Progressive policy triumphs AGAIN

What kind of a crazy question has the following as the only practical answer:

“Why, Mr. Brown, we need to send them guns: lots and lots of guns. And prayers. But mostly guns: little neat Derringers to keep under the sleeping mat in case hubby didn't get the memo; stripped-down handbag Uzis for when your brother comes around to announce the name of your newly-chosen fiancé; lots of ammo and lightweight M-4 carbines with plenty of mags and grenade launchers for when yout family decides that a brand-new piece of paper signed without the agreement of the village elders doesn't trump the Koran, Hadith and Surah and 1,400 years of sharia law.

Oh, and some anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry and supplies and training to hand out at street corners or better yet brought into the home on during Friday prayers so the right little hands get to hold and point them at their sons and bothers and cousins.”

That question, dear reader, might be: "How do we make this a reality?"

But I suppose it’s a start, by declaring that something is so, so that it might become so. It worked for God. And the next step is to believe: really believe, children, that it will be so if only we believe it strongly enough.
As Tinkerbell said.

Just assume I’m not totally evil incarnate here: work with me for a minute.

Assume if you can that I really, really want Tunisian men to stop hurting their womenfolk. Assume also that I’d like Tunisians not to die for want of medication and treatment and also that I’d like them to be able to earn a decent living and not be harmed by pollution: real or imaginary. I wish them well, I really do, but I’m not God. Or Tinkerbell.
Except that one time...

Anyhoo.

How’s this for the progressive mind-set?:

After what had at times been a slow and frustrating process, the Tunisian National Assembly on Sunday evening voted to approve what is one of the most progressive constitutions in the region, with only 12 members of the 216-member legislative body voting against. Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki and outgoing Assembly chief Mustapha Ben Jaafar signed the document on Monday morning, bringing it into effect.

Um, where have our centuries of British or American ‘progress’ after a longer and slower process from, say the Fall  [if any] of Rome through the Dark Ages and Mediaeval period to the Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment, the Agricultural, Industrial, Social and Information Revolutions and also all the meaty, socially-based revolutions (the ones with all those statistics involving numbers containing tens of thousands and, famously, tens of millions), tons of politics, billions of votes, got us to?

Some peace, some order, vastly better technology and material production…as well as technological unemployment, real pollution, unredeemable debt and great big areas in our cities where you can’t walk at night for fear of murder. And some pretty free, happy women, thank God.

And Tunisia’s going to get that all the good stuff very soon, during our biological lifetimes, from a piece of paper.

Of course it can’t fail because it’s not wrong at all, it’s  - what’s that word they inserted in front of ‘Ghostbusters’ when they made the cartoon version of Ghostbusters? - oh, yes: ‘real’. It’s real.

Really, really real.

Picture from here.