So, in case you're wondering why our leaders no longer seem especially interested in your health or happiness or prosperity, that's the reason. They don't have to be interested. Our population is too big. Why should your opinion matter? You're one of many. Previous generations of Americans didn't live in a country like this, and they would be stunned by the attitudes that are so common now – attitudes we take for granted. Arresting people for walking through the U.S. Capitol building? "How is that a crime?" 19th century Americans would wonder. For most of our history, Americans believed they owned the Capitol. They thought it was theirs because they assumed this was their country. Political leaders told them that it was. After the 1904 presidential election, Teddy Roosevelt greeted voters in person on the lawn of the White House. It was his home. He lived there, but it belonged to them.
Attitudes like that are long gone. They're the victim of population growth. The Athenians invented democratic government, but at its peak, Athens only had about 8,000 voters.
So past a certain scale, democracy can't function very well. The concept of the citizen becomes too abstract. You see it in the way our leaders talk. Politicians barely mention individuals anymore. Instead, they yammer on about voting blocks, which are now called "communities": The immigrant community. The trans community. The Latino community. The Black community. You hear these terms constantly, but they are nonsensical. They don't mean anything. For example, there are about 47 million Black people in the United States. That's a community? No, it's not. By definition, 47 million people cannot be a community, no matter what color the people within it are. How could it be a community? They don't even know each other? What you're looking at is not a community, but 47 million individuals, each created by God as unique, each with opinions and interests and preference and goals that aren't quite the same as anybody else's. In other words, they're human beings. People who run big countries tend to forget that.
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Jimmy Carter Says Democracy Is Teetering
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Originally Posted by ClydeR
