Tuesday’s forum with Helen Thomas made me sick to my stomach. I loyally attend all devotionals and forums at the Marriott center, but this forum is the only devotional or forum to ever cause me to get up and leave. There were a number of reasons for my rude behavior, but I will emphasize the final straw that made me get up and leave before I started yelling at the “first lady of the press.”
She stated that “democracy dies behind closed doors,” after which the audience clapped. The support for that statement exhibited by the student body was truly disheartening, seeing that students here are required to take American Heritage, History of the World and other classes that should explain why that statement is absolutely false in the way she used it. She portrayed it as though our country was a democracy and that the public should know and govern everything.
Our country is not a democracy. It is a republic. Democracies are doomed to end up in dictatorship. The republic that the elect founding fathers set up to allow us to maintain our freedom took place behind closed doors. In fact, the constitutional convention took place in secret. The current government was falling apart because it was too democratic. The new constitution set up a government in which the public selected people to govern them, not as puppets to the public/press, but as the leaders. However, she was right when she said the country is deteriorating. People like her are destroying it. Let’s hear it for the press!
Nathan Cooprider
Boxborough, MA
