That the U.S. is virtually the only liberal democracy not to provide health care to its people as a right of citizenship is an indication of this imbalance.
The increasingly dominant role of corporate power over citizen power in the political system is another sign of the entropic decay of America's liberal democracy.
But as disturbing as such problems are --as urgent as may be the need for enacting such measures as universal health insurance, or public financing of elections-- the solutions to such problems are to be found not by throwing out the systems of liberal democracy, but by making more effective use of them. History suggests that this is the only way it can happen-the only way the will of the people can overrule the rule of the powerful few and of the power systems.
Those East Germans who risked their lives to escape to the West understood something that only a combination of ingratitude and immaturity could prevent us from recognizing: that the blessings of living in a liberal democracy are of vital importance, and that the vast human experience throughout history reveals that these blessings are not to be taken for granted.
So when we look at the unprecedented assault from this Bushite regime on the structures of our traditional American liberal democracy --the way that many reasonable people now fear, as never before, that the regime may have already destroyed the possibilities for fair elections; the way that this administration's continual use of lies and manipulation has made it impossible for Americans to deliberate reasonably about any of our national issues; the way that this administration has repeatedly trampled on law and Constitution, and grabbed for the unchecked power of tyranny-- it should be with passion and inspiration that we struggle against these Bushite forces to achieve a restoration of the American system, not just as a lesser of evils, but as a blessing worth fighting for.
The increasingly dominant role of corporate power over citizen power in the political system is another sign of the entropic decay of America's liberal democracy.
But as disturbing as such problems are --as urgent as may be the need for enacting such measures as universal health insurance, or public financing of elections-- the solutions to such problems are to be found not by throwing out the systems of liberal democracy, but by making more effective use of them. History suggests that this is the only way it can happen-the only way the will of the people can overrule the rule of the powerful few and of the power systems.
Those East Germans who risked their lives to escape to the West understood something that only a combination of ingratitude and immaturity could prevent us from recognizing: that the blessings of living in a liberal democracy are of vital importance, and that the vast human experience throughout history reveals that these blessings are not to be taken for granted.
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