Fundamental change is rarely quick and never easy, but change is always possible. In the oft-quoted words of the noted cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.” However, change demands courage. Susan B. Anthony, who championed voting rights for women, proclaimed, “Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about reform. Those who are in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world’s estimation.”

Some scholars claim that the Chinese proverb, May you live in interesting times, is but the first of three curses – or blessings – each being worse – or better – than the previous one. The second is May you come to the attention of those in authority. The ancient Chinese apparently recognized that governments do not always serve the best interests of the people. Believing in the philosophy of “yin yang,” they also would have understood that some form of government is necessary to serve the best interests of the people. The second proverb links with the first because in time of crisis people must demand that their government work for the good of the people. In such times, people must do whatever is necessary to “come to the attention of the authorities.” If necessary, they must rise up in revolution. We are indeed living in “interesting times” – times ripe for fundamental change, or revolution.

A Revolution of the Middle. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights … – that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” So states the American Declaration of Independence.

Our current form of government in the United States has become “destructive of these ends.” Bitter ideological struggles between the political Left and Right are destroying any remaining commitment of our government to ensuring the unalienable rights of the governed. Most revolutions in modern history have come from either the political Right or Left. What is needed today, however, is a Revolution of the Middle. Our government has lost the consent of the governed and no longer has the just power to govern. Its constituency has become the corporations and wealthy individuals who fund political campaigns, rather than the people who vote in elections or those citizens who no longer participate.

The outcome of the election of 2008 was determined by a group of voters unwilling to be labeled as either Left or Right, who were voting for a return to competency and integrity in government. Thus far, however, there is little indication that their desire for fundamental change will be realized. President Obama warned his supporters that real change can be brought about only by “people arguing, mobilizing, agitating, and ultimately forcing elected officials to be accountable.” Restoring the consent of the governed can be accomplished only by wresting powers from those who divide us, through a Revolution of the Middle.

All successful revolutions start with a small group of thoughtful, committed people. The revolutionaries must be earnest about change and not overly concerned about their reputation, social standing, or wealth. The signers of the Declaration of Independence pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. In fact, several lost their lives and fortunes in the process of keeping their honor. At the very least, those who call for fundamental change today must be prepared to be labeled as naïve, idealistic, incompetent, and even disloyal to their country. Many defenders of the status quo hold positions of economic and political power; for them, the current government is working. They will use their power to keep their power, whenever their power is threatened. Those who are earnest about reform must be prepared to pledge their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to their cause. They must be confident in their calling to a purpose higher than fame, power, or wealth. They must know in their heart that their calling is to help create a new and better world.

That’s why it’s so important to understand that pursing our highest potential is our path of happiness. We must understand that the new revolution isn’t really about sacrifice and deprivation but about the pursuit of happiness. That’s why it’s so important to understand that we are guided toward our purpose by a common sense of what’s right, good, and true. We must know in our heart that by revolting we are putting our gifts, talents, and abilities to their highest potential use. That’s why it’s so important to understand the nature of truth – ecological, social, and economic truth. In the midst of conflict, we must be guided by truth. That’s why it’s so important to understand that a life of truth is a life of wholeness, of completeness, of integrity. We cannot sacrifice goodness in any aspect of life without sacrificing the good of the whole. That’s why it’s so important to understand that in faith and love there is always hope. We must know that no matter how great the odds against us, something far better is possible, and in this possibility there is hope. In the words of Gandhi, “We must be the change we want to see in the world.” Our way of life as individuals must be a personification of life in general in the new and better world of the future.

Millions of ordinary Americans today are being called to this higher purpose – to join a new Revolution of the Middle. Small groups of thoughtful, committed citizens all across America are being called to lead this revolution. Millions of others are being called to work in earnest to help bring about the change we need. Perhaps we are called to be a leader, an advisor, an organizer, a technologist, a canvasser, or a staff person. No purpose is any more or less important than any other. It takes a diversity of talents to support a revolution. What’s most important is that we are willing to use our talents for our highest purpose.

