Democracy is Beautiful

I stopped by a City Council meeting this evening, and, after a presentation on a planned curb-side recycling program, the Council opened it up for public comment.

I spoke and at least a dozen other ordinary citizens did so as well, and it struck me how amazing this democracy of ours remains, for all its faults. I thought of the billions of people around the world who cannot speak freely on subjects of interest or importance to them, and yet here, in America, the idea is so fundamental, so natural, that most of us give it scarcely a second thought.

But there's another dimension worth nothing as well: a kind of creeping cynicism, even here in America, that whispers "Why bother? Your voice [or your vote] doesn't count." And, in truth, I think interest groups of one kind or another, particularly PACs, wield far too much influence.

Nevertheless, ordinary citizens can and do make a difference, a reality brought home again to me during the 2009 session of the Utah legislature, when a bill pushed by two of the most powerful interest groups in Utah--the Realtors Association and the Farm Bureau--went down to defeat on the floor of the Utah House of Representatives. Opposition to the bill was led by a rag tag assortment of trout bums and ordinary citizens, many of whom had never been involved in politics before. This time, however, they called, they wrote, they texted, and emailed. Dozens of them marched up to the Capitol and spoke to their legislators personally. Others testified at committee hearings. And it worked. Democracy works. Somehow. It can be messy, and ugly, but it works, and when it does, it's a thing of beauty.

(Image courtesy of USAID, available at: http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/democracy_and_governance/democracy_rising.html. For those who don't recognize the image, it shows the hands of Iraqi citizens who voted in recent elections, where a hard-to-remove dye is used to prevent repeat voting. Insurgents, incidentally, have used the dyed fingers to single out and execute people for "supporting the U.S." or "supporting the regime." Many Iraqis voted anyway.)