Not Quite Self-Evident

Fourth Of July - Happy Fourth - Esquire:

 Do you govern or are you governed?

It is a question that cannot be avoided. It is the question that commits us to this day as a nation, and as a people, to the ongoing creative act of building and maintaining some sort of a political commonwealth. It is the question that makes of America an ongoing experiment, and it is the question that commits all Americans to active participation in that experiment. It is a question that demands an answer and, by not answering it, you really are. Yes, you are saying, I am governed. It is good that so many of us are charitable in our own private ways to our fellow citizens, but that is not the object of the debate. That is not an answer to the question. The government is the product of our commitment to the creation of the political commonwealth. It is that commonwealth's most obvious public manifestation. It is within that government where the debate must be held. It is within that government where the answer to the question must be provided, year after year, generation after generation. If you believe that your government in this country is tyrannical, you must look to your complicity in that tyranny's development. As you are an American, then Mr. Jefferson's paragraph, cited above, leaves you no other good alibi...