Perhaps you have been chary of letting other people speak for
you. I know that I have. I tend to bristle when someone announces what
“we” are going to do without consulting with the “I”s in the “we.” I feel much the same when I hear someone
declare what “we” think without caring to learn what I and the other components
of “we” think.
Sometimes it is necessary or unavoidable to have someone speak
for me. I think of representative
government. A Congress of 330 million
people will either get nothing done, or it will devolve into rule by a dictator
who has, as an effective demagogue, arranged for enough of all of us to cede to
him their will. The city states of
ancient Greece experienced both failings of genuine democracy—mob rule and
dictatorship—and displayed how it never worked for long.
The Romans, inhabiting a city state governed by a king, threw
off their king and created a democratic republic that flourished for several
hundred years. They elected Senators to
represent them. The Romans did not like
a king who spoke for them without asking, but they thrived under a system of
Senators who spoke for them, but only after obtaining the Romans’ permission. That worked for centuries until the process
of gaining permission—elections—became corrupted. The Senators concurrently became corrupted,
unwilling to face blame for making decisions.
The democratic republic was replaced by a government of emperors and Caesars. Rome afterwards oscillated between civil
strife and dictatorship on the way to collapse and invasion.
In the years following 1776 we, as a people of free
individuals, united to shake off our king who claimed the privilege of
referring to himself as “We” when speaking. In 1787 “We the People,” through our chosen
representatives, also established a democratic republic. That followed the formation of democratic
republics in each State. Both sides in
the debate to ratify the new Constitution emphasized keeping representatives
tied closely to the represented.
Skeptics wondered whether that would actually happen or long endure if
it did.
Individual people, representatives and represented, are
imperfect, as the Founders understood.
We each prize our individuality and the liberty to live it. We each can also be tempted to exert our will
over others. Consider the occasional
neighborhood “WE BELIEVE” yard signs. Are
these an expression of personal faith or a declaration that you and I ought to
consider ourselves included in the “WE”?
I wonder about the latter when I see decrees by federal officials, state
governors, and local mayors extending government force to the seemingly anodyne
slogans ornamenting the signs. The man
who today sits in the oval office, who would not dare to call himself a czar,
has appointed a man (previously rejected by a national election) to be the
nation’s “Climate Czar.”
We are scheduled to reach 250 years of our democratic republic
when the 17-year cicadas next return.
Will they emerge in a nation still governed by “We the People”? Or might they come out of the ground where
the voices of the I’s have been subsumed by other Czars who announce what We
think, do, and say? Creeping political
correctness, which has been chastising free speech for decades, telling us what
not to say, has lately become enforced by governments, workplaces, media, and
schools. As the prophet Isaiah warned, a
man is made “an offender for a word” (Isaiah 29:21).
