Why Is This All So Important?

Bob Herbert, in the New York Times writes:

In his biography of Tom Paine, John Keane referred to a pamphlet that Paine had written near the end of his life and said:

“Paine here touched on a quintessential feature of modern republican democracy: it is superior to all other types of government not because it guarantees consensus or even ‘good’ decisions, but because it enables citizens to reconsider their judgments about the quality and unintended consequences of those decisions.

“Republican democracies enable citizens to think twice and to say no, even to policies to which they once consented.”

In Legislative Debate/Congress we work on exactly this principle. We can consider or re-consider anything. In learning the rules, we learn to be citizens.