Do you wonder why liberal democracies or constitutional republics have a difficult time being established in places like the Middle East? I don’t. It’s obvious to me: politics runs downstream from culture. If the culture isn’t ready for it, it won’t happen. When the West busts through the door of the Middle East, guns blazing, yelling, “We bring you freedom and democracy!”, nobody’s buying. Something other than what is required for these types of political systems to be desired en masse currently holds power in these cultures. Using political means (guns blazing) to supplant these cultural forces has heretofore proven “a fool’s errand“, has it not? As it is in the Middle East, so it is everywhere: culture controls politics. There are no shortcuts to changing culture. It can only occur how it has always occurred: cultural infiltration via economic means. If you want the Middle East to become more like the West, infiltrate their populations through totally unfettered free trade. And that’s today’s two cents.