The heartland of Islam, by contrast, is theocratic.
Neatly converging with the anti-democratic zeal of these malcontents is an increasingly respectable argument, among sceptical Western observers of Islam, which holds that the Muslim faith, by its very nature, cannot be other than theocratic.
The contributors to Charlie Hebdo, unlike a good many western journalists, dared to publish in full knowledge of the dangers from theocratic zealots with no concept of individual freedom.
The cosy relationship between the British state and the theocratic dictatorship of Saudi Arabia is neither new, nor news.
Yet even within Iran's theocratic governing system, Mr Ahmadinejad's decision to bring Shia Islam's most fundamental tenet into the political arena is deeply controversial.
"But as I think of the wars unleashed upon whole peoples and the brutal realities of occupation as well as theocratic rule in the Middle East, you have to ask yourself if one shouldn't instead be championing those who see the greater violence and who rebel against our own cravenness and our complicities".
America's right and left both broadly adhere to these liberal principles, and that separates their ideologies from authoritarian, totalitarian or theocratic ones.Mr Crook is right that there are certain core values accepted on both the right and left sides of American politics.
At the time of these crimes, Mr Ganji was little known outside a coterie of reformist writers and political activists who met to discuss ways of making the theocratic regime more democratic.
IS IRAN'S theocratic regime much of a threat to anyone other than its own mightily put-upon people?
This is what makes the present election so significant.The basis of Iran's theocratic system is velayat-e faqih, or the rule of the religious jurist.
But the philosophical base on which Iran's theocratic edifice is built is Khomeini's velayat-e faqih, the rule of the Islamic jurist, a concept the ayatollah developed in exile in Iraq in the 1970s.
