Putting Ourselves in Their Shoes

If you read one thing in any of the papers today, make it Brad Rourke's column in the Christian Science Monitor, "What if the US had to write a constitution from scratch?" It is excellent. I wish that I could cut and paste the whole darn thing in here, but I'll just highly recommend it instead and offer up a few choice quotes.

As Rourke points out, "... the main stumbling blocks for the Iraqi negotiators - the status of religion in government and its effect on women; the way to parcel out cash-generating natural resources; and the way the political parties can coexist - are ones we share here, in the land of the free." Unlike the Iraqis, we have the ability to "coast on past successes," Rourke writes, where the lauded "public square" has become little more than a boxing ring, where "compromise is derided as capitulation, tolerance blasted as weakness. The atmosphere is brutal. Every advantage must be pursued, or your allies will excoriate and excommunicate you."

The column goes on to ask what I think is one of the most important questions we forget to ask ourselves every evening before bed: "What have we done for democracy lately? This isn't a question posed to some government institution, or even a political party. This is a question we can all ask of ourselves. What have I done, today, to make the public square the kind of place where debate can occur? What have I done to ensure fairness for the other side as well as my own? Most important: What would I be willing to give up for the good of the nation and not just my corner?"

I'm going to stop adding quotes now (and it gets better), but please, read the whole piece. Rourke has done a great job of distilling a great centrist message into a useful framework for discussion, and even if you don't agree with some of his simplifications, I think he's gotten the ball rolling in a good way. What have we done for democracy lately? Could our political leaders come together today and agree on a structure to govern America, if they had the power to start all over? Would we like what emerged if they did?