This is a question I answered on a public forum where I am apparently still welcome and for now uncensored .Surely you frequently hear candidates profess that they are the one to bring the country together. This is if we are better off with one common goal and that everyone can help make it happen by giving support and cooperating. The idea sure sound good, but is it?

If that sounds like a good idea, it is because you don’t know how or have forgotten how democracy works and what what it takes to make it work.

Democracy serves as a way folks can live together without agreeing with one another. There is no expectation of working together. Today, students are taught that working in groups and cooperating is the most productive way to live a life. The problem is that in real life people don’t cooperate unless they are certain that doing so will produce a better outcome.

Survival in at least this part of the universe, is accomplished by all creatures looking after themselves first. This happens regardless of stated expectations or stated goals. Both democracy and free markets accommodate human nature. Other systems do not. Lifestyles have always sky rocked when these two systems are employed.

When you are expected to fall in line and support a national agenda, what are you going to end up doing? What is needed are multitudes who gleefully make sacrifices to accomplish goals from which they will never receive any benefits. You become part of a currency that is about to be spent. You might find yourself fighting in a war, paying higher prices for everything you buy or making other enormous personal sacrifices for the perceived public good. Bringing the country together is perfectly natural in a totalitarian political system.

What kind of sacrifices do your leaders make? They make none. That is your job in the “bring the country together” initiative. As much as possible, the costs of the initiative fall on you the citizen and the benefits go to those who come up with or lobby for the plan.