Freedom and People and Choices
A democracy requires free citizens.
Now, some people will say, yes, well, it's axiomatic--a democracy has free citizens. Or, they might say, free citizens are part of a democracy. But as with so many things, it's a whole lot more complicated that that.
There are at least two parts to being 'free'--social and economic--and they intertwine, the social and the economic, in ways that are difficult to see or to understand. To be a full social citizen of this country means that I can live where I want to, say what I want to, vote without fear that someone will stop me. Not all of us have this freedom, at least not all of it, at least not all the time, but most of us do. We recognize the loss when it is not there. And we know it is important to fight for and maintain.
Full economic citizenship is equally important. If you lose your ethics for fear of losing your job, if you don't say certain things, or fight for certain rights, or you vote a certain way because you might lose your job or your company might leave the country, then you have lost your rights as a full economic citizen in this country.
And don't give me crap about choice--words so often said in a prissed-up, pinched-nose way by people who either still have economic citizenship or are so comfortably well-off they don't know or don't regret that they've lost it. Sometimes the choice is worth the principles and sometimes it is not. Some of us are stronger and some of us are not. But mostly--speak up or lose your job or don't speak up and don't, is not a real choice. It's the great reality of death-to-economic-citizenship masquerading as individual choice, conviction and responsibility.
If there's no economic independence, then there are no economic citizens. If losing your job means starving or losing everything you've worked for or losing your family or your community--and if these are the choices then--There Are No Choices.
And if there are no choices, then we are not democratic citizens in any way that matters.