The history of people cannot be told without the story of governing systems. A government has philosophical underpinnings, important thoughts not to be underestimated. This is why we all enjoy a little Locke sometimes, that sort of stuff. An important part of our schooling is all about that, making thoughtful young citizens who agree to work together. The notion that all people are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights works as well as it does because it agrees with our reality. Don't mess with my freedom and my privacy and I'm happy not to mess with yours, beautiful and simple. Democracy is simply the proper diet for humanity, tyrannies and totalitarianism being unhealthy.

Democracy agrees with Buddhist thought. Any self which would impose itself upon another is based on illusion. The only reality to the self, in a sense, is its freedom, which cannot be expressed in tangible terms. Democracy stands as a strong system of government for its foundations in reality.

Kerouac is a hit in democratic regions of the world because he is true. "Hateful ole' Duluoz me," constantly fallible, but sensitive and always wising up. He's a real American, going through illusions, thoughtful of making his way out from under them to breath in the fresh air of freedom.

We tend to find out who we are largely through finding out who we are not, discovering ourselves through a negative, for that which is outside of us. The necessary experimentation is a shy habit, and thinkers aren't fond of an intrusive police state for reasons of the constant perhaps even habitual errors made in self-discovery. Even our daily tasks, ingrained as they may be, have the potential still to strike us as being rather odd and arbitrary, at least a matter of setting into patterns that seem to work for us, a day to do laundry, a day to grocery shop. We want to be teachers, but become aware that we know less and less, that we learn through being wrong, that being our way to find the peaceful being we subscribe to.