Today, Arthur and I took the boat in for its annual service (Arthur calls it “winterizing” but that’s not quite accurate – nothing will be different about the boat once the service is complete, vis-a-vis its adaptability to the climate).
We put the boat trailer on the Blueberry (the car). I drove that into town, while Arthur drove the boat into town. Arthur took his time getting to town, this time – normally this “race” takes each of us almost the exact same amount of time, but this time Arthur took an extra 20 minutes to get there. Apparently he took a slight wrong turn at Cemetery Island.
We pulled the boat out of the water at the public boat ramp down by the fuel dock (north end of town), and drove it to the boat store for its service. I took a picture of the boat on its trailer at the boat shop, with an accompanying tree, to meet my tree-photographing obligation.
[daily log: walking, 2.5km]
Day: October 8, 2019
Caveat: On Democracy’s Spiral
Sometimes I have essentially decontextualized insights and I decide to write them down. I was reading some blog about current political events, and thought the following. It’s not a reasoned argument, just an idea that occurred to me.
In a true democracy, it seems to me that the things people believe about government will eventually become true about government. If people believe their government is dangerous, the government will become more and more dangerous over time. If people believe their government is corrupt, the government will become more and more corrupt over time. This can go the other direction too, though: if people believe their government is capable of solving social ills, then more and more social ills will be solved by government over time. If people believe their government is a virtuous protector of individual rights, then the government will become more and more virtuous in this way over time. There is a most disturbing aspect of this “spiral effect” of democracy, however: if people specifically come to believe their government is undemocratic, then the government will become less and less democratic over time. And the problem, there, unlike any of the other spirals, is that there is no way to spiral out from this problem once you’ve descended, because once the government is no longer democratic, this feedback process is no longer in effect. Thus the absolute most important belief for the nurturing and sustenance of a democracy is the belief in democracy itself.
Caveat: Poem #1164 “The systematic advance of winter”
The first frost of the season kissed the earth, betraying mirth, fighting sun, limning puddles one by one.
– an englyn penfyr