By Art Buchwald
Tuesday, February 8, 2005; Page C03
Iraq has taken the first step toward a democracy, and the Iraqis are asking, "What now?"
Well, the first thing a democracy has to have is an infrastructure. To pay for it, citizens have to pay taxes. Once you have taxes, you have to have accountants, whose job it is to figure out how you don't have pay any taxes.
Accountants cost money, so only the top 2 percent of the population can hire them.
In a democracy, accountants also are needed to keep the books of the corporations. They make sure that the companies are honest -- and if they are not, the accountants can "cook" the books.
If they cook the books and the government finds out about it, the lawyers come into play.
In a free society, there are more lawyers than accountants. Their job is to defend people who are accused of violating the constitution, and they get large fees to do it.
If the Iraqis are sincere about becoming a democracy, they must be prepared to pay off the powers that be. Freedom means having the right to bribe anyone over or under the table.
There is a shortage of everything in the country. When you have shortages, you have a thriving black market.
The people who have to be paid under the table are politicians, crooked policemen and officials on the take, who decide who gets water and electricity and who doesn't.
In this world, you have to know how much food to exchange for how much oil.
A democracy requires a strong intelligence service to find out what other countries, including other democracies, are doing.
Freedom means that you can't torture anyone unless it is absolutely necessary in order to get information out of them.
In America, we refer to someone we agree with as a "Great American." In Iraq you must call him a "Great Iraqi." But if you don't agree with him, you call him a right-wing or a left-wing nut.
A democracy has many voices on radio, television and in the newspapers. It pays for these voices with advertising. But at the start of your independence, there are not too many homemade products to sell, so you have to depend on American advertisers such as McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Colgate toothpaste, Heinz pork and beans, Campbell's soup, and anything else the consumer might buy. The way your people will know what's good for them is if the advertiser swears it is.
One method of raising money for the government is to hold a lottery. Free citizens can buy as many tickets as they want to, and if their number is drawn, they can become rich and famous for 15 minutes.
You must expect crime now. It is a fact that more felonies are committed in a democracy; in a dictatorship, there are more arrests for political crimes.
Freedom of religion is the cornerstone of a free society. It will not be as easy in Iraq as it is in United States. Depending on your new constitution, you can mention God in prayers, but not in schools.
As you can see, the Iraqis have a lot to learn from Americans. There is a price to pay for having a democracy, and if a country can't afford it, the United States will pick up the tab.
� 2005, Tribune Media Services