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All posts tagged "Fourth of July"

  • Culture & MediaJuly 10, 2012

    A Parade Passed By: Rethinking Our Democracy

    The Fourth of July parade rolled down Main Street in Santa Monica while I sat at the computer writing this. Only half a block away, I could hear the sirens and the bands and the sound trucks. What kept me here instead of there was a desire to reflect, not celebrate. Twice a year – on Martin Luther King’s birthday in January and now – I think about the state of American democracy.

    I believe in democracy. I believe that democracy is the best form of government human beings have devised to date because it allows people to actually make changes in the government when they feel it’s required. Monarchies, aristocracies, dictatorships and oligarchies preclude that option. In Western civilization, this country broke the tradition of absolute power to create a  republic – although participation was narrow: Voting was limited to male property owners. Over the next 150 years those rights expanded.

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