Democracy Today, Democracy Tomorrow, Democracy Everywhere, Democracy Forever!

In Defense of the Universal Right to Self-Governance

Photo by Vasyl Dizhak on Unsplash

There is not a debate to be had here. There isn't a place where reasonable minds can differ on whether Xi Jinping should be overthrown and power returned to its rightful place—the Chinese people. Or that Vladimir Putin deserves to be strung up and hung in Red Square. If this sounds rash to you, then I might suggest you perhaps don't believe in democracy at all!

Democracy today, democracy tomorrow, democracy everywhere, democracy forever!

This isn't political rhetoric—it's moral truth. And if you're uncomfortable with that level of clarity, if you find such statements “extreme” or “provocative,” then you've already surrendered the most important battle of our time before it's even begun.

The Universal Principle

The principle is simple, universal, and non-negotiable: human beings have the inherent right to govern themselves. Not because they're Western, not because they're educated, not because they're wealthy or sophisticated or have proven their worthiness to some self-appointed philosophical gatekeeper. Because they're human.

This principle recognizes no borders, respects no cultural relativism, and makes no exceptions for local customs or historical circumstances. The Chinese factory worker has the same fundamental right to choose her government as any American voter. The Russian dissident rotting in Putin's prison has the same claim to self-determination as any citizen of a free society. The Iranian woman fighting for her freedom has the same birthright to democracy as anyone born in more fortunate circumstances.

To suggest otherwise—to argue that some peoples are “not ready” for democracy, that some cultures don't value freedom, that some populations require the firm hand of autocracy—is not cultural sensitivity. It's racist condescension dressed up as anthropological sophistication.

And yet this is precisely the position taken by a disturbing coalition of American business elites, academic leftists, and foreign policy “realists” who have convinced themselves that their cowardice represents wisdom.

The Cowardice of American Elites

The most contemptible aspect of our current moment isn't the existence of obvious tyrants like Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin—there have always been strongmen who rule through fear and violence. It's the cowardice of American business and cultural elites who are too comfortable, too invested, too morally bankrupt to call tyranny by its name.

These are the tech billionaires who build the infrastructure for Chinese surveillance while lecturing Americans about privacy rights. The Wall Street financiers who fund authoritarian regimes while wrapping themselves in the rhetoric of democratic values. The Hollywood executives who censor their own films to appease Xi Jinping's censors while positioning themselves as champions of artistic freedom.

They are not neutral observers navigating complex geopolitical realities. They are collaborators who have chosen profit over principle, comfort over courage, market access over moral conviction.

When Tim Cook praises China's “innovation” while Uyghurs disappear into concentration camps, he's not engaging in nuanced diplomacy—he's providing moral cover for genocide. When Wall Street firms invest billions in companies that build the infrastructure of oppression, they're not practicing value-neutral capitalism—they're funding tyranny. When academic institutions accept money from authoritarian regimes while those same regimes imprison scholars and students, they're not promoting international cooperation—they're legitimizing intellectual persecution.

These elites have convinced themselves that their refusal to take moral stands represents sophistication rather than surrender. They've mistaken analytical detachment for wisdom when it's actually a form of moral abdication that serves tyranny by treating it as respectable.

To the Useful Idiots of the Academic Left

And to the intellectual losers of the far left who might suggest that defending democracy everywhere is culturally imperialistic—who find American moral clarity more offensive than Chinese concentration camps or Russian war crimes—you can get in line, take a number, and kiss my ass.

Your critique of “Western imperialism” while remaining silent about actual imperialism—Chinese expansionism in the South China Sea, Russian territorial conquest in Ukraine, Iranian proxy wars across the Middle East—reveals you as either fools or tyrants' useful idiots.

You worry about American hegemony while Xi Jinping builds the most comprehensive surveillance state in human history. You critique Western democracy while Putin murders dissidents and launches wars of conquest. You deconstruct the very concept of universal human rights while women in Iran are beaten to death for showing their hair.

This isn't anti-imperialism. It's moral cowardice dressed up as political sophistication.

Your intellectual framework—this post-colonial, relativist nonsense that treats every assertion of universal principle as cultural imperialism—serves no one but the tyrants you're too ideologically blinkered to oppose. When you argue that democracy is a “Western concept” inappropriate for other cultures, you're not demonstrating cultural sensitivity—you're denying the humanity of billions of people who risk their lives fighting for the same freedoms you take for granted.

The Iranian women who burn their hijabs in defiance of theocratic rule aren't embracing Western imperialism—they're asserting their fundamental humanity. The Hong Kong students who faced down tanks weren't carrying water for American foreign policy—they were demanding the basic right to choose their own government. The Russian protesters who fill prison cells rather than accept Putin's rule aren't agents of Western influence—they're patriots fighting for their country's soul.

Your inability to distinguish between defending universal principles and imposing cultural values reveals the poverty of your intellectual framework. You've become so committed to opposing American power that you've lost the ability to support human freedom when it conflicts with that opposition.

The Moral Clarity We Need

What we need now is not more nuanced analysis of complex geopolitical realities but moral clarity so sharp it cuts through the fog of relativism that obscures our vision. We need the courage to say plainly what should be obvious: democracy is not optional, human dignity is not negotiable, and self-governance is not a luxury for the fortunate few.

We need leaders who understand that when Xi Jinping imprisons dissidents, that's not a cultural difference—it's a crime against humanity. When Putin murders opposition figures, that's not realpolitik—it's state terrorism. When the Iranian regime executes protesters, that's not law enforcement—it's tyrannical oppression.

