Let's talk of gerrymandering

[ddstory]

"America is not a democracy, it's a republic". I've heard this adage way too often, and it has boggled me at times, admittedly. I mean, what's wrong with direct democracy?

Let's look at this.

Comments

[dexeron]

"It's a scary idea, isn't it?"

Indeed. I'm reminded of a line from "The American President."

"America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say 'You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.' You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the 'land of the free'."

We Americans talk a good game about the land of the free, and the home of the brave, but we're pretty quick to jettison freedom (and act very cowardly) the moment things get a little scary. (And before I'm accused of being a self-loathing American, I think this is not some unique American quality, but a human one. Yet America has continually held itself up as if we have some higher standard, some ideal that is uniquely, exceptionally, American. So it is by that standard we must be judged, and if that's not fair, well, maybe we shouldn't keep calling ourselves a shining city on the hill, but refusing to change the damn light bulbs.)

Direct democracy is a lot scarier, and it's harder... but maybe that's the point. We shouldn't do easy things, just because they're easy. We should do the right things, even if they're hard. Maybe, just maybe, Americans can admit that the founding fathers were wrong about something! Ultimately, we really don't have much of an excuse for continuing to fail to live up to our own purported ideals.

[johnny9fingers]

We shouldn't do easy things, just because they're easy. We should do the right things, even if they're hard.

You paraphrase one of your slightly better Presidents here. Now all you need to do is get the modern equivalent of Marilyn Monroe to sing you Happy Birthday...or something similar.

You know, JFK and WJC had quite a lot in common, when you think about it. Oops, did I say that aloud?