I know this may seem an overly gushy message, but having witnessed such anger in my fellow citizens at a Hillary Clinton campaign event done by Michelle Obama and then seeing the crowds gathering for Donald Trump's rally last night, some reflections about what there is in common between Republicans and Democrats could be edifying, at least for me.
The Latin roots of these words are res publica (public thing) and demos kratia (people power). Not that your typical Republican or Democrat cares about the root words of the party whose views they mostly agree with, but it is cool that they both basically mean popular government.
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| photo by Melanie Atkins |
The signs above, ironically, have several examples of what Republicans and Democrats have in common. If you ask an average Republican or Democrat how they feel about wages for the poor, they probably wish those working people could be paid more than what the current minimum wage is. If asked about women's rights, they probably want them to be respected. And with regard to education, they probably want more resources devoted to that for their children (and many Republicans even agree that the government should increase resources toward education).
Talking about the Constitution with my aunt, who is a Democrat, I realized that both Republicans and Democrats believe that the Constitution supports our views, even though they're opposing views. We agree that the Constitution is a valuable document that protects us from tyranny.
And when we aren’t talking “politics,” disagreement seems to be the exception. Maybe that’s why we can so often respond “you’re right,” “that makes sense,” “oh yeah,” etc. Most think that strong families, youth that obey parents, service, and learning are all valuable.
Understandably, a politician running for office needs to point out why he is a better fit for office than his opponent, and that won’t happen by saying “we’re pretty much the same.” But as citizens talking about how to make the world a happier place, I think it’s helpful to remember how much we have in common.
Dear Reese,
ReplyDeleteOnly a minor note... the etymological origins of the word democracy are decidedly not Latin. The term is of Koiné Greek origin and was first noted in the writings of Plato in the Third Century BC in his διαλόγους. Δημοκρατία is composed of Δημο and κρατία. κρατία carried the mean of state, or government, the political entity. Δημ in its origin carried the meaning of limited, meaning not cumbersome, not over prevailing. o was the conjunctive linking the two nouns. Thus, in the original Greek of the Fifth Century BC., democracy represented a state that did not overburden its people.
On the other hand, and excuse me for being debative, republic, in its Latin origins from the time of Seneca in the immediate years before Christ, as witnessed in his Dialogis, carried a completely different meaning than the Greek Δημοκρατία . Respublica is only an approximation of Δημοκρατία .
Many etymologists considered res to have derived from the Latin base root of rogatio, or petition, or request or summation in modern English. Publica is understood classically as the state, the legal compendium. Thus the Latin term, in its classical origins from the time of Seneca would have carried a global meaning of petitions to the state, which in Roman history would have meant petitions to the Roman Senate, a concept unknown in classical Greek history.
Marcos Cisneros
Well that is extremely fascinating, thank you! Very thought-provoking thinking about the connection between democracy and not burdening, I had never known that.
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