Brad Hachten: We must protect our freedoms, or risk losing them
If there is such a thing as American exceptionalism, I think you have to cite commander-in-chief George Washington. Following the American Revolution that wrested power away from a king, he turned over his commission and its power to a representative government before eventually going back to farming.
Because power translates into access to resources, which are limited – take water, for example – power sharing would be the exception rather than the usual course of events in human history. The colonization of a continent with an abundance of resources, I expect, helped set the stage.
Recently, as some news analysts have cited, there seems to be a trend here and abroad away from democracy and toward autocracy. It seems we are experiencing a crisis of faith in this government “of the people, by the people, for the people,” in the words of Abraham Lincoln. This needs to be addressed. Beware of false prophets. At this juncture, the average citizen should be protective of our democratic institutions or the average citizen might find him or herself at an irreparable loss.
Brad Hachten, Merced
This story was originally published February 15, 2017 at 9:12 AM with the headline "Brad Hachten: We must protect our freedoms, or risk losing them."