If the politicians hesitate to do what is right, it is up to us to push them in the right direction. The government is not all-knowing Big Daddy: it is at best an instrument: subservient to the People's will, and dependent upon our ideas of what is right and what is wrong, in order for it to act in a moral and constructive manner. Government (to paraphrase Robert Heinlein), like fire, is a powerful but dangerous servant, as well as a cruel and unpredictable master.
Democracy is not a spectator sport. When we permit ourselves to give in to weariness and apathy and despair, to the belief that our individual opinions and actions make no difference; we are surrendering our political power and moral authority to those who do not give in to these destructive emotions.
We are like pebbles thrown into a pond: individually we seemingly have no effect, but every ripple we make in the surface of that pond changes the ripples—as well as the waves that are subsequently propagated—by other pebbles ever so slightly. Enough ripples from different pebbles, and the wave of political change begins moving in the direction we want it to.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
2
1
