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For the whole article – Theres The Rub: History Train

Taken from: Theres The Rub: History train
By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:13:00 01/20/2009

Democracy is not a weak system, it is the most powerful one. More powerful than autocracy, more powerful than dictatorship, more powerful than fascism. That is so because it does not make the state powerful, it does not make the government powerful, it does not make a few people, enlightened or tyrannical as they may be, powerful. It makes the people powerful. Only the people have the power to decide their own fate. Only the people have the power to solve their own problems.

A nation is only as strong as its people are. Lincoln himself faced the perfect storm in the form of a divided nation and weathered it, or allowed his nation to (he himself perished in its wake) by calling forth the democratic ideal. Roosevelt himself faced the perfect storm in the form of the Great Depression and weathered it, or allowed his nation to (fortunately, he lived long enough despite disease to see it recover) by living forth the democratic ideal.

Obama will, too. He has already begun, by hitching America back to its roots:

Democracy.