"John Lewis got it right: “Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part . . .”It’s time for people who care about words and about reason to examine our assumptions. So many progressives are astonished that the products of the European Enlightenment don’t get the respect they once did. One reason for that could well be that most people never got asked what they thought about the whole thing. Democracy. Health. Safety. Reason. Personal worth. Communal behavior. These are choices, not inevitabilities, and they are human dreams, not European playthings. If we consider them worthy as goals, it’s time we use our noodles reasonably and decide to act like they matter."