In this quadrennial gifting season, our Presidential hopefuls are once again showering the electorate with ever more outlandish promises of free lunch. They must know what they are doing because, if nothing else, those seeking election to the world's most important position of power are crafty enough to realize that large numbers of eligible voters are susceptible to such intimation of pie-in-the-sky. Those who are less susceptible to being swayed by fool's-gold promises must, nevertheless, not be discouraged from voting their conscience.
I have, on occasion, been dejected about the perceived groundswell of support for the charlatans who use every trick known to their host of marketers for eliciting not only their supporters' votes but also their fanatic devotion and adulation. But I have learned to take comfort from an understanding of two related principles: the electorate deserves whatever leadership it gets; and, at least in America, we are protected, to a crucial extent, from the tyranny of the majority.
Our founding fathers incorporated such individual protections by ratifying the Bill of Rights. And for more than two centuries, together with the great providential wisdom and leadership of Abraham Lincoln, we have survived the inevitable madness of crowd psychology as mediated by hype. Led by the indispensable George Washington, our founding fathers had the wisdom and the foresight to anticipate not only the potential tyranny but also the occasional madness of a majority of self-absorbed instant-gratification junkies. This too shall pass, for America is at its best in a crisis.
I have, on occasion, been dejected about the perceived groundswell of support for the charlatans who use every trick known to their host of marketers for eliciting not only their supporters' votes but also their fanatic devotion and adulation. But I have learned to take comfort from an understanding of two related principles: the electorate deserves whatever leadership it gets; and, at least in America, we are protected, to a crucial extent, from the tyranny of the majority.
Our founding fathers incorporated such individual protections by ratifying the Bill of Rights. And for more than two centuries, together with the great providential wisdom and leadership of Abraham Lincoln, we have survived the inevitable madness of crowd psychology as mediated by hype. Led by the indispensable George Washington, our founding fathers had the wisdom and the foresight to anticipate not only the potential tyranny but also the occasional madness of a majority of self-absorbed instant-gratification junkies. This too shall pass, for America is at its best in a crisis.
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