Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others


I’m reading an article about Kamala Harris in the October 21st New Yorker. This paragraph caught my eye:

“When Harris talks of the origins of her interest in government, she lingers on a moment from her time in Montreal: a friend from Westmount High, Wanda Kagan, was being physically and sexually abused at home, and Harris’s mother took her in. “A big part of the reason I wanted to be a prosecutor was to protect people like her,” Harris has said. In subtler ways, she was coming to see government as an arena where the powerful encounter the weak, bringing either aid or harm. She observed her mother—a small, watchful immigrant—grow nervous around people in uniform.”

In a democratically elected government, the collectivized power and resources of the state can overcome the resources of private wealth to act on behalf of the interests of the majority. Government can also do great harm, as in the case of the Vietnam war and the US invasion and military occupation of Iraq. Hence, the Churchill quote in the title of this post.

From what I can tell, Harris is interested in leading a government that stands up on behalf of the powerless. I am, too.

“My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.”

Sen. Carl Schurz

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