I've had variations of this argument many times. Usually with people who try and argue that we should tolerate communism or islam. The thought experiment is: if we were to legitimately democratically vote to enforce Sharia law would you go along with it? Most of these idiots say yes, because they see democracy as the end-all be-all and are uneducated as to the realities of islam. What they do not see is that for democracy to work, there must be an underlying culture of freedom. Politics is not culture, politics is a realization of that culture. It's the same reason why spreading democracy to Africa and the mid-east doesn't work. These are not poor subjugated people, they are violent tribal idiots and their democracies reflect that.

Culture is what matters, without culture democracy and law don't mean shit.