The revolution for sustainability must come from the Middle. Both the Left and the Right are too entrenched in their conflicting dogmas to even consider real change. Both major political parties are so dependent on corporate contributions that political candidates who are earnest about reform rarely even get on a ballot. When reformers are elected, they soon realize how difficult it is to change government from the inside and begin to focus on reelection instead of reform.

The Left and the Right each make up about a quarter to a third of American voters. Public approval ratings for presidents rarely remain above 67 percent or below 33 percent for very long. Neither side can win an election by relying solely on its political base. Each election, then, is a battle for the Middle. So the Left and the Right are always gearing up for the next fight over “uncommitted voters” – meaning those in the political Middle. Once in power, neither side has any intention or inclination to support positions different from those of their own political faction. Legislators are in perpetual campaign mode, and campaigning is about fighting for political advantage, not governing. Those few who remain committed to political reform are soon out of office.

The only realistic solution to this dilemma is a Revolution of the Middle. The political Middle is at least as large as either of the other two factions and may well represent close to half of all voters. Those in the Middle believe in some things from the Right and some things from the Left but are not dogmatic in their political beliefs. They want their government to work for the good of the people as a whole but to work in ways that are also good for them as individuals. They believe in free markets but understand that the government must protect nature and society from economic exploitation. They are not socialists or communists, but neither do they trust unbridled capitalism to serve the common good.

A Revolution of the Middle would shift the balance of political power. Instead of the Left and the Right forcing the Middle to choose between their agendas, the Left and the Right would be forced to accommodate the agenda of the Middle. The people in the Middle would hold their own conventions prior to each political campaign and develop their political agenda for the next administration. Priorities would be developed for the local, state, and national levels. To win elections, candidates would then be forced to address the priorities of the Middle, while persuading their respective ideological bases to accept more centrist positions. Over time, the two extremes would move toward the Middle rather than allowing the Middle to be torn between the two extremes. Political debates could then focus on the best means of implementing a common political agenda.

For the revolution to be successful, the priorities of the Middle must reflect the things that make common sense to common people, not simply old political dogma in new packaging. This would seem revolutionary because the people of the Middle are not accustomed to setting political priorities for their government. However, destructive divisiveness has not always dominated politics in the United States. In fact, governments of the twentieth century up through the Carter administration were largely centrist. Political campaigns were frequently divisive, but, once elected, most legislators accepted their responsibility to govern rather than to continue campaigning.

Some mistakes will be made during the new revolution, as is the case with all revolutions. Regardless, We the People must accept our responsibility as citizens; we must reclaim our democracy. We must take on the difficult task of healing the wounds that have been kept fresh and raw by the Left and Right as ammunition for their political battles. We must address controversial issues such as race, sexuality, religion, class, and patriotism. However, many are so caught up in conflicts that they can’t see the light of truth through their pain. They can’t see that they are destroying their democracy.

Many support candidates who are pro-life or pro-choice without exploring where they stand on issues of basic human rights. They vote for candidates who are white, black, or brown without questioning where they stand on the rights of those of future generations. They vote for candidates who are pro-labor or pro-business without thinking about the implications of their policies for equity of economic opportunity. We must heal the wounds of the past and come together to support candidates who will return government to its fundamental purpose – to ensure the unalienable rights of the governed.

Once we return our political discussion to questions of rights and responsibilities, we will find common ground on which to restore the consent of the governed. We can and must find the common truth within divisive issues such as abortion, affirmative action, and separation of church and state, as well as issues of ecological and economic equity. The truths within each of these issues are not in conflict; there is no conflict among truths. In finding our common sense of rightness and goodness we will find the ultimate source of healing. We must recreate government by the people if it is to be a government of the people. It must begin with the people of the Middle.

