CRUNCH TIME: Retaining Democracy Takes Wisdom, Tolerance, Courage

December 5, 2014
By: Dave Rogers

Never in my lifetime has the nation seemed so fragile.

As protesters throng the streets of the large cities, we sit bewildered in middle America, remote from it all but scared for the life of our democracy.

Is it a race war?

Police vs. ordinary citizens?

A political uprising beginning?

None of the above. It's a democracy working, at least so far.

Most of us have studied the history of social unrest, especially in the case of the French Revolution that began in 1789 and the Soviet emergence in 1917.

People who were at odds were killing each other by scores; streets ran with blood, royalty was massacred.

The people demanded equality and exploded in Paris when Queen Marie Antoinette waved off their pleadings with her infamous scorn "if they have no bread, let them eat cake!"

That attitude activated Mademoiselle Guillotine and coiffured heads rolled.

We don't see scenes like that in America today, at least in the big picture.

What we do see are brush fires, mini outbreaks of dangerous volatility. So far our system has dealt with them, although not always as fairly as many would wish unfortunately.

The strength of our democracy, now 200 plus years old, is that it has many self-righting facets.

The riots of 1967 in Detroit were much worse, and violence and property destruction spread as far north as Saginaw at one point.

The underlying creed of America is fairness; when that is challenged, we are in peril. So far it appears a balance of justice will be restored although it will require federal intervention in some cases.

As citizens of peaceful streets far from the madding crowds, we still need to keep our heads, to remain calm, not to rise to the bait proffered by radical extremists. And they are primed to stir things up, of course.

Retaining our precious democracy is not easy, fairness and equality are abstract concepts hard to exactly define. But it seems we must look to the examples set by the Founding Fathers who brought rebels and loyalists together, to the example of Unionist and Confederates who came together after the terrible Civil War and made a nation.

We have been on the verge of anarchy many times. It took a Lincoln, a Grant, a Roosevelt to keep us together, to overcome the most challenging times any nation in history ever faced: the Civil War, the Klan, the Depression, two World Wars, Civil Rights upheaval...

Wisdom, Tolerance, Courage. There I go again. Sounding like a philosopher.

Blame it on the nuns.

Or my philosophy teacher Rabbi Kratzenstein at Bay City Junior College.

Or the class in Social Work I took at the University of Michigan.

Or my 20 years studying the life and family of James G. Birney, who had the foolhardy courage to stand up for what was right despite the consequences to himself.

The one main lesson I learned?

Everybody wants to be treated fairly and deserves to be treated fairly. That's the American way. If we remember that, we survive and thrive.

We do otherwise at our universal peril.

###