Here some more thoughts about my trip to Washington, DC. Just a curiosity, I don’t know why, I always thought that “DC” stood for District Capital of something like that. Maybe because we have a “DF” in Brazil and in Mexico meaning “Distrito Federal”. Well, now I know that this “DC” means “District of Columbia”, making part of the name of this special administrative region that is also a Federal District.
Back to the thoughts, the advent of the American Republic is stated in the impressive Library of the Congress really as a “revolution of minds”, the victory of a new, pragmatic and rationalized way to see the world. The founders of this new way of organizing a State were sure they were starting something new, but I don’t know if they realized how tremendously innovative they were.
Until then, we may say that the only form of managing a State was by force, by providing or selling security to its citizens. There were no possible ways of peaceful changes in power. Princes killed fathers, cousins poisoned princes, marriages were organizing all over Europe to secure power. In Asian monarchies, ancient or recent was the same. Mayan or Inca empires are likely to have had the same problem. In ancient Egyptian or Roman times were also not different: generals of the army substituting corrupted emperors were quite common (any singularity with Venezuela?). I do not think that democracy is the best form of government to every people but the advent of the American Republic and the ideals it stood for was definitely a major step in human development in the western world.
It is just a pity that the majority of people living under such a peaceful and free environment do not take their freedom to do more things other than only trying to accumulate wealth and buying things.
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