Reliance upon slogans and symbols short circuits our thought process, allowing us to ignore the complexities of issues. This bad habit is used in both secular and religious discourse.

One symbol of secular democracy is the U.S. Constitution, which was shaped by the political realities of the time when it was written. It was not meant to be permanent or perfect and through amendment has been improved.

Now political parties have a stranglehold on our politics. Political platforms are marketing tools that politicians gave lip service to while courting favor from wealthy contributors upon whom their power is based. It is vain to hope that our two-party political system will enact campaign reforms that do more than put the public in a bidding war with corporate sponsors or threaten their monopoly.

Who will convince them that democracy demands that the public have a voice, not just a vote? The election of judges may be marketed as an expansion of democracy but puts judges under the same economic pressures that have corrupted Congress.

“Strict construction(ism) of the Constitution,” a slogan of the right, arrests the march of democracy preserving the status quo.

One religious symbol is the Ten Commandments, a vehicle Moses used to create a minimum of social order among contentious peoples he deemed necessary to their survival. Some Christians, unwilling or unable to apply New Testament ethics to modern society would turn the clock back 2000 years by enshrining the Ten Commandments!

In spite of our collective failure to protect democracy, I remain convinced that democracy is our best chance of building a society in which people can assert their better selves. If democracy is to be restored we must give up our symbols, our slogans and our rallying cries and start dealing with reality.

John E. Gibson

Blooming Prairie