In other parts of the world, the blessings of internal peace and stability are much less common. Innumerable countries in Europe, Africa, and Asia have been ripped apart by ethnic, religious, or tribal animosities. I suspect that there is something common to all of the nations experiencing this terrible, self-destructive turmoil and the vicious cycle of violence and repression it has created. The common thread underlying much of this chaos and warfare is the failure of these peoples to limit government and allow free minds and the free market to encourage development through voluntary cooperation and the process of supply and demand. Their property is expropriated, they lose their privacy, and their freedom to speak, write, or assemble is limited or eliminated.
Most political historians tend to emphasize steps one and two as the most important.
A new privileged elite is created, and is given wealth and power through the forcible theft of the freedom and wealth of other groups of people. This cycle is repeated with infinite variations in dozens of countries. The refusal of governments to provide every person equal and honest justice and the opportunity of each to make his own course through life inevitably leads to suspicion, animosity, and ultimately violence. Repeatedly, when the demands of rebels in these countries are heard, they complain that they have been denied equal opportunity, equal justice before the law, equal access to the media, and equal security in their homes and businesses. Whether they be Muslims in Lebanon, Turkish Cypriots in Cyprus, Basques in Spain, Palestinians in Israel, non-Slavs in the Soviet Union, or ethnic Chinese in Vietnam or Uganda, they share common complaints.