A revolution in political thinking. Our current political system is based on obsolete ways of thinking. Today’s politicians see a world of dichotomies: Things are either right or wrong, good or bad, true or false, black or white. This kind of thinking is inherently incapable of resolving the ecological, social, and economic challenges of today. In the holistic worldview that must prevail in the future, everything must be seen as interconnected. Reality is found in the whole, not in the individual parts. What is right or wrong in a particular instance must be determined within the context of the whole. Virtue, for example, is not arbitrary but is determined by internal consistency. What is right for one faction of society cannot be wrong for another. Something cannot be true for one person and false for another. Truth is found in internal consistency, in balance and harmony. We see conflicts as irresolvable only because we cannot see truth.

This new ecological way of thinking of the future is consistent with the ancient Chinese philosophy of Taoism, which embraces a world of harmony among opposites. There can be no love without hate, and no light without dark, no good without bad, no right without wrong. Individual actions are never completely right or wrong but both right and wrong. Individual propositions are never completely good or bad but both good and bad. Rightness, goodness, and truth can be found only in balance and harmony among the seemingly conflicting aspects of the larger whole. Tao is sometimes described as the energy or force that flows through all life. A life of happiness is one of rightness and goodness, lived in harmony with the energy or force that ebbs and flows throughout the whole of nature.

In Western society, conflicts are rarely resolved; they are simply settled temporarily through confrontation and competition. In times past, unresolved personal differences were settled by duels. Territorial disputes were settled by wars. In a more civil world, legal disputes are settled in courts, where opposing attorneys attempt to discover truth through an adversarial process. Science relies on peer reviews to determine which scientists win the competition for limited space in prestigious journals. When one wins, the other loses, but there is no consensus and thus no lasting resolution. The winners win battles but never really win wars.

Politicians pride themselves on the art of compromise. They “reach across the aisle” to settle political conflicts on specific issues. However, a search for compromise is not a search for truth. One simply concedes some points in order to prevail on others. Compromise simply breaks the war into small battles, which allows both sides to survive to fight again in the future. The hope of both opponents is that one day they will be strong enough to prevail over the other, and when they get a chance, they will. Compromise does not lead to harmony and balance; it only prolongs the conflict.

We are a nation in conflict – politically, socially, and economically. Social and economic inequities threaten the very foundation of our democracy. Fossil energy depletion and global climate change threaten the foundation of our economy. The political Left and Right seem capable of doing little more than arguing over whether the risks are real and, if so, who caused them and who, if anyone, is responsible for fixing them. The public approval ratings of both the president and Congress almost routinely set new historic lows. Even the Supreme Court has become so politicized that the public no longer trusts its impartiality. Our government is incapable of resolving its conflicts because it is locked into ways of thinking that have destroyed the consent of the governed. Our nation is ripe for revolution.

The consent has been destroyed through decades of conflict, compromise, and political expediency. It has been lost not only by benign neglect but also by destructive intent. The purpose of our government has been purposely distorted by administrations that have periodically extended beyond and then retreated from legitimate limits and responsibilities. In his inaugural address in 1981, Ronald Reagan blamed the nation’s economic ills on excessive borrowing and spending – a nation living beyond its means. He said, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” He went on to preside over two administrations during which the national debt nearly tripled, going from $700 billion to over $2 trillion. Excessive deficit spending, particularly during the Vietnam era, reflected an overreaching of the political Left. However, if deficit spending was the problem with government in 1981, the Reagan government did nothing to solve it.

The “Reagan Revolution” has since been largely reduced to a single phrase: “Government is the problem.” We have lived through nearly three decades with a government dominated by people from both the Left and the Right who have shown little confidence in the legitimacy of government, with some even working openly to destroy its effectiveness.

The Right has consistently advocated tax cuts and government deregulation of all types, while presiding over the most dramatic growth in government spending in American history. The Left has willingly collaborated by supporting tax cuts and financial deregulation, mainly benefiting the wealthy at the expense of the middle class. Politicians of both parties have “privatized” vital public services, funneling billions of taxpayer dollars into the coffers of their corporate sponsors. The result is not only ecological, social, and economic crisis but also a crisis of confidence in government.

