...on democracy & Alexis de Toqueville :
Morality is not a matter of winning arguments -- no matter how important arguments are. Toqueville saw that the master assumption of democracy is the immortality of the soul. He was as aware as you and I of the difficulty of arguments on behalf of that truth. Acknowledging that, he saw immortality as the great basis of moral responsibility, a basis that had to be recognized if democracy were to survive. He went on to say that the essential thing was that politicians exhibit in their actions their conviction that the soul is immortal. That is, that they are answerable for their deeds to a tribunal higher than any on earth. Toqueville's point is basic: The most powerful argument for morality is virtuous men.
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