No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. – Winston Churchill, speech given before the House of Commons in 1947
After Hurricane Katrina, I went down to help do muck-outs – cleaning out all the mud and debris that had flooded people’s houses, the moldy drywall, everything down to the studs. I did this kind of work off and on from then through Hurricane Sandy. We worked with Habitat for Humanity and AmeriCorps, the Mennonites and the Baptists and the Lutherans, some volunteers on college break, some who had retired from owning construction companies and now traveled the nation and did only that. After all the chaos, you could stand in the sturdy framework of an empty house, and as volunteers started to put up walls again, see how life could continue. As I looked for my own first house, I stood in many and thought about how that framework could look, ranging from bare bones, to disaster, to full of life and family.
A functioning government is like a house: a basic sound structure you could see yourself living within, if you can look past the mess.
It gives you freedom and security to arrange your life in peace with everyone who’s under the same roof. You could walk in and picture your future working out there: where you’d have your own personal space, your garden, your meals with laughter and talking, what projects you’d take up first, how you’d position your favorite chair and sit in the sun. Not perfect but pretty good. You can see which walls need a fresh coat of paint, but you can look past that and see it’s got good bones – overall, it’s home.
It can feel different with a place we’re already living in. We’re familiar with all the quirks, creaks, and work to be done. We know where there’s a leak in the roof and which closets are just a disorganized mess. Maybe the layout’s cramped and awkward and there’s some doors in the wrong places. Maybe we’re fighting with the people living with us a lot more than we thought. Maybe we’re tempted to say it’s just not going to work.
Sometimes it’s even tempting to wish for a flood or a fire or an earthquake, or to take a sledgehammer to the whole thing. But that’s a mistake. Getting frustrated with a messy closet or a roommate or even a remodel doesn’t compare to standing in the middle of a devastated home, cleaning out family heirlooms with a shovel. It doesn’t compare to the work you have if you’ve damaged a load-bearing wall.
I imagine a Constitutional democracy like a house with good bones the one that after looking at all the others, I’ve picked out. It seems like it gives this sturdy framework for living together. You can see how we all might get some elbow room and not drive each other crazy; it’ll keep us out of the wind and weather. With the Bill of Rights and the branches of government to keep democracy in check, it’s pretty resilient. With democracy, transparency, principles of equality, it’s pretty adaptable. There are problems we’ve become familiar with from living here. Sometimes it’s a problem with the structure we’re working with, sometimes it would be a problem no matter where we moved. There’s maintenance, chores, projects and problems. It’s the worst – except for everything else out there.
I think it’s safe to say that anyone eyeing a home improvement project, a remodel, a move or a complete teardown and rebuild thinks on some level they’re doing the best thing for their future. We look at the mess and think we can picture something better, or we get discouraged because we can’t picture ourselves there at all.
The risk is not realizing until it’s too late that we’ve weakened the structure that keeps everything standing…
freedom of speech…
pluralism…
equal access and representation…
medical security…
economic fairness…
just treatment under the law…
political compromise…
peaceful civil discourse…
the belief that others are acting in good faith.
Most of the time, it’s not the framework of an essentially good house that needs to be torn down and put back up. But if you have to repair and rebuild what’s keeping the roof up, it’s long, hard work.