For three decades, the political Left has been lurking on the sidelines waiting for a chance to reimpose their political agenda on the nation. They compromised with Republican proposals during the 1980s, not because they believed in them, but to survive the battles so they could continue the war. Even though the Democrats controlled Congress during the 1980s, the Right dictated the political agenda, and the Left acquiesced. The Left saw a brief glimmer of hope with the election of Bill Clinton in the 1992, but their optimism was short-lived. The Republicans gained control of Congress in 1994, and the Left once again chose to compromise to survive.

President Clinton quickly retreated to the center to pick up enough voters from the Middle to support his reelection. By then, the Right had brought their strategy of constant campaigning out into the open. Their primary objective in governing had become to defeat Bill Clinton in the next election. Clinton outsmarted them by forming a new centrist coalition around the issue of economic globalization and won a second term in office. His reelection did nothing to address the increasingly bitter Left-Right polarity; it was just another compromise, not even approaching a consensus to govern. Clinton’s second term was dominated by his impeachment, a political battle that drove the Left-Right division into the heart and soul of America.

The election of George W. Bush was another hard-fought battle between the Left and Right, with both candidates pretending to be centrists. Once Bush was elected, he took a hard turn to the Right and never looked back. He used the terrorists’ attacks on September 11, 2001, to strike fear into the hearts of Americans. If the nation could be coerced into an endless war on terror, military spending could be used to divert more taxpayer dollars from legitimate public purposes to fatten the corporate coffers of the military-industrial complex. The domestic recession of 2002 provided a convenient political justification for continuing tax cuts and deregulation. The same strategies of fear were also used to stoke the fires of Left-Right cultural wars in securing Bush’s second election.

By 2008, economic chaos had joined ecological and social decay to plunge the nation into the “great recession” – still teetering at the edge of depression. The political Middle was ready for Barack Obama, who articulated a powerful message of change. They shared his hope for a future where there would be “neither red nor blue states but the United States.” With his election, the Democrats saw the chance they had been waiting for to regain a position of dominance in American politics. The need for continued deficit spending during the economic recession allowed them to put forward their new political agenda.

They used their newfound strength to push through a massive economic stimulus program as well as major reforms in the health care system, but not without significant compromises on both. Reforms in financial regulations appear to be more cosmetic than real. Despite campaign promises to the contrary, President Obama has not reversed the military policies of the Bush administration. The military prison in Guantanamo is still open. The end of combat operations in Iraq has not ended the American occupation. The war in Afghanistan has been escalated, with little prospect for lasting resolution. American foreign policy remains focused primarily on protecting economic access to the world’s natural and human resources.

The Republicans kept fighting back, hoping a weak economy would allow them to return to power. They used the filibuster to turn the Democratic legislative landslide of 2008 into a razor-thin legislative majority. The midterm elections of 2010 seemed to validate the effectiveness of their strategy of obstruction. Now it’s the Democrats who are forced to compromise, waiting once again to gain enough control and reimpose their agenda. It’s clear that nothing has really changed in Washington, at least not yet.

President Obama may be searching honestly and diligently for truth within the conflicting ideals of the Left and Right. However, the other two branches of government, Congress and the Supreme Court, remain firmly entrenched in the old ways of thinking. They are compromising only when necessary to survive until they can regain a position of dominance. Compromise may be a legitimate means of nudging the nation gently in one direction or another, but compromise is incapable of bringing about fundamental change during times of crisis.

The change we really need ultimately depends on a Revolution of We the People. As Obama said, “Change does not happen from the top down. It happens from the bottom up … [People] arguing, mobilizing, agitating, and ultimately forcing elected officials to be accountable … That’s how we’re going to bring about change.”

This change from the bottom up must embrace a worldview of harmony and balance among opposites. We must find ways to balance hate with love, darkness with light, bad with good, and wrong with right. Nothing is ever completely right or wrong but both right and wrong. People are never completely good or bad but both good and bad. We must find rightness, goodness, and truth through balance and harmony among the conflicting dimensions of our current political reality. Without darkness there can be no light, without wrong there can be no right, without revolution there can be no peace. We must find the positive energy that flows through all life, a life of happiness, of rightness and goodness within the whole. This is the only source of lasting consensus.

