The decision by Egypt's military to intervene and force out the country's Islamist president has produced a lot of hand-wringing about how this is an attack on Jeffersonian democracy. The irony is that this is "democracy" in the most literal, original sense, in a way that would have been easily recognized by the Ancient Greeks who invented it: a giant mob gathered in the agora to demand, by overwhelming acclaim, that an over-ambitious demagogue be ostracized.
A Little Rebellion Now and Then
A Little Rebellion Now and Then
A Little Rebellion Now and Then
The decision by Egypt's military to intervene and force out the country's Islamist president has produced a lot of hand-wringing about how this is an attack on Jeffersonian democracy. The irony is that this is "democracy" in the most literal, original sense, in a way that would have been easily recognized by the Ancient Greeks who invented it: a giant mob gathered in the agora to demand, by overwhelming acclaim, that an over-ambitious demagogue be ostracized.