For democracy to work. . .

For democracy to work, the electorate must be educated, informed, and thoughtful.  We live in an age of shallowness both in understanding and in debate.  Because of this, democracy itself suffers.  When democracy suffers, the nation suffers.  

Freedom requires more from us and not less.  The democratic institutions of a nation expect that freedom will be used for improvement and not simple self-expression.  Somewhere along the line, we seem to have forgotten this.

I have no quarrel with someone who thoughtfully disagrees with me and my politics but I have no stomach for those who parrot a perspective or mimic a line without knowing what it means.  Somewhere along the way, we have lost our ability to reason and the quality of the political discourse has become painfully shallow.  It is not a matter of one side or another but a nation of people who no longer think through their positions or consider where their policies might lead.

As we pop the beer, burn the hotdogs, and light up the fireworks, it might be good for us to remember that this is not patriotism.  A day off to pursue our leisure is not the reward earned by those who paid in blood for our freedom.  I can recall a young and charismatic president who asked us to consider not what our country can do for us but what we can do for our country.  Not equal service or duty but equal sacrifice.

If we are to resist this slide into a government defined and sponsored life, we will need to move from our comfortable spaces and take up again the cause of duty and responsibility.  The pandemic taught us what we were owed but it masked the cost of it all.  Future generations may not appreciate the debt we have saddled upon them.  The strength of our nation has been a balance of self-reliance and community.  Covid cost us something of both and left us with the impression that it was more important to redistribute wealth than create it.  I am truly troubled by the increasing gap between the haves and the have nots but I am just as troubled by the triumph of a victimhood which demands payment for suffering and insists a minimal standard of living is the most basic human right.

The government overreach into our lives has been largely welcomed by those who forgot who pays government's bills and who falsely believe you can put a price tag on anything and everything.  I fear that the red and blue division in our land has less to do with people (like Trump) and more to do with the great chasm between those who think the government will improve our lives and those who fear that such improvement will ultimately cost us our freedom.

I must admit that growing up I did not think much of things like this.  Times were different but so were people.  It seems we know less for certain and are more uncertain of just about everything.  I have no illusions about the past but I am wary of the future more than ever.  Part of that is the pace of things and the rapid changes that have tested the boundaries of our union and threatened to unravel the very threads of our community.

What you do today is not so much the question.  What you will do tomorrow is.  Personal responsibility have always been key to the notion of democracy -- along with an electorate informed about the issues and the people running to be our leaders.  If we replace either with something less, our whole nation will suffer more than division and will decay.  Rot from the inside out is always harder to deal with than the deterioration of the fringes.  Perhaps it is time for us to stop voting for those who would govern by slogan or denigration of their opponents and start expecting such people to reasonably debate the pros and cons of their position.  Democracy was first an idea before it became a nation.  If we can no longer debate the strength and weakness of our ideas, we may already have signaled the end of our nation.  I hope and pray that we are up to the task.