Returning to the basics of government. In some respects, President Reagan’s criticisms of government were justified. Too many people at that time had come to rely too much on government for too many things. Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal had been followed by Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. The government had accepted a lot of new responsibilities, including a commitment to perpetual full employment and continuing economic growth. President Gerald Ford offered a valid criticism of big government in saying: “A government big enough to give us everything we want is a government big enough to take from us everything we have.” Government had strayed well beyond its legitimate bounds of responsibility.

The basic purpose of government is made clear in our founding documents. In those cases where people have equal rights, our government has a basic responsibility to ensure equal opportunities. Government becomes a problem when it goes too far beyond its basic responsibilities, as when it attempts to do things for people that people must do for themselves. Even if government takes all they have, it can’t give them everything they want. However, government also becomes a problem when it fails to do things that the people cannot do for themselves. The basic problem with the U.S. government today is that it is failing on both counts. It is doing things for people that they are perfectly capable of doing for themselves, while ignoring the basic rights of those who cannot fend for themselves.

Even if we see government as a necessary evil, it is nonetheless necessary. Thomas Paine – certainly no fan of big government – wrote in his Common Sense essay, “Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices.” He concludes that government is “rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world.” We humans apparently lack the moral virtue to treat others with equality and justice, without the discipline of self-government, especially when doing so calls for individual sacrifice. However, most of us willingly share the personal sacrifices of ensuring equity and justice for others, through the institution of government, because we too want to be treated equitably and justly.

Paine wrote his Common Sense essay in the late 1700s during the American Revolution. He and the other founders of the American democracy – Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, Franklin, and Madison – shared a common sense of the proper role and function of government. They not only wrote the Declaration of Independence but also drafted the U.S. Constitution. The Declaration of Independence addresses the “unalienable rights” of all people – self-evident truths. The preamble to the Constitution defined additional “civil rights” in terms of government responsibilities.

The preamble to the Constitution begins, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

The Constitution also includes the Bill of Rights, which defines individual rights that are to be protected from government, including the familiar freedoms of religion, speech, press, and assembly. Controversial issues such as the right to own guns and the right to privacy are also found in the first ten amendments, as are the rights of those accused and convicted of crimes. Later constitutional amendments clarify and define additional rights. Our founding documents clearly define the purpose and responsibilities of government as well as the rights of the people.

The drafters of the U.S. Constitution apparently did not feel it was necessary to include specific provisions to ensure unalienable rights, such as the right of self-defense or the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These rights had been expressed in other founding documents and apparently did not seem to require reaffirmation.

A government that protects the basic rights of the governed is not a problem; it is both legitimate and absolutely necessary for any democracy. People do not have an equal right to everything they want or even everything they might need. But all Americans must be afforded equally those things for which equality has been deemed necessary for the common good. These include life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the other basic rights spelled out in the U.S. Constitution. To restore the capability and credibility of government, we must return government to its basic responsibilities.

Our nation’s founders came to these fundamental truths through their knowledge of history. Up until then, human history had been filled political repression and denial of basic human rights, which had led inevitably to chaos, repression, and ultimately revolution. The American democracy was a seminal achievement, a step forward in human history. We must recognize, respect, remain true to the vision of our forebearers. Otherwise, humanity risks a return to rule by feudal lords, monarchs, dictators, or, more likely, modern-day robber barons. To reclaim our democracy, we must return to the truth of our founding documents. We must reaffirm the priorities for our government in ensuring the basic rights of the governed. The only alternative to a peaceful revolution today is a violent revolution at some time in the future.

