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Sunday, March 16, 2003 Page: 3B
Tom Bigler A WISE MAN once said that, “Each generation must earn its
freedom.”
The American colonists gained their freedom through a revolution and a war.
But the founding fathers, through the Declaration of Independence, the
Constitution, the Bill of Rights and their own example in making the
government come to life, gave us the means of sustaining our freedom: our
democratic form of government.
They were an unusually learned group, aware of the history of ancient
Greece, the Roman Empire, the Reformation, the Magna Carta and the development
of the parliamentary system. It is from this that they went so much further.
They saved us from the mistakes from a direct democracy that their
knowledge of history taught them would not work, and instead created a
government based on representative democracy. It was a concept in which the
best and brightest of us were elected to serve the people. They worked
full-time taking care of all the details, freeing the public to be concerned
with the responsibilities of sustaining that government.
But in the last 50 years too many of us have come to take our democracy for
granted and either are unaware or simply are willing to ignore the inescapable
responsibilities which a democracy imposes on each and every one of us. While
the right to vote is one of the key responsibilities of citizenship, it is
estimated that as much as one-fifth of those who would be eligible to register
to vote have not – and have not because of the delusion that thereby they
could escape being liable for taxes. Of the registered, it is rare for more
than half to vote in any election, and if there is a public question on the
ballot, less than half of those will vote on the question. Ours has become a
democracy “of, by and for” a minority of the public.
Worse, that opens the door for the corruption of our representatives and
with a consequent erosion of our freedoms.
Where once we were committed to the equality of all persons, and in our
espousal of the American Dream accepted the commitment that we are responsible
to and for each other, now the trend of government is toward serving primarily
the interests of the affluent and the influential who largely are those who
vote and invest in the system. The consequent direction that government takes
tends to ignore the needs of the many in favor of services to the few. It is a
process in which both the democratic process and individual freedom are
threatened.
The trend apparently is possible largely because too many of us have not
been educated to understand the structure of our democracy and the
responsibilities that it imposes on all of us. In a sense, it indicates a
failure in our education. If educators believe it essential that every child
learn reading, writing, arithmetic, yes, and computer sciences, it certainly,
obviously, is equally important that each of us learn more about how our
government was achieved, its structure, its functions and our responsibilities
for keeping it.
It isn’t just a matter of voting; indeed, the challenge is to cast an
informed ballot. The challenge also is to understand the process goes beyond
voting to include the acceptance of the necessity of taxes, of regulations of
business and other aspects of human conduct, as well as of maintaining the
health of our citizens and the education of our young people.
Indeed it was a teacher in high school whose enthusiasm for the democratic
process and for the responsibilities it imposed who infected me and most
others in the class with the same enthusiasm.
Incorporating an intensive study of democracy and the students’ role in it
when they become adults is a key responsibility of our formal education system
at the primary, secondary and postgraduate levels. This is a process that
really never ends.
After all, as Abraham Lincoln put it, ours is supposed to be a government
of, by, and for the people, all the people.
In the final analysis, you-we are the government and how we accept and
perform its responsibilities determines our freedom.
Tom Bigler is professor emeritus at Wilkes University and a Times Leader
columnist. His column is available online at www.timesleader.com.