Support Democracy

I am delighted that Karen has begun a blog on the US Presidential Election 2008. We must take democracy seriously, not because it is essentially the best form of government but it is the best we have got. We have become too comfortable with our system, in the UK. The notion of a military dictatorship seems remote: it is something suffered by other people, somewhere else in the world. We have become bored by politics and affronted by the insult to our intelligence which is the spin espoused by so many politicians. We need to engage. Young people need to be proud when they vote for the first time; becoming a citizen ought to be the mark of adulthood. Let us see what is happening in the USA, where liberty and the pursuit of happiness are seen to be inextricably joined to the selection of a President who embodies the common purpose of the state as well as protecting the freedom of the individual.