Legal rights may be derived from unalienable rights, but the two are different. Unalienable rights are absolute; they are expressions of the inviolable nature of reality. Legal rights are never absolute. They are defined by those who grant them and protect them; in a democracy, that means by We the People. The absolute assurance of any unalienable right is unreasonable, if not impossible. The terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001 proved that even the world’s greatest military force could not protect its people from a few individuals committed to destruction. The absolute assurance that no person would ever be unjustly convicted of a crime would drain the federal treasury through endless court costs. So we cannot ensure that anyone’s rights will never be violated – only that our legal rights will be protected equally and justly for all.

We can easily afford to ensure the basic rights of all people in the United States today. If our government functioned solely to ensure the basic rights of the people, it would be but a fraction of the size and cost of our government today. Those who believe in less government should willingly support a government that gives priority to ensuring the basic social, ecological, and economic rights of the people.

The question ultimately becomes, how much are we willing to spend collectively, through government, to protect the rights of all? This is not simply a matter of economic worth. As most would agree, rights such as life and liberty are worth more than any amount of money. However, since we simply can’t afford to ensure rights absolutely, our constitutional rights ensure only what is necessary to maintain the integrity of society and thus the consent of the governed. That said, the definition of legal rights must never be an arbitrary matter. In the words of Lord Shaftesbury, a British politician and social reformer, “What is morally right can never be politically wrong, and what is morally wrong can never be politically right.” Legal rights must be true to the moral principles from which they are derived.

Contrary to popular opinion, economic cost-benefit analyses are useless in attempting to evaluate tradeoffs among conflicting rights. For example, while economic costs may be relevant for budgeting purposes, dollars and cents tell us nothing about the value of protecting the basic rights of people. Economic value is inherently individualistic and places no value on purely social and ethical values such as equity and justice or the rights of future generations. All too often, cost-benefit estimates are used only to assess how much a particular law might reduce the profits of those with political influence, not whether government can afford to ensure the rights of the people.

Economics is relevant to political decisions only insofar as the willingness and ability of citizens to pay taxes limits the extent to which the rights of all can be ensured through government. If we are to restore government to its legitimate purpose, economics must be returned to its proper role of providing the means by which government fulfills its purpose; it should not be the primary consideration in determining the functions of government.

Redefining the scope of government. We the People must be willing to ask: Which current government expenditures are necessary to protect our basic rights, which are legitimate discretionary expenditures, and which simply pad the pockets of special interest groups? Once we have defined the basic rights to be ensured by government, we must engage in a public discussion, an open debate if necessary, to decide which rights are obviously over-defended and which are being basically ignored. We must be guided in this by the definition of rights in our founding documents and later amendments.

As should be obvious to anyone, the current U.S. military budget is far larger than can be justified for the purpose of “national defense.” Our military budget is almost as large as the combined defense budgets of the rest of the world. No other military force in the world today represents a credible threat to the homeland of the United States. The only real long-run threats to our national security are consequences of our current foreign policies. Our military might today is not meant for national defense but instead for securing our so-called economic interests – meaning access to global resources. As is clear to the rest of the world, this is economic imperialism.

It’s equally clear our government is doing too little to protect public health. Every person should be afforded equal access to adequate nutrition and basic health care. Nothing can be more important in fulfilling the constitutional responsibility of “promoting the general welfare.” Thus far, we have been unwilling to clearly define either nutrition or health care as a basic right of all people. During one of the presidential debates, President Obama said he considered health care to be a basic right. To restore democracy, this belief must be transformed into legal reality. The recently passed health care legislation is little more than a small step in the right direction. Many Americans will remain uninsured. The question of whether health care is a basic right of all Americans never became a substantive part of the health care debate.

Health care provides a useful example of the limits of government in ensuring the rights of the people. The political Left wants universal health care but is unwilling to agree to limits on coverage. We cannot afford to pay for any level of health care that anyone might demand when confronted with the prospect of death, but no one seems willing to talk about the high cost of dying. The cost of such care might easily exceed the total earnings of that person during his or her entire lifetime. The money used to extend one person’s life by six months might be used instead to treat a hundred children whose lives may be cut short by lack of basic medical care. It may be “politically expedient” to ensure the rights of wealthy adults at the expense of poor children, but is it “morally right”? At the very least, everyone should be required to have a “living will,” forcing them to confront the moral issues surrounding “end-of-life” health care.

