Representative Democracy is a Spiritual Good

Representative Democracy is a Spiritual Good (Short Version)

A healthy representative democracy helps individuals and groups to live well (both happily and decently). It constitutes a fundamental spiritual good that should not be sacrificed for short-term political gains — similar to how it is self-defeating to saw of your head so you can more easily slide under a low door frame.

Short Prayer Version

A Win-Win Prayer

that the system doesn’t fall apart
that things get better for everyone
that I find my way and make it shine
that everyone find their way
and we all together make it shine
that representative democracy thrives
that the world doesn’t melt
and the nukes don’t fly
that the bugs don’t spread
and we don’t all die.

when is good fun possible?
only in a healthy time and place
can one be both happy and good.
God help us keep our republic.

1 Page Version

It is difficult to live well within a corrupt state, and/or a repressive regime: You have to be corrupt to be much of a success. That is not very compatible with spiritual growth. It is much better to live in an open, transparent, healthy democracy, with checks on excessive power — on excessive concentrations of political power, media reach, wealth, and so on. In such a state, the worldly successes we all long for — partner, family, friends, health, safety, free time, freedom of speech and motion — are pretty compatible (can be done relatively painlessly / joyfully!) with the spiritual growth — aware, clear, honest, accurate, competent, kind, generous, joyful; centered around a growing insight into that and why it is True to say “We are all in this together” — we all require to understand, follow, believe in, and/or care about our own feeling/thinking/acting.

In a healthy, open, transparent, functioning democracy where the rule of law is fair and universal, citizens jointly watch over and correct their shared government free of the constraints imposed when individual wealth, prestige, and/or safety depend upon uncritical support of government and/or acquiescence to and participation in corruption. This creates a space where people can speak and collaborate openly and in good faith, sharing the fundamental spiritual values (“aware … in this together”) adequately well, and thus (knowingly sharing and respecting the same fundamental starting point) communicating meaningfully with one another and together participating meaningfully in their shared government. And, because the government has both robust anti-corruption rules and enough transparency for citizens to look in on matters when they want to, it creates an environment where most people are free to spend most of their time and energy not thinking about politics and government; but instead learning, creating, building relationships and communities, and otherwise deriving benefit from their shared resources (the economy, society, media, environment, and etc. that the government — which is ultimately controlled by the people — regulates) in good conscious (because success is not synonymous with participating in corruption and other follies).

Nothing is perfect, but we should push for ever less corruption and madness in government, and for an ever-healthier (more open, transparent, honest, accurate, competent, fair-playing, well-meaning) government. In this way we maintain joint control over a reasonably functional government, and are thus at a political starting point. From this starting point, we must work together to ensure our behavior towards one another and the decisions of our government reflect our shared fundamental values in ways that are more and more meaningful to and helpful for all of us.

This is how we humans can live best: both happily and decently/spiritually-joyfully.
It is much more spiritually healthy to offer people a place where they can be both happy and decent than to let a few people steal all the power, forcing everyone to either suffer righteously (or just suffer) or live well while compromising their decency and spiritual health.

Again, there is no perfection, but there are definite directions. To the degree we sacrifice open, transparent, healthy representative democracy, we destroy our only method for meaningfully sharing conversation and decision-making. We are like an individual abandoning their own mental, emotional, physical and spiritual well-being. This is always folly: everything is meaningful to an individual or a group only to the degree an individual or a group’s feeling/thinking/acting is meaningful to that individual or group. The ends do not justify the means: if we betray the prerequisites for individual and group meaning in the name of some goal — no matter how grand — we are like people poking out their own eyes in the name of some great sight they are going to go see.

Are the Republicans in the US House and Senate willing to trade tax cuts and two supreme court justices for a functioning representative democracy? If so, then they are willing to shoot us all — no, not in the foot: in the head. In such a case, Trump and those who’ve allowed him to dismantle our democracy will have forced our hand: we must elect Joe Biden and the Democrats in the 2020 election, and we must make sure this election is fair enough that the winner wins. That would be the first step towards reclaiming our shared democracy and thus internal meaning as a nation. We look at the many ways Trump and his enablers are undermining our democracy at an overview of Trump’s treats to US democracy.

[This is the beginning of Representative Democracy is a Spirtual Good on the Politics page of From-Bartleby.com.
It is a work of Something Deeperism]

Author: Bartleby Willard
Editor: Amble Whistletown
Copyright: Andrew M. Watson