REVOLUTION Most democracies are born out of revolution and begin to die on the day they choose tradition over their own revolutionary principles. Nothing is more perilous than the human tendency to grow conservative in times of great transition. Because life is change, sanity is not an unchanging state, but a commitment to change by certain standards. The revolutionary “soul” of democracy is not only submission to the will of the majority, but also the conviction that every human being has certain inalienable rights that cannot be put up for a vote. When a majority deprives the minority of inalienable rights, every decent citizen must be willing to leave the majority and stand with the minority. When citizens in a democracy feel their only power is to vote on who tells them what to do, they have forgotten what liberty even means. They are like horses who think they are free if they can vote on who rides them. Democracy demands an active courage. Unless citizens are brave enough to follow its principles in times of crisis, democracy loses its sinew and dies. Issues like immigration and gay marriage test whether our nation will follow living principles into new understandings, or perish repeating the comfortable wisdoms of the dead.
Posted on: Wed, 07 May 2014 10:34:34 +0000
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