Democracy in America (DIA) #1: as the news from Egypt and that region unfolds

From the author's preface to the 12th (1818) edition.


"It is not force alone, but rather good laws, which make a new government secure.  After the battle comes the lawgiver.  The one destroys; the other builds up.  Each has a function."

Here Alexis de Tocqueville refers to the situation in France in 1848, but his words (really a warning) ring true this month as well.  Even without the sort of violence that marked our American Revolution or the French, the observation is true that building a new government and civil society require other means.  Perhaps the restraint and courtesy displayed by Egyptian protesters portends the same in months and years to come.  A society in which Coptic Christians and Muslims protect each other at prayer is to be longed for.  So too a society in which modern people value the artifacts of ancient times and pick up their own trash.  Nonetheless, even such noble impulses need fair laws, justly enforced; moreover, those laws are also to direct the actions of those who hold power and upon whom the "common" persons wait for a new government.