One of the great things about a democracy is that things do not change overnite. We do not tend to have revolution; we have evolution. We do change, though, over a period of time. I was reading some political history the other day ... going back a decade, two, three. And it is interesting to see how much the debate in America has changed over the past half century.
A decade ago, for instance, there was a great debate about whether or not gays and lesbians should be leaders in our military and leaders in our churches. The other day president Bush put a new debate on the agenda: the honor of marriage. A couple of decades ago or so, when Jimmy Carter was president, the debate was about whether or not to give amnesty to the people who had been draft dodgers in the Vietnam War. Now the debate is about how best to show our patriotism; how best to display Old Glory. And not only are our military people heroes on the international scene, but our policemen and our firemen our heroes on the local scene. Half a century ago it was accepted that the government could pretty well solve all our problems, so the idea was to give power to the federal government and tax the people to let them do their job. Now our citizens realize the people have more answers than the central government, so the debate is about how we can cut taxes and return taxes to the people so the people can provide answers.
If a person looks at the history of political debate in America, one will very quickly find that the debate is moving from liberal to conservative, from more government control to more freedom. But this is a democracy, so it does not mean that trend will automatically continue. There's another election coming up, and another.
This Gordon Sawyer, from a window on historic Green Street
Sunday
August 3rd, 2025
11:59PM
