Regime change without gunfire.

Before I was licensed to practice law, I was licensed to teach history. Like everyone else in this country, I have been watching the attention being given to the ritual unfolding in Washington, D.C. A lot of attention is being given to various details of the event. Underlying it all, however, is a tradition that I haven’t seen anybody say anything about; and this tradition is something that we should give ourselves much more credit for than we do.

The tradition I’m talking about is that every four years, or at the least every eight, we have a peaceful regime change in Washington. It’s been going on for over 230 years. The old president steps down and a new guy takes over, without troops having to be called in, without an assassination, without brown shirts taking over the TV and radio stations, without a civil war. I believe if a study were to be done of the subject, going back say three hundred years, and covering the entire globe, it would be found that in the vast majority of places during the vast majority of the time, regimes don’t change without somebody getting killed or something being blown up.

So lets all enjoy the party, and let’s all be very proud. Notwithstanding all the imperfections, nobody else and nowhere else has anybody come this close to getting it right.

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