just a thought
Today I had a heart-to-heart talk to my mom. I realized that I may never be able to reconcile myself between the side of me that wants to be Thoreau and the part of me that wants to be JFK. Not that there was anything overly exceptional about JFK, except that he seemed to get America['s youth] excited about their future for the first time in a while.
Anyways, it occured to me today that I think America has been ruined. Not by the fundamentalist Right or the liberal Left, not by the illegal aliens or the commies or the rap music or the media, but by the lack of responsibility in this country. We are a democracy. We have a responsiblity. To vote, to be educated, to be involved in our government - to be involved with our lives. Whatever happened to the notion of republican motherhood? When the united States were established as a democracy the role of women was revolutionized; not only was it a woman's role to birth children and watch over the family, but it was her new duty to make sure her children were educated - that they grew up having the characteristics and the capabilites of a Citizen: virtuous, rational, well-informed, and capable of governing himself.
It seems to me that a democracy is a collective of indivduals: a government established by the people for the people and perpetuated by the people. The politicians elected in a democracy are mere citizens themselves; they are human, and as such they are indeed fallible. It has been said that the Jacksonian era of politics made our government more accessible to the population at large, and while Jackson was not without his share of corruption and idealogical hypocrisies, I think that there is a lot of merit in the concept of Jacksonian Democracy. What I guess I'm trying to say is that people need to get involved in their government. That's the point. Now I'm not by any means saying that every single person needs to run for the Senate or that you're a "bad American" if you don't drown yourself in politics every moment of every day, but I do think that we as citizens have an undeniable responsibility to at least give a damn about the society that we're living in.
Unfortunately I also think that it's far too late. America is too far down the road to turn back now; it would take another revolution to reform what has become of the "American experiment". Or maybe Hobbes was right and we're all too stupid and corrupt to maintain a true republic. Or maybe it's just not possible for such a society to exist in the modern world? Maybe it's just not practical.
More on this later.
Anyways, it occured to me today that I think America has been ruined. Not by the fundamentalist Right or the liberal Left, not by the illegal aliens or the commies or the rap music or the media, but by the lack of responsibility in this country. We are a democracy. We have a responsiblity. To vote, to be educated, to be involved in our government - to be involved with our lives. Whatever happened to the notion of republican motherhood? When the united States were established as a democracy the role of women was revolutionized; not only was it a woman's role to birth children and watch over the family, but it was her new duty to make sure her children were educated - that they grew up having the characteristics and the capabilites of a Citizen: virtuous, rational, well-informed, and capable of governing himself.
It seems to me that a democracy is a collective of indivduals: a government established by the people for the people and perpetuated by the people. The politicians elected in a democracy are mere citizens themselves; they are human, and as such they are indeed fallible. It has been said that the Jacksonian era of politics made our government more accessible to the population at large, and while Jackson was not without his share of corruption and idealogical hypocrisies, I think that there is a lot of merit in the concept of Jacksonian Democracy. What I guess I'm trying to say is that people need to get involved in their government. That's the point. Now I'm not by any means saying that every single person needs to run for the Senate or that you're a "bad American" if you don't drown yourself in politics every moment of every day, but I do think that we as citizens have an undeniable responsibility to at least give a damn about the society that we're living in.
Unfortunately I also think that it's far too late. America is too far down the road to turn back now; it would take another revolution to reform what has become of the "American experiment". Or maybe Hobbes was right and we're all too stupid and corrupt to maintain a true republic. Or maybe it's just not possible for such a society to exist in the modern world? Maybe it's just not practical.