Letters to the Editor
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Minority of One
In the early 1960's I took a course on political philosophy in the philosophy department. The text was a series of readings, "Communism, Fashism and Democracy."
One of the short pieces I recall was an essay "The Minority of One." It made the point that the strength of a democracy was that if one person was right, he would not be supressed, and the truth could win out. This is an argument for free speech.
Glenn's piece reminds us that we have to know what it means to stand for freedom and be able to take a stand whenever it has been violated. Our culture, which is informed by a vapid media, has allowed us to slide far from our constutional heritage and that needs to be fought with battles such as blocking the telcom immunity law in the next few months.
Some of the characters along the way are not our favorite people, but we trust in adult dialogue, openness, analysis, and the other tools of reason to be able to work through these issues. For all too long we have not dealt with the hard problems of governance.
Good governance is about creating the framework to work out good solutions over time.