If it is, as certainly seems to be the case, the public’s responsibility to stake out their freedoms, lay claim to them, demand them, and not take ‘no’ for an answer; then how do we engender that desire in the heart and soul of each individual?
As I study the responsibilities of civil society in maintaining good governance, economic development, cultural sensitivity, and environmental protection; it seems more and more as if the results of my research may be summed up as:
The public must demand what is best for the public!
The question posed above is only the first of many that must be answered in order to create this as a legitimate solution. How is the public to know what is best for it without proper education? Who determines what makes up proper education? Is it also the public’s job to demand education that it finds fitting?
This leads into the need for open discussion and argument amongst the populace in order to facilitate the development and advancement of notions relating to how they are educated and governed, how their environment is cared for or not, how their economy is encouraged to develop or not, and many other factors.
There is much to do and much to learn.
Cicero, writing more than 2000 years ago, stated that “Freedom is participation in power.” This makes perfect sense in that if you don’t participate, you don’t get a voice, and you don’t get to do what you want to do.
So much has changed, and yet, so little…
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Ahh…
Yet, what does one do, when the public is not given the freedome to think, or the freedom to act?
Or, in cases where there is freedom, the only mean of expression is through violence and destruction, as is the case in many areas of the world, where rights and freedoms are suppressed, and the only way to change the system, is to overthrow it…
It is a dynamic world we live in, interesting to say the least…
In the words of some wise man: What did you think you were getting into? There are no easy answers in this game.
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