By Selwyn Duke

There has been much talk about how Arab Spring “democracy” will allow the rise of Islamist parties and thus devolve into tyranny. What is seldom discussed, however, is how the vaunted Western republics that lecture the world on the finer points of freedom are heading toward the same fate.

While there are many reasons for this, an easily grasped one is exemplified by Sunday’s elections in France and Greece. Upset about austerity, voters in the former elected their second socialist President in history, Francois Hollande; as for Greece, while no party received enough votes to govern unilaterally, an unprecedented showing was made by Alexis Tsipras’ Radical Left Coalition, which captured second place and supplanted one of the two parties that had dominated Greek politics for decades.

Both candidates make no bones about their intentions. After his historic showing, Tsipras said, “The people have rewarded a proposal made by us to form a government of the Left that will cancel the loan agreements [designed to keep Greece afloat] and overturn the course of our people toward misery.” Hollande was a little less dramatic, saying, “Europe is watching us; austerity can no longer be the only option.” He didn’t mention that the other option is economic collapse.

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