We Hold these truths to be self-evident

Burning the flag--literally or figuratively--does it really matter "how" you do it? Shouldn't it be a matter of "what you're doing" to destroy democracy?

A man burns a U.S. flag in Copenhagen, Denmark to protest the arrival of U.S. President George W. Bush Tuesday July 5, 2005. About 200 demonstrators, mostly black-clad youth, marched Tuesday in downtown Copenhagen to protest a brief visit by Bush on his way to the G-8 summit in Scotland. (AP Photo/John McConnico).

Paul Krugman's column in yesterday's New York Times is about Karl Rove and says:

What Mr. Rove understood, long before the rest of us, is that we're not living in the America of the past, where even partisans sometimes changed their views when faced with the facts. Instead, we're living in a country in which there is no longer such a thing as nonpolitical truth. In particular, there are now few, if any, limits to what conservative politicians can get away with: the faithful will follow the twists and turns of the party line with a loyalty that would have pleased the Comintern.

To me, the point is that truth and facts don't seem to matter at all levels of the polity, from the smallest neighborhood meeting, all the way up to the White House.

The decline almost across the board in the United States for belief and respect for small d "democracy" is quite troubling and doesn't bode well for our future as a nation.

For more resources on "deepening democracy" and "empowered participation" check out www.archonfung.net