We need intellectuals who recognize that some positions don't deserve respectful consideration. That arguing against democracy isn't a legitimate contribution to political discourse but an attack on the very foundation of human dignity. That treating authoritarian rule as just another form of government doesn't demonstrate sophistication but moral confusion.

We need citizens who understand that democracy isn't just a political system but the expression of a deeper truth: that human beings are meaning-making creatures capable of governing themselves through reason, debate, and mutual respect rather than force, hierarchy, and submission.

Most importantly, we need the courage to act on these convictions—to make support for democracy the central organizing principle of our foreign policy, our economic relationships, and our cultural exchanges.

The Universal Revolution

The struggle for democracy is the universal revolution—the ongoing effort to extend the principle of self-governance to every corner of the earth where human beings live under the boot of tyranny. It recognizes no borders, respects no claims of cultural exceptionalism, and makes no peace with oppression regardless of how it justifies itself.

This revolution is being fought right now by people who understand what our elites have forgotten: that freedom is not negotiable, dignity is not optional, and the right to choose one's government is not a Western luxury but a human birthright.

It's being fought by Iranian women who risk death for the right to choose their own clothes. By Hong Kong students who faced tanks for the right to choose their own government. By Russian dissidents who endure prison for the right to speak truth to power. By Chinese workers who organize despite surveillance for the right to improve their conditions. By Belarusian protesters who refuse to accept stolen elections. By Myanmar citizens who resist military coups.

These are the real heroes of our time—not the business leaders who rationalize collaboration with tyrants, not the academics who theorize away human rights, not the politicians who treat freedom as a bargaining chip in great power competition. The real heroes are the ordinary people who risk everything for the extraordinary principle that human beings should govern themselves.

They don't need our pity or our cultural sensitivity. They need our support. They need us to stop treating their struggle as an abstract political question and recognize it as the defining moral challenge of our time.

What Democracy Demands

Democracy is not passive. It does not survive through wishful thinking or good intentions. It requires active defense, moral courage, and the willingness to confront those who would destroy it.

This means economic warfare against authoritarian regimes—sanctions, boycotts, divestment campaigns that make the cost of tyranny higher than the cost of freedom. It means technological isolation of surveillance states—cutting off access to the tools of oppression while providing the tools of liberation. It means diplomatic ostracism of dictators—treating them as the pariahs they are rather than legitimate partners in the international community.

Most importantly, it means moral clarity about what we're defending and why it matters. Democracy isn't just a more efficient form of government or a better way to organize society—it's the political expression of human dignity itself. When we defend democracy, we're not imposing our values on others—we're defending the principle that makes all other values possible: the right of human beings to choose for themselves.

This principle is under assault everywhere—not just in obvious dictatorships but in our own institutions, our own discourse, our own commitment to self-governance. When we allow authoritarian apologists to treat tyranny as just another political option, when we permit business interests to override democratic values, when we accept cultural relativism as an excuse for moral abdication, we're participating in democracy's erosion.

The Choice Before Us

We face a choice that will define not just our time but the trajectory of human civilization. We can continue down the path of moral relativism, cultural sensitivity, and nuanced analysis that treats human freedom as optional. Or we can choose the harder path of moral conviction, universal principle, and uncompromising commitment to human dignity.

We can continue to accommodate tyrants in the name of stability, profit from oppression in the name of business, and rationalize authoritarianism in the name of cultural respect. Or we can recognize that some things are not negotiable, some principles are not optional, some fights are worth having regardless of the cost.

The comfortable path leads to a world where Xi Jinping's model of techno-authoritarianism becomes the norm, where Putin's vision of spheres of influence replaces international law, where the Iranian model of theocratic oppression spreads unchecked. It leads to a world where human dignity is subordinated to efficiency, where freedom is sacrificed for stability, where democracy becomes a historical curiosity rather than a living reality.

The harder path leads to a world where every human being enjoys the fundamental right to participate in choosing their government. Where no one lives in fear of expressing their opinions, practicing their religion, or associating with others. Where the principle of self-governance extends from the smallest village to the largest nation.

Democracy Forever

Democracy today, democracy tomorrow, democracy everywhere, democracy forever!

This isn't just a political slogan—it's a moral commitment to the radical proposition that every human being capable of choice has the right to participate in choosing how they're governed. It's a declaration that this right transcends all borders, cultures, and historical circumstances. It's a promise that we will not rest until every person on earth enjoys the dignity of self-governance.

This commitment requires us to abandon the comfortable relativism that treats tyranny as just another form of government. It demands that we recognize autocracy for what it is: the systematic denial of human dignity disguised as efficient administration. It insists that we call evil by its name rather than hiding behind analytical detachment.

Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. And every conscious being capable of choice has the inherent right to participate in choosing their government. These are not cultural preferences or political opinions—they are universal truths that no amount of sophisticated argument can obscure.

We shall never surrender—not to the business elites who choose profit over principle, not to the academic leftists who choose cultural relativism over human rights, not to the foreign policy realists who choose stability over justice. We will continue fighting for the principle that human beings deserve to be free, that self-governance is not optional, that democracy is the birthright of all humanity.

The rebellion continues. The revolution spreads. Democracy forever.

And if you don't like it—if you think human self-governance is too dangerous, too messy, too difficult for the masses to handle—then you can take your sophisticated objections, your cultural sensitivity, your pragmatic concerns, and shove them where the sun doesn't shine.

Because we're done being polite about the most important question of our time: whether human beings deserve to be free.

The answer is yes. Always yes. Everywhere yes. Forever yes.

Democracy is not negotiable. And neither are we.

The center must be held. And we are the ones who will hold it—not through compromise with tyranny but through unwavering commitment to the principle that every human being has the right to govern themselves.

Democracy today, democracy tomorrow, democracy everywhere, democracy forever!