Democracy is a choice

There are no laws or rules that constrain our government into being a fail-safe democracy. Each of us — from citizens to lawmakers, judges to presidents — must actively choose to adhere to democratic norms and values. Each of us must hold the freedoms of others in as high a regard as we do our own.

We must each protect the rights of others to say things we consider wrong, practice a religion we think strange, or choose a lifestyle we don’t understand or even disagree with.

We must each reject oppression, even when it doesn’t affect us. (Even when it benefits us.) And not just because oppression is wrong but also because the tables of tyranny can so quickly turn.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

— Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Each of us has the responsibility to demand a free press and fair representation in our legislatures, and to protect public access to information and education.

But that comes with other responsibilities, as well. Like the responsibility of understanding how our system works, how it was intended to work and why, and what that means for us as individual citizens.

We have the responsibility to critically assess information and to cast informed votes at all levels and for all branches of government.

If we don’t opt in, if we don’t actively participate, democracy fails.

Similarly, our elected representatives are not constrained by fail-safe boundaries of democracy; they must constrain their behaviors and choices because they want to, because they believe to their core in the principle of democracy.

That is what’s supposed to bind us together as a people: our commitment to democratic values, to the freedom found at the nexus of equality, independence, and kindness.

“Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand/ A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame/ Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name/ Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand/ Glows world-wide welcome”

— Excerpt from Emma Lazarus’ poem “The New Colossus,” which is engraved on the Statue of Liberty

All people are people, and each has a right to my respect. Each has a right to pursue happiness, be treated equally under the law, to vote, to know what’s going on in their government, and to retain all sorts of rights (thanks to the Ninth Amendment) that aren’t even listed in the Constitution.

But this also gives us the collective right to undermine our own democracy. We can opt out, too.

When we gerrymander voting districts so that incumbents are safe, we opt out of fair representation. We opt out of fair representation when we make it more difficult for citizens to vote and when running for office is out of reach for the majority of citizens.

When we limit journalists’ access to elected officials, or we undermine journalistic integrity, we opt out of a free press.

When we undermine public education, and if we underfund the arts and public broadcasting, censor our comedians, or weaken net neutrality, we dismantle our own freedoms to know, understand, and participate.

When we allow for some people’s religious practice to infringe on the rights of others, or allow anyone’s religious book to supersede our Constitution in making or enforcing or interpreting laws, we are opting out of religious freedom.

When we allow any manner of self-interest or party-interest to dominate our national discussions and decision-making, we have lost sight of the goal. We’re opting out of democracy through a simple but grave failure to remember what its purpose is — “to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

To whom much is given, much is required.