I'm a big booster of open speech - though not totally free. I'm in favor of democracy - but not of mob rule. I'm in favor of good markets - which includes regulating them well.
I don't favor these things on general principle, but because they're good for me. And when I say "good for me", I may very well include you. Because your good is often my good, too. That's the basic principle, here; there's a win-win solutions in the world for most problems.
A free, open Middle East filled with vibrant, expressive, self-determining people, all striving for their own good? I don't want it on pure principle. I want it because it's good in very real ways; because a few million more minds seeking ways to improve their own lives will have bright ideas that work here, will have jokes to make me laugh, will look for ways to accrue investment from my nation, enriching all of us. And so on, a few million more times.
If you're concerned about Libyan revolt raising the price of your gasoline, and consider that to be the primary issue of their revolt, then let me say this to you: Fuck you, you myopic, shortsighted, racist pile of shit. Fuck you and your win-lose bullshit. Fuck your support for dictators on the grounds that they helped keep people silent, so that your government and mine could take and take and take. Fuck your endless cries of "But Stability!".
We play with democracy and risk mob rule. We can decide whether to have or not have a death penalty. We can decide just how armed or unarmed our citizens ought to be in relation to the government. We can play with 'how much regulation is right'. And we can do so despite the fact that these are incredibly dangerous tools. We can make mistakes, and we do. Because it's us, and we're in this together.
They shouldn't get to join in, because what? Yes, they might fuck up as badly as we have over the last century, learning their own lessons, teaching us their new tricks while learning from ours. And they probably will. Cope with it; either they're us, too, and we are in this together, or they're the big scary other, the enemy, the wrong color, they pray the wrong way...
A diverse group bickers, even fights and breaks the dishes. But diverse groups, acting in aggregate, are better at solving problems than monolithic groups. That's what makes capitalism so potent; it's what makes wikipedia so much smarter than it should be by any normal metric. It's why the odds on horse races, reshuffled with each bet, end up being better predictors than statistical agencies.
None of us are anywhere close to as smart, as powerful, as capable, as all of us together. Not because we are the same, but because we are not.
It's us against the universe, building the lives we want. Do you want a bigger team, or not?
