TAKING A SECOND LOOK, ON SEPTEMBER 4

DISSENT'S DANGEROUS NEW WEAPON

Democracy and dissent go together. Belong together. Only it should be like the wings of a bird, not the collision of fire and ice...!

Hard on the heels of death-panel hysteria now come parents insisting the White House not be allowed into the public schools. They're not talking about federal laws (they already hate them) or federal funding (they already spend them); they're railing about the way the scheduled presidential address to schools next week is "mind control by a sworn socialist."

Look, dissent over presidential agendas is not new. Critics loathed Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR -- everyone we call a hero today, now that they're safely dead. So it's not the principle of dissent, but its practice that is at issue. Practiced with civility, it's the engine that drives the democracy. Practiced with mendacity, it can easily clog the entire engine.

But how to distinguish....?

We are told that the constitutional rule-of-thumb is: Free speech is wrong only when you go so far as to yell fire in a crowded theatre. OK, trace that thumb across the debate over healthcare and your bonfire is largely a self- fueled one. Along with legitimate concerns about bureaucratic inefficiency, the biggest piece of lumber on the pile is that all-American paranoia about "them." The big, bad, distant government whose ranks are filled with Orwellian zombies devoted to our everlasting enslavement.

Not all government is good, true; but neither is all government bad. The government is populated with people we know and live next door to. Rather than being part of some vast cabal of evil, they are the cops, firefighters, highway engineers, flood control operators, air traffic controllers, Coast Guard captains, and the friendly neighborhood mail carrier. I mean, dissent is one thing -- delusion is something else!

So while dissent itself is indispensable to democracy, dissent today has gathered to itself a powerful new weapon. The digital network of instant communications with which to spread any "fire" not only instantly but universally. Here then is the difference. When the haters hated Jefferson, Lincoln and FDR, their hatred was forced to travel through the filter of hours and miles. Now there is neither time nor distance left to filter the fires...

WOMEN ARE BECOMING THE NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN

We've got ourselves a problem. It has to do with the twin pillars of democracy -- liberty and equality. Whether we've noticed it, the two not only complement each other, they are opposed to each other. It makes you recall Lincoln's: A house divided against itself cannot long endure...!

The principle of equality implies everyone gets to play the game of life on the same level playing field. However, the principle of liberty implies that some of us will exercise our liberties to become better and better-off players than the others; then where is the equality?

Actually, the United States has generally found a working balance between these two opposites. Eventually, for instance, the American Democracy that began as exclusively a white, male, protestant monopoly has evolved. A black man is president, a Catholic was president, and somehow the republic has survived.

However, the last barrier involves the female of the species. They have reached high, but in government, country clubs and most religions they are still on the outside looking in. That's why it has to be immensely gratifying for women to read that today they are becoming a monopoly in the work force and in field after field.

Given a woman's inherent capacity for endurance, compassion, fidelity, and perseverance, the old battle-cry rings in tune: Turning things over to women couldn't possibly mess up the world any more than the men have! And for all the male supremacists who doubt and deny, they might take stock of some damn good examples. Say Joan of Arc, Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, Angela Merkel, Mother Teresa and -- well, what about Mom..?