But the American arrogance of assuming that freedom is synonymous with democracy is stunning.
Not you particularly, but the US in general.
You can see this in the way that the US likes to try to "Impose Democracy".
Do you see the contradiction in the the phrase "Impose Democracy"
We can see that it does not work - Iraq and Afghanistan for example.
And while we are handing out bullet-pointed arbitrary definitions off the top of our heads, try this..
Freedom.
- The freedom to feed yourself and your family.
- The freedom to sleep safely in your bed at night.
- The freedom to drink clean water and eat enough food each day.
- The freedom to aspire to a good life for yourself and a better life for your children.
Democracy is fought for and won - not handed down by the good grace of economic ideologues. And Democracy comes in many different forms - it is a continuum from real democracy to pretend democracy.
The US is somewhere in the middle.
The UK is just a big old anachronistic mess - but it kind of works.
Haiti is a flawed democracy.
The D.R. is a flawed democracy.
China seem to have played it quite smart - give the people the economy but keep hold of the politics.
Apart from a few intellectuals, the Chinese want economic freedom.
Representative democracy is secondary.
And the so called US democracy has thrown up some of the most distasteful examples of economic exploitation and moral corruption possible.