I do like democracy. In fact I crave it. I’m afraid for it at times. Democracy seems to be a movement against tyranny. It’s a desire to get life back into the hands of those that are living it.
But it doesn’t seem to last long, compared to tyranny. I suspect that there have been far more man hours lived in tyranny than democracy. As real as that has to be, it is distressing because what follows Democracy does not seem to be an improvment. On the contrary, it seems like a great downfall of the human condition when Democracy suffers and dies.
Our second president, John Adams supported the notion that Democracy does not last long. In a letter to John Taylor, a close friend of Thomas Jefferson, Adams wrote that very thing, “Remember Democracy never lasts long…”
I wonder what our early political leaders thought and hoped for when they were crafting our political system and its documents? I wonder how durable and long lasting they thought their work would prove to be? Or did they turn it all over to the citizens of the future? What a sad thing to give birth to a great nation and not see it rise in its capacities. It could also be said how fortunate they were not to see how flawed their work might become. At any rate, they are dead and we who read this are alive.
They never handed us perfection. They handed us possibility. We have no history to insure Democracy will evolve righteously. We have yet to make all of its further history. It’s not getting any easier, is it? But it is still vital.