The Right and Left agree that we will have a problem ensuring funding for Social Security in the future. The Right wants to privatize Social Security, and the Left wants to maintain full benefits without raising payroll taxes. Neither is a realistic solution. Private Social Security is no Social Security, as people who have their retirement funds in the stock market have discovered. We can’t continue taking more out of Social Security without putting more into Social Security, as we all will soon find out.

One solution would be to treat economic security after retirement as a legal right, rather than a government entitlement. Social Security would become an insurance program, making payments an entitlement only for those who retire and are unable to meet their basic economic needs. Social Security might then work much like Medicare: If you get sick, you get medical care; if you stay healthy, you don’t. You would get Social Security payments if you needed them; if you don’t need them, you don’t get them.

Regardless of how such debates may ultimately be resolved, we must be willing to start from a different perspective. We need to precede the debate with a commitment to shed the blinders of Left-Right ideological political positions. Next, we need to lay a foundation of common sense upon which to build a new consensus. For starters, we can agree to treat each other with honesty, fairness, responsibility, respect, and compassion. Those who can’t agree with these basic principles of human relationships will never see the wisdom of a Revolution of the Middle.

Next, we need to agree to search for truth through internal consistency among our apparently conflicting values. Individual rights must be balanced with individual responsibilities. There must be harmony between individual freedoms and public obligations. Ecological, social, and economic benefits and costs must be in balance and harmony. Ecological and social integrity cannot be sacrificed for the sake of economic efficiency. Economic integrity cannot be sacrificed for the sake of ecological and social integrity. Each public issue must be addressed within the context of the ecological, social, and economic whole of society. The rightness and goodness of policies will be determined by their internal consistency.

It is perfectly appropriate for people to work through government to acquire things that serve the public interests, even if they are not necessary to ensure our democracy. Most roads, bridges, airports, and other infrastructure fall in this category. Government programs that promote full employment and economic development also are discretionary. Such things may be perfectly legitimate and worthwhile government activities; however, protection of basic rights must take priority over discretionary spending.

We must start rebuilding government on a foundation of basic rights and then consider whether we are willing and able to add other legitimate public services. We must pay taxes to ensure the basic rights of all; the future of our democracy depends on it. If we want additional public services, we must be willing to tax ourselves to pay for them. If we compromise our rights to fund our discretions, we destroy the social and ecological foundation for our economy – as we are now seeing. If we search for consistency and truth in our founding documents, the blatant distortions of priorities and gross misappropriations of government funds will be revealed. We can then identify solutions to problems that are consistent with the basic constitutional rights of people and responsibilities of government.

When we are willing to search for harmony among the conflicts, we can resolve problems that up until now have been settled only through compromise. Those who benefit from current government priorities and appropriations will not allow We the People to restore true democracy without a fight. Our nation has drifted from democracy to corpocracy, and the corporations will marshal the forces of power and wealth to protect their position of privilege. They will attempt to destroy anyone who opposes them – politically, socially, economically, and possibly even physically. We who are earnest about reclaiming our democracy must pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our honor to the cause. The only way to avoid a violent revolution in the future is to fight and win a peaceful revolution today. We must be confident in our calling to a higher purpose – to help create a new and better world.

That’s why it’s so important to know that pursing our highest potential is our path of happiness. That’s why it’s so important to know that we are guided toward our purpose by a common sense of what’s right, good, and true. That’s why it’s so important to know the nature of truth – ecological, social, and economic truth. That’s why it’s so important to know that a life of truth is a life of wholeness, completeness, and integrity. That’s why it’s so important to know in our heart that in faith and love there always is hope. We must be the change we want to see in the world. If we are to reclaim our democracy, We the People of the Middle must be willing to revolt.