24407: Viator: (reply)Re: 24398: Granbwa: (reply) RE: FW: 24393: Hyppolite Pierre (point of view): I still see blood (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Jim Viator <jeviator@loyno.edu>

[Corbett notes:  Folks, I am posting this note which goes beyond Haiti
tothe question of what is democracy.  However, it is the only one I will
post.  This is a HAITI list, and if there are issue directly concerned
with Haiti I will post them.  If the issue rise to a level of abstraction
above Haiti -- i.e. what is democracy -- you'll have to go to other places
for that. I just don't have the time.

Bob]

In response to M Granbwa's flat claim that the most basic principle of
democracy is that every democratically elected government must be
allowed to complete its term in office -- this is incorrect as a matter
of history and logic: the most basic democratic principle is the right
of revolution, after a duly-elected government has abused the equal
natural rights of the people to life, libety, and property; for the
leading purpose of any government is to hold in trust and secure the
equal protection of those rights.  Any claim to legitimacy and
continuation of its elective mandate are forfeit by such a government.
I do not know whether the Aristide government had so abused the natural
rights of the Haitian people that it had reached the point of
forfeiture, but I do know that under the political principles of the
American, French, and Haitian revolutions, no abusive government can
claim to remain in place against the people's right of revolution (to
protect its natural rights) just because it happens to be in place.

Etienne Viator
Loyola Law School (New Orleans)