The Sunshine Empire

While scanning the news from Asia on BBC Online I read of the reemergence of Nepalese democracy. After a massacre of the royal family King Gyanendra seized absolute power from a nominal democracy. He eventually gave power back to the people and they have been going through elections for a body that will draft a new constitution and abolish the monarchy. What struck me was the 11 people the BBC stated had been killed in election related violence. This comes after the violence related to elections in Kenya and Zimbabwe, and of course the vaunted middle east project in Iraq.

Living as I do in the worlds oldest modern democracy, I was kind of disgusted with my countrymen after this. I love my country, but it seems Americans view democracy like they do professional football. They wear the merchandise and talk about it endlessly, but they’re not actually playing the game. Some actually find the fact that they don’t vote amusing and a source of pride. My rant is a common one, but with people dying in the voting process I’m shocked that those exporting democracy can’t take time to sample the wares.