Democracy has lost its meaning in a global world. At the frontier of modern civilization today, Ukraine recaps the evolution of democracy into a fortess against marauding kidnappers.
Beyond vast cultural differnces, all the world’s near 200 countries have a social order based on decorum and decent behavior. Vast variations apart, societies have higher expectations for kings than for emerging social groups
In an international arena like the United Nations, universal standards largely prevail under guidance of protocol experts. The poorest countries devote copious portions of national funds to present a best face forward in embassies and diplomatic missions.
In other words, prestige matters in a global world. Russia upended a pact of decency in the global world. Ukraine’s response has called on the world the world to take a stand on Russia’s behavior.
“We the people” is at the heart ff democracy. American society has changed dramatically since the ideal was set out by founding fathers who were slave-holders like their European forebears. Currently, democratic principles like equality are buried in the world’s petri dish for the mixing of the world’s people. In Ukraine, they are crystal clear.
The invasion of Slavic Ukraine by Slavic Russia strips away all the distractions that cloud democratic principles in a complex interconnected world. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine not only violates international law at numerous levels. It is an insult at every level to the basic human decency that is the heart of the democratic ideal.
Democracy itself is absorbing regional fallout from the Russian assault on Ukraine. The invasion is a threat to the stable European democracies.. It is a political football in the racially charged US. It is a geopolitical alert for countries in Asia, Africa, the Pacific and South America. In all those areas, it is a divining rod for social values.
There seems little doubt around the world that Russia is an illegal agressor on Ukraine. The only question seems to revolve around the issue of whether Russia is justified in its aggression. That’s where the democratic right to free speech tangles with the political right of “anything goes” so as to give voters an informed choice among candidates. Those two hot potatoes are coupled with unregulated social media platforms and traditional news sources still focused on the sensational. The result is a fog that a close look at Ukraine clear away
History is a North Star for modern social clarity. In America, history seems an irrelevant encumbrance that weighs down other countries. Pre-Amerca history seems dowright nonexistent, as if the Biblical creation myth began with the New Testament. Such short sight is a handicap in a global world. It leads to a racial reckoning where critical thinking becomes a political weapon focused on the di, a eluctance to think that makes Americans vulnerable to easy solutions like conspiracy theories and political mischief. As a former Soviet republic with a large swathe of democratic hazards sidestepped, Ukraine with its courage has brought into sharp relief the basic democratic principle of simple social decency.
Ukraine has a long history with Russia that ended with Ukraine’s new lease on life when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Ukraine was on its way to democracy when the Russian bear woke from hibernation to attack the spoiler of its plans to revive a failed plan for feudalizing an increasingly prosperous world. In short, it seems Ukraine poked the Russian bear when it refused to lie down and play hapless victim to aggression.
But that step was already a sign that Ukraine could outsmart Russia. Ukraine took its big stand against Russia when conditions were right. A trial run in 2014 had shown a weak link. World leading America had needed to test its allegiance to democratic values before it could be the force to defend those values worldwide. And now as the senseless assault goes on, Ukraine shows its best defense of democracy by exposing the ridiculous futility of its opposition.
Geopolitical designs and nuclear threats aside, the Russian bear under Putin seems incensed by its come-uppance on the global stage by small-power Ukraine. It seems downright rabid at the idea that it could be beaten by a young country that was once a mere Soviet vassal.
Like all control freaks on the verge of losing a former captive, Russia is laughably irrational in pursuing its pointless destruction of Ukraine. As the senseless stalemate drags on, Russian fumbling is an increaingly stark contrast to Ukraine’s smarts, stamina and spirit. The resulis a spotlight on Russia’s true colors as a spiteful hater of those it envies.
In response to being attacked, spirited Ukrainians began to ply social media networks to showcase their valour on the battlefield. In response to that show of genuine pride, the Russian bear turned ever more grizzly. In global human terms, that makes Russia pathetic.
A mass exodus of men blocked exit roads out of Russia when the “special military exercise in Ukraine was first announced. A year later, Wagner merceneries served as cannon fodder in that deflected assault. Nevertheless, a recent recruitment campaign ran ads urging Russians to leave jobs and beome “real men” in the Russianmy. The ploy is laughable in context of Ukraine, where Ukrainian “real men” want only their real jobs back after securing the agreed-upon borders of their homeland.
Ultimately, Ukraine demonstrates in real time the value of democratic ideals that matter beyond the broad range of social values visible to all the world today. That range stretch from Afghan repression of women to the “woke” culture of LGBTQ+ rights in the West. With the plus part as the ultimate frontier now, achievemebt of a right in a society can be measured by the force needed to keep the right in place. Ukraine acieved its sovereign right to freedom in 1991 and its fight to freedom is strong enough to defy death.
The mighty United States once won its freedom in just that way. So did most of the Western democratic countries now allied in defense of Ukraine. Thatalliance is proof of the basic democratic principle that “we the people” pf the world will tolerate suppression only for so long as they stand helplesly alone. Joined with other freedom enthusiasts, “we the people” will defy the drive of power grubbers to enslave them. Ukraine shows that the defiance is heroic when the show of power is a product of arrogance.
European expansionism ended with theSecond World War. Since the, former colonies have developed and emerged to become players on the world stage. The former Soviet vassals of Eastern Europe and Central Asia were exceptions to that robust growth but they have recently been catching up. Russia’s seizure of Ukrainian lands in Dombas and Crimea seemed a reckless edict that “we the people” don’t matter. Ukraine had the courage to say “not so fast”
Ukraine’s grace under fire illumined its pride in a happy culture where fields of grain are worked by satisfied hands as music flies up to a blue sky. With its invasion, Russia seemed to declare that Ukraine had no right to that land, that such a valuable property was wasted on the light-hearted. In the democratic double-speak of despots since the founding of the United Nations after the Second World War, Russia was saying that the democratic right to wealth belonged to serious world leaders steering their people in the cutthroat pusuit of empire.
Russia is not alone in that attitude. Like-minded individuals can gain political traction in the most stable democracies. The United States itself nearly fell victim in an attempted coup by such an individual manipulating enablers. But “we the people” won out in a vibrant dynamic that keeps democracy alive like a perennial plant or a giant sequoia. That dynamic is nothing more than the equality of mutual benefit.
As Ukraine showed its might, America was reminded of it own strength long buried in the upward spiral of development to full potential. That is a social value never achieved in totalitarian regimes where “we the people” are are trimmed back to size if they prove a threat to state control. It was Ukraine who proved the value of that priceless democratic value to the world..
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