What if, in the United States, the majority passes laws we don’t believe in? What if representative government skews opposite from some of our chosen ideals?
If we are on a losing side, we face temptations. We may try to work the system so that only our kind of voter can actually make it to the polls.
Or we may go to extreme lengths as happened on January 6 and storm the capitol building, perhaps with the intent of physically harming those with whom we disagree.
Instead, perhaps we should begin with the understanding that governments are created by imperfect human beings. Thus, they are going to be imperfect.
In the year 1776, men who believed they had a right to self-government risked their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to declare their colonies free and independent states.
Of course, these first callers for self-government were not only all men, but all white men. Some of them, calling for this freedom, owned fellow human beings.
The struggle that began in a hot summer in Philadelphia in the 18th century was, we have to understand, only a beginning with much imperfection. To assume that our founding documents and beginning actions were somehow blessed by Jesus like holy writ, borders on apostasy. The founders were sinful men who had some good beginning ideas.
Our history is sometimes glorious and sometimes hideous, like the inability to get rid of slavery, leading finally to a ridiculous war. (Interestingly enough, if we had remained in the British empire, we would have seen slavery abolished in that empire in 1833, presumably without the Civil War.)
The length of time it took to give all citizens voting rights is shameful, as are today’s attempts to curtail recent gains.
We have known some redemption. We led democracies after World War II to stand up to the atrocities of the Soviet Union without a major war. The Marshall Plan, bringing aid to exhausted allies as well as defeated enemies, showed us at our best—and led to strong alliances.
The point is to see our country, not as some god, but as a journey with all kinds of temptations and all kinds of possibilities. Not surprising that we imperfect humans sometimes pull in different directions.
Reacting responsibly to the pulling, as it sometimes goes the way we want and sometimes not, includes refusing violence, even when we’re on the losing side. Somehow, we have to listen. We have to sympathize, while stating our own beliefs clearly but without violence—over and over if necessary.
Our republic is imperfect. We have to live with that. If we cherish beliefs that others don’t, we keep on speaking them, while never giving way to violence. Our black sisters and brothers surely can teach us .