABC's "This Week." "Well, what is victory? We achieved victory: Saddam's gone, the Iraqis have a constitution, they had an election, it's now up to them."
Hagel said a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would be a mistake. But he added that the Bush administration should work harder to achieve a political settlement in Iraq by engaging other Middle Eastern countries in a negotiated solution.
Despite Americans' growing pessimism, the Bush administration is continuing to press ahead with its strategy, saying that it is steadily moving toward success. Bush is scheduled to deliver a speech in Cleveland today, which is part of a continuing administration effort to rebuild the eroding public support for the war by having the president speak regularly to specific elements of the war strategy.
Bush, who spoke on the White House South Lawn after returning from a weekend at Camp David, said that he is encouraged by Iraq's continuing steps toward democracy, and that he is urging Iraqi leaders "to work hard to get this government up and running." Bush said he spoke by phone yesterday to Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, who he said remains encouraged by the political progress being made in Iraq.
Sectarian violence intensified after last month's bombing of the Golden Mosque, a revered Shiite religious site in Samarra. Hundreds of Iraqis have been killed in brutal attacks, counterattacks and kidnappings since the mosque bombing.
Although a growing majority of Americans have come to believe that the U.S. invasion was an error and that the nation is headed toward civil war, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the U.S. military commander in Iraq, brushed aside the idea on "Fox News Sunday." "I personally don't believe one, that we're there now; two, that civil war is imminent; and three, that it is inevitable and it will happen," he said.
Meanwhile, Cheney said that Iraq is progressing toward establishing a functioning democracy. He pointed out that Iraq has gone from the brutal rule of Hussein to negotiations to form a government in three years. In addition, he said, the United States is making substantial progress in training Iraqi security forces, who he said are leading about half the missions in Iraq.
Cheney also dismissed a statement by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who said the war in Iraq should never have been fought: "I would not look to Ted Kennedy for guidance and leadership on how we ought to manage national security. . . . I think what Senator Kennedy reflects is sort of the pre-9/11 mentality about how we ought to deal with the world and that part of the world."
But CBS anchor Bob Schieffer bluntly challenged Cheney on his own string of prognostications, such as his pre-invasion assertion that U.S. troops would be welcomed in Iraq as liberators and, 10 months ago, that the insurgency was in its "last throes."
Cheney replied that those statements were "basically accurate and reflect reality," but that public perceptions of Iraq's progress are being skewed "because what's newsworthy is the car bomb in Baghdad."
Again linking the war in Iraq to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Cheney called the conflict part of "an aggressive, forward-leaning" strategy that has since prevented terrorist incidents in the United States.
Kennedy, meanwhile, put out his own statement chastising Cheney: "He was wrong about the link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. He was wrong about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. He was wrong about America being greeted as liberators. He was wrong about the insurgency being in the last throes. Now he rejects the idea of civil war."
- posted on 03/21/2006
结社权的滥用
The difference that exists in this respect between Americans and Europeans depends on several causes. In Europe there are parties which differ so much from the majority that they can never hope to acquire its support, and yet they think they are strong enough in themselves to contend against it. When a party of this kind forms an association, its object is not to convince, but to fight. In America the individuals who hold opinions much opposed to those of the majority can do nothing against it, and all other parties hope to win it over to their own principles. The exercise of the right of association becomes dangerous, then, in proportion as great parties find themselves wholly unable to acquire the majority. In a country like the United States, in which the differences of opinion are mere differences of hue, the right of association may remain unrestrained without evil consequences. Our inexperience of liberty leads us to regard the liberty of association only as a right of attacking the government. The first notion that presents itself to a party, as well as to an individual, when it has acquired a consciousness of its own strength is that of violence; the notion of persuasion arises at a later period, and is derived from experience. The English, who are divided into parties which differ essentially from each other, rarely abuse the right of association because they have long been accustomed to exercise it. In France the passion for war is so intense that there is no undertaking so mad, or so injurious to the welfare of the state that a man does not consider himself honored in defending it at the risk of his life.
- posted on 03/22/2006
多数并不总是代表正义，所以，有时需要少数抵制多数。
I hold it to be an impious and detestable maxim that, politically speaking, the people have a right to do anything; and yet I have asserted that all authority originates in the will of the majority. Am I, then, in contradiction with myself?
A general law, which bears the name of justice, has been made and sanctioned, not only by a majority of this or that people, but by a majority of mankind. The rights of every people are therefore confined within the limits of what is just. A nation may be considered as a jury which is empowered to represent society at large and to apply justice, which is its law. Ought such a jury, which represents society, to have more power than the society itself whose laws it executes?
When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right of the majority to command, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind. Some have not feared to assert that a people can never outstep the boundaries of justice and reason in those affairs which are peculiarly its own; and that consequently full power may be given to the majority by which it is represented. But this is the language of a slave.
A majority taken collectively is only an individual, whose opinions, and frequently whose interests, are opposed to those of another individual, who is styled a minority. If it be admitted that a man possessing absolute power may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should not a majority be liable to the same reproach? Men do not change their characters by uniting with one another; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with their strength.3 For my own part, I cannot believe it; the power to do everything, which I should refuse to one of my equals, I will never grant to any number of them.
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