Rights More Important than Fealty to the Purity of Democracy - Egypt

I had this interaction on twitter with a UK libertarian whom I admire.  In this case we disagreed.

When, as it took place, I Tweeted against the coup in #Egypt, lots of people replied that it would 'restore order'. How's that working out?
— Daniel Hannan (@DanHannanMEP) August 17, 2013

@DanHannanMEP @LibertarianView Pretty well perhaps. Constitutional order requires Muslim Bro'hoo be stripped of power to impose Sharia.
— B Daddy (@BDaddyLiberator) August 18, 2013

@BDaddyLiberator Every tyrant uses the same excuse to overthrow a democracy. You cant support democracy only if you like what they vote for!
— Murray Rothbard (@LibertarianView) August 18, 2013

So @LibertarianView makes the reasonable point that I am not really supporting democracy if I support the overthrow of Morsi by the military, and I agree to an extent.  The tougher question is whether we should support democracy at all costs, even to the loss of freedom.  Morsi had granted himself dictatorial powers.  The Muslim Brotherhood was and is intent on imposing Sharia law, even if that means abrogating rights embedded in the Egyptian constitution.  Even if the rights were not embedded, fundamental human rights such as freedom of worship are never legitimately denied, even in a democracy.

Throughout history, we have seen instances where dictatorship arises out of democracy.  The use of force to resist a denial of rights can be legitimate, even if that government was elected.  One could argue that Lincoln did not have the precise constitutional authority to prevent the southern states from seceding over the issue of slavery.  The state governments that voted for secession were duly elected.  But, as he made clear in his second inaugural speech,  the purpose of secession was to perpetuate the denial of rights to black slaves in perpetuity. This violated the promise of the Declaration.  The response of war to secession was appropriate and moral.

Ultimately, if Morsi had remained in power, there would have been no more elections in Egypt.  Supporting his overthrow does not mean that I am against democracy, only that I support a constitutional form of government that guarantees basic human rights and I value this greater than the purity of the democratic form of government.

Bilbray's Call Center Needs an Upgrade

I got a call today from the Bilbray campaign, dialing me up from Del Mar (858-617-XXXX according to the caller id).  A young man asked me something that was hard to understand because the voice quality of the call was garbled.  I thought he asked if I was supporting Brian Bilbray, but in hindsight, I think he must have been asking if I would like to hear a message from the Congressman.  Then a recorded message from Bilbray started, again very garbled, although I could still tell it was Bilbray, having heard him in person.  I just hung up, a little frustrated.

I took to Twitter to voice my complaint.

Phone call from @bilbrayca50 campaign (Del Mar #). Garbled voice quality.Support him but he needs to improve campaign.
— B Daddy (@BDaddyLiberator) October 8, 2012

Since then, I have heard nothing from the campaign. I have noticed that big businesses monitor social media and often respond to legitimate complaints very quickly; but apparently this is not so with this campaign. I am posting about this because I support Bilbray, and just want him to run a better campaign. Seems that monitoring social media and monitoring the quality of one's phone bank would be helpful to that end.

Programming Note - Twitter

I've signed up for Twitter and added my Twitter feed to the blog. I hope this gives me more flexibility in pointing out items of interest and links that maybe aren't worthy of a full blog article. You can follow my tweets at BDaddyLiberator.