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 Relationship Between Democracy and Personal Responsibility
NOTE: Until this week, the questions of the Q-and-A Club have included an introduction by me and generally only one or two questions. While I intend to sometimes continue that format, I will also, as I am doing this week, give you a number of questions that apply to a topic that seems to require several questions.
While all the questions are interesting and I encourage you to answer all of them, please select at least a few that seem important to you. I would certainly like to hear how you like this format.
I've chosen this illustration not because I think you should hold up the world, but because I hope you honor the world enough to support it in whatever way you can.
The stakes . . . are too high for government to be a spectator sport.
— Barbara Jordan
A democratic form of government, a democratic way of life, presupposes free public education over a long period; it presupposes also an education for personal responsibility that too often is neglected
— Eleanor Roosevelt
When the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.
— Edith Hamilton
For a considerable price, it [government] relieves us of responsibilities, performing acts that would be as unsavory for most of us as butchering our own beef. As our agent, the government can bomb and tax. As our agent, it can relieve us of the responsibilities once borne face to face by the community; caring for the young, the war-wounded, the aged, the handicapped. It extends our impersonal benevolence to the world's needy, relieving our collective conscience without uncomfortable first-hand involvement. It takes our power, our responsibility, our consciousness.
— Marilyn Ferguson
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Do I have a responsibility toward my LOCAL COMMUNITY? What is it? Why do I believe that? How do I fulfill my responsibility?