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Naga Tuma
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Joined: 24 Apr 2007, 00:27

"The Miracle of America" or a Genius of Democracy?

Post by Naga Tuma » 04 Aug 2021, 19:55

This is a question that I asked myself on July 27, 2021, upon hearing on TV the expression "the miracle of America" by U.S. House Representative Liz Cheney in her opening statement at the January 6 Capitol riot hearing.

I have little to take away from her remarkable opening statement. As a mere observer, I commend her Stateswomanship like rising to defend the Constitution of and rule of law in her country.

Statesmen and Stateswomen are those who put their country before partisanship in their country. Statesmen and Stateswoman have the foresight to think for their children in their own country more than they think for themselves and try to make their State a model for other States to emulate where possible.

That is at least my intuitive thinking about it. I have no training or expertise in social science except growing up in what I think is a socially deeply conscious culture.

Given my lack of training and expertise in social science, I shouldn't be commenting much about politics or social issues like a broken record.

Then again, my intuition suggests that I express my thoughts when I hear and think about ideas that are counterintuitive.

Years ago, my intuition and limited reading suggested that Ethiopia was at crossroads between democracy and anarchy. Somalia was just next door and it wasn't hard to think if what had befallen Somalia couldn't one day befall Ethiopia. That thought alone should prompt farsighted thinkers to rise for democracy and against anarchy.

Years later, as a mere observer of American politics, intuition and limited reading suggest that the country that claimed a morality for a productive experimentation of democracy appears to be caught between Progressive and Regressive forces.

Irrespective of where it was first invented and experimented, a peaceful transition of power was a monumental progress in the history of humanity. That is what at least I think of it.

The U.S. has claimed to have experimented and achieved peaceful transitions of power for nearly two and a half centuries until it failed to happen in 2021. Organized regressive forces tried to make it null and void in 2021, after so long, although they also failed and the rule of law prevailed over an attempt at a violent takeover of political power.

The attempt to trample democracy is revolting to all those who value it, including for their children as well as future generations. It can be postulated that almost every parent wants to make the world in which one's children live better than the one in which one lived. That cause alone can revoltingly bring many together.

At the same time, is this revolt for democracy innately American or inheritance of the gem imaginations of the geniuses of democracy? I think it is the latter and this is where I depart from Liz Cheney's thinking processes about democracy as "the miracle of America."

I do not know if there is any methodology that exists today that valuates the gem imaginations of anyone with respect to time, in a fashion similar to currency. In other words, what is Socrates' mind as a thinker worth in today's state of mind consciousness?

If such a method existed, could it rank Socrates' faculty at a higher level than that of Jefferson who studied the works of Socrates' era even as he trembled as he reflected that God is just?

Similarly, could it put Jefferson's faculty at a higher level than that of Liz Cheney even as she finds herself caught in the fight between Progressive and Regressive forces in the USA in the 21st century and tries to rise as a Stateswoman?

I happen to think that this kind of analysis, or even the capacity to imagine its potent illumination. will make it clear that democracy is not an American miracle but the brainchild of geniuses, starting in ancient times.

Not realizing this historical accounting can only make the rise for democracy as a Stateswoman or a Statesman for that matter while being half awake.

The rise can only be productive when the progressive forces do just the right things and those who rise as Stateswomen or Statesmen see to it that the right things are done in order to ensure the maintenance of democracy. It has been said a long time ago that people don't need to do the wrong things, they just need to do the right things. That is a call of and cause for democracy.