There is the danger that when a "democracy" is not a progressive democracy, it becomes a tyranny of the majority. If what we have in the US is not a tyranny of the majority, why do gays not have the right to marry? Why are concientious objectors forced into seeking asylum as their names are put on wanted lists with the FBI and border patrols? Why do we not have a fair immigration policy which recognizes that we need workers to do the dirty work, and have the decency to pay them at least minimum wage with health benefits?

And how can you expect a country with a tyranny of the majority to establish and encourage a progessive democracy overseas? The US soldiers killed on the day of the election did not even appear in the pages of most major US newspapers, which were filled with lame-brained propaganda hailing "democracy" in Iraq and W's role in bringing it there. How's that for values? You compel your citizens to die for a bogus overseas "democracy," and then you do not sufficiently acknowledge their deaths. Diplomacy was always an option in the case of Iraq, one that in fact was working; if you saw the corpses of the 1,400 plus service men killed so far piled up on a basketball court, and if the bleachers were filled with the 10,000 American amputees created by the war, would that sight influence your opinion of the so-called Iraq election? (By Scott Rose)