Williamson makes several great points about the origins of the Constitution of the United States in contrast with our reality. He talks about how the things mentioned in the constitution sound great but has never truly been enacted. All of these desires may have been the poor English white man’s dream which brewed inspiration to go and seek out a better life. However, to do so the “founding fathers” took those same realities from another group of people to promote their agenda and then reframed the picture to make themselves look good.
I love that Williamson talked about the definition and reality of the word democracy that the US claims so proudly. It requires “sense and fairness” and “democracy is not a form of government that guarantees justice.” Williamson also explains that when this equality is missing from the idea of democracy, doors are opened to constant grievances, moral resentment, social rancor, and social instability.” In order to truly fix our government and create a nation that is what it has pretended to be for centuries, we must all be educated on the past. Everyone needs to learn the truth about the past and present horrors that exist in our country. You can never fix a broken pipe if no one ever acknowledges that it was broken. And it would equally as unwise to fix the pipe without investigating and finding out what caused it to burst in the first place. We need to fix the root cause and replace the pipe and we need to stop pretending like the pipe is not broken. Only after we acknowledge this will we be anywhere close to a truly democratic government that grants its people life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
When Williamson brings up the topic of the relationship between people and technology and how democracy wasn’t ready for such a shift, it makes me wonder what can be done. If democracy is truly flawed and can’t serve justice and as you said, we learn to acknowledge the problems with our system then we are hopefully better off.
I really agree with your point on everyone needing to learn the past in order to fix the present and future because I feel that history textbooks and teachers have whitened and brightened the past in sugarcoating and not telling the whole truth. This is a failed system because we look back at this fake past and think we know things about how to not repeat history, but in the end, we repeat history because we don’t know the real truth about the past.
I agree that we need to look at and accept our past. Furthermore, as he also mentioned, we need to be willing to accept each other and learn one another experiences to truly fix our democracy.
I agree that the U.S. government is currently a very corrupt and broken system. It is also crucial to think about the fact that the U,S. government has always been corrupt to some extent since its founding and the fact that policies created by the founding fathers do not necessarily apply to current day. Before America can be great again, it has to be great in the first place.
I also thought it was important that Williamson brought up the point that one group is bound to be frustrated in order for the other to feel comfortable in their standing. I think that this one of the root problems of our foundation of democracy—the Constitution itself was written to keep white men in a high status which women, black people, and other minorities were used as a stepping stool. Because of this origin of our government system, it will always be flawed.