Two Americas; Two Democracies

The following quote speaks of the American system of government, but it applies to many other circumstances.  As leaders, many of us take an active interest in the affairs of our national governments.  One of the challenges of the American system (and for that matter, the Heavenly system of government) is to adhere to the belief that everyone has freedom to choose.

"We come to the conclusion that there are two Americas.  And it is Jefferson who leads us to that conclusion.  There are two Americas and two democracies.

"There is the democracy of external order and action:  the government of men and women living in the material world, the political world, the world of physical force.  American democracy, under the light of Hamilton as well as Jefferson--under the light of nearly all the framers of the Constitution--broke free of political tyranny in order to establish a form of government that maximized individual liberty for every individual. . . .  This process is jagged. . .it is confused and sometimes so imperfect. . . .But this movement still exists and still can exist--the movement towards a greatly beneficent quality of individual liberty.  It is a rare quality in any nation or people of historic record.

"But even this degree of external democracy could not exist and will not exist without the process of self-development in individual men and women. . . .Jefferson and many others identified this process of self-development with the education of the mind.  But for Jefferson the education of the mind was only part of the necessary process of individual self-development . . .

"There exists another democracy that initiates and guides this movement of self-development. . . .it is not the democracy of personal preference;  not the democracy of desire, but the democracy of conscience. . . . Jeffersonian democracy's ultimate aim is to protect the interior democracy.  External democracy without spiritual democracy will otherwise inevitably destroy itself and the people within it. . . .

"This is the great question of our culture, and our era: how to preserve and support external liberty in order to work together toward interior liberty?"      (Needleman, Jacob. The American Soul. New York, Putnam. pgs. 170-172).