High Road vs. Democracy

[applegrove]

Gerrymandering is only the tip of the iceberg. Republican Congresspersons are looking for any wedge to file resolutions to kick Democrats out of committees.

In Florida, DOGE is targeting progressive areas with threats of removing elected leaders from office.

United We Stand

— Keys for Liberty (@demskeys.bsky.social) 2025-08-13T16:47:04.318Z

[msongs]

1. what going high has gotten us nt

[Torchlight]

2. I tend not to see it as either/or

but rather both as useful tools appropriate to one situation with better effectiveness than the other. Depdendent, always dependent.

[electric_blue68]

3. I tend to agree. Sometimes, rare hopefully, you might in this race to Save our Democracy Need to go very low...

It seems to have come to that.

Fascist/Authoritarian leaning bastard!!!!!

[Collimator]

4. Michelle Obama was a leading voice exhorting us to take the High Road.

And I still respect her position. To those who have little difficulty in embracing the opposite view, I would like to remind them of all those members of the Continental Congress who wanted to form a new nation founded on the principles of freedom.

In order to get Democracy done, they had to allow slave ownership to exist as part of their new system and they gave slave owners a voice. Today, we tend to judge them harshly and the fact is that our nation paid a moral and physical price for that leavened flaw in our founding tenets.

I'm not eager to judge the point of view that we may need to consider some tougher tactics, but every time we set aside what we believe to be right for that which we deem necessary, we open ourselves up to questions from future generations.

There are those who are quick to point out that Washington and Jefferson owned slaves; that Lincoln made statements which supported White supremacy. Roosevelt felt that he was doing the right thing in imprisoning Japanese-Americans and Truman made the morally questionable choice to drop two atomic bombs.

History is a messy bastard. If we do set aside certain standards, we may have to accept that folks decades from now will not understand our decision-making process.

[applegrove]

5. Nobody second guesses the French Resistance in WWII

and they were nasty.

[Collimator]

6. I have no knowledge of the French resistance in WWII.

And I am not aware of the current prevailing attitudes towards their activities.

[Autumn]

7. I doubt folks decades from now will give a shit about our decision-making process

if we don't have a democracy.

[Collimator]

8. I honestly don't wish to come across as an obnoxious troll.

But we believed that we were defending our democracy when we imprisoned Japanese-Americans. We believed we were establishing a free nation when we set up a system that allowed slavery. We believed we were building a better society when we outlawed alcohol.

I'm not sure what I am saying except that we need to carefully consider the lines that we are willing to cross in order to achieve our goals.
It is a very delicate balance to maintain between being thoughtful in our actions and doubting ourselves to the point that we are paralyzed.

I do not claim to have mastered that perspective. But I prefer to err on the side of caution because I have met many people who are utterly certain of themselves who hold utterly uninformed views.