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Help! Could someone please invade us and give us democracy.
By Richard Van Slyke

Democracy is one of the most cherished goods on this earth. It’s hard to find, and when we have it, it’s hard to keep. It appeared at one time that we had plenty of it and that we could relax, just have fun and enjoy it. We felt so secure that we even gave some away.

We gave some to Iran in 1953.
We tried to give some to Vietnam in the 1960’s, but they didn’t want any of it.
We gave some to Chile in 1973.
We gave some to Iraq in 1979.
And again to Iraq in 1991
We gave some to Afghanistan in 2002.
And again to Iraq in 2003 (we really like Iraq).
And that’s only a few of the many times we gave our democracy away, all around the world.

And now we have a problem: we are running short of it.
We didn’t see it coming; it just happened slowly.

I wasn’t really serious when I asked if someone could invade us.
We all know that invasions don’t usually bring democracy.
Invasions usually happen when a country wants something that another country has and that it doesn’t have. And it needs to take it by force.
But we don’t have much of the things that would make anyone want to invade us.
We have gold, but not that much.
We have oil, but not that much.
We have coal, but not that much.

What we were known to have and that the whole world envied us for, was democracy.
People came for all around the world to enjoy it with us and they loved it.
We had so much of it!
How did we loose it?
Did some foreign army invade us to take it from us?
We surely would have noticed.
There are no men in foreign uniforms patrolling our streets and pointing guns at us.

Maybe they came in disguise…
But then, they would have done what happens every time when invasions occur:
Take down our legitimate government, rig the elections, and install a puppet president.
But again, we surely would have noticed.