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“We’ve been “promoting democracy” as though the first and most important step involved conducting elections. But the health and success of a democracy isn’t determined as much by the things the public is able to decide by majority vote as by those things that cannot be voted away.
Democracy doesn’t start with elections. It starts with a bill of rights. Unless and until the rights of minorities are guaranteed and protected by law, elections can be a threat to the safety, property and freedom of the losers. This is the dynamic that makes the Afghan and Iraqi elections too high-stakes not to be marred by corruption, intimidation and violence. It’s no good electing a parliament or a congress unless it is firmly established that “Congress shall make no law” abridging the fundamental rights of minorities as well as of the majority.”