Why democracy will never work for some people

Brother shoots 19-year old sister in "honor killing".

You can't expect democracy to flourish in a place where a group's right not to be offended supersedes an individual's right to keep breathing. A guy shoots his sister for behaving badly. No intervention, no discussion, no "hey, knock it off." He shoots her in the head twice, after weeks of premeditation and clearing it with the rest of the family. I'll say that again. He cleared it with the rest of the family. I suspect the only reason he's being prosecuted is that it happened inside Israel.

All government is about power. You keep the hoi polloy happy, you keep the roads paved and the electricity on. How you go about those things is a function of how the people you are governing go about their daily lives. In China the family ancestry is paramount so it's easy to put people into a mindset of thinking about the good of the State first. In America we all think that we're born with the right to be President or a movie star so individual liberties are the battleground. Great Britain has that whole stiff-upper-lip thing so while they have a democracy they also have the surveillance state and the Royals.

But this honor thing. I confess I don't get it. This 24 year old kid uses the word "honor" to describe what he did to his sister as if it's the same word that kept McCain and Stockdale from cracking at the Hanoi Hilton; the same word we use to describe Nathan Hale on the gallows and Neil Armstrong on the Moon.

Paraphrasing Terry Pratchett, show me a molecule of honor. What does this honor look like? Why is it worth dying over and killing over? I've heard the argument (and no, I can't back it up with a link or a quote) that when you have so little, honor's all you've got left. Show me that molecule again?

What's honorable about taking the life of a blood relative and what was it that was so dishonorable about what she was doing? Why are only the girls killed and not the boys?

I can't think of a sentence starting with "These people..." that doesn't end up racist but maybe that's what I am. Maybe I'm racist and prejudiced and blinded by the notion that men and women should have the same rights (including the right to life) everywhere. Here I go anyway. These people don't want democracy. Democracy is dirty and slow and requires the adoption of weird concepts like "seeing the other guy's point of view" and "respecting peoples' rights equally". They want absolutes and swift and terrible resolution to every quibble.

Look. I'm just going to say it. The notion that we could do anything to bring democracy to the Middle East is just plain stupid. We can barely hold it together here. Mideast peace will come when they want it, the vast majority of them in unison, and not one second before. Maybe if we get off the oil teat and quit screwing with them to further our own interests, the artificial impetus to stabilize the region will let go and they can find their own peace on their own terms.

People that find it easier to kill their kin than talk out their differences won't really enjoy the Will Rogers "Sausage and government" aspect of the old Three Ring Circus, anyway.