It's difficult in the current fervor of emotion from both conservatives and liberals to think objectively about the term "democracy", it having been effectively deified in recent times. Some people are quick to defend the Iraq war (and pretty much any other action by the present Republican administration) in the name of "promoting" or even "defending democracy." Let's be clear: the only thing that threatens "democracy" is something that prevents fair and representative elections. That's all. End of story.

In a pure democracy, the public opinion prevails. If a majority wants to segregate a minority, they can just vote for it. If more people want to immediately execute persons who swear, it's not a problem. Democracy does not guarantee rights, nor it does not guarantee equal say (Gore got half a million more votes than Bush). It does not guarantee peace, it does not equate to love or hapiness. Democracy is simply voting.

"Liberty" is freedom, it is independence and "immunity from the arbitrary exercise of authority". It's what most everyone around the world wants. Sure, they'd like to be able to vote too, but to be left to their own devices and destiny is what most people crave. Having a say in the political process is secondary to not being unfairly subject to authority. Liberty is also a fairly personal and metaphysical concept.

Democracy can be and is currently today being compelled (North Korea and China are democracies; everyone has to vote, and the United States is creating a democracy in Iraq); freedom cannot. Democracy can oppress, and often does so; freedom cannot. They are only related insomuch as we — the United States — hope for its short history that democracy is the best system to guarantee our liberty, but this is only so with a Constitution by its side. A Bill of Rights, due process, freedom of worship — these are intended to be guarantors of freedom, ones which majority opinion cannot affect.

Democracies come and go, they can be created overnight. Freedom requires enormous sacrifice to bring the respect for life and individualism sufficient to protect itself: freedom feeds off itself. Those who have not tasted true freedom are not likely to respect it, much less defend it as we seem to expect of some who don't have it: liberty by definition is experiential.

Jarret Wollstein contrasts electoral rights to substantive rights, the latter being " (1) right to life, liberty, and property; (2) freedom of speech and press; (3) right to trial by jury; (4) freedom to travel; (5) freedom of religion; (6) freedom to educate your children as you see fit; (7) right to own and run your own business; (8) right to defend yourself, including the right to own guns; and (9) right not to be spied on by government." Our government has evolved to a point when more than one of these rights is being infringed upon. Hopefully I don't need to point out where or how.

To have a free and peaceful world, we must create societies in which the inalienable rights of the individual person are again respected, and the powers of government are strictly limited.

That means ending confiscation of property without trial, secret arrests, imprisonment without conviction, and torture of prisoners. It means abolishing sovereign-immunity laws, which exempt government agents from legal responsibility when they kidnap, steal, torture, or murder.

It means creating truly independent citizens’ grand juries with the power to investigate and indict corrupt government officials and police.

And it means ceasing government spying on its own citizens and ending foreign invasions to impose “democracy” by force.

It also means (believe it or not) not amending the Constitution — our very guarantor of liberty — to take liberties away from individuals or their local representative governments.