Rummel in 2005 (from Blog entry: Not Imposed-Freedom’s a Right):

Among the comments on Bush’s speech, he is accused of trying or wanting to “export” or “impose” democracy.” See, for example “The dangers of exporting democracy” by Eric Hobsbawn (link here), or “Folly in exporting ‘liberty’” by Michael Desch (link here).

Again, as I have said before (link here), this is a conceptual and even philosophical misunderstanding of Bush’s Forward Strategy of Freedom. He is not exporting (imposing) democracy, but enabling a people to throw off the chains that bind them. Where tyrants rule, people live in fear with virtually no human rights. By international law and multilateral treaties, people should be free. When they are not, Bush intends to help them achieve the freedom that is their right, as he has already been doing.

Rummel in 1997 (from book: Power Kills: Democracy as a Method of Nonviolence, p. 9):

If democracy is a method of nonviolence, if it is a solution to war, domestic collective violence, and democide, then we should foster democratic freedom. This does not mean that democracy should be spread by force or imposed on other nations. Nor does it mean that all people will or should accept democratic freedom regardless of their own culture and religion. There is after all the question of social justice, and while nonviolence may be a central principle, some peoples may prefer, for example, an authoritarian government and state religion like Islam to democratic freedom, even if it means more violence.

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