Deep Democracy.

A democracy inclusive of all...  as in all.

Tradition means giving a vote to most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead....  Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.  All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death.  Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father.    

--G. K. Chesterton

I love that Chesterton quote.  I want to take it further.  Way further.  I favor a democracy that includes the dead by recognizing and accounting for the ways things our forebears did them.  I also favor an even deeper and broader democracy that looks out for the interests of people who have not come yet, people who will look to us as ancestors. 

Christian theology understands this in terms of the Communion of the Saints, and gathering of all the faithful, living, dead, and yet to come.   

Furthermore, why do we limit democracy merely to humans?  Why can we not find a way to attend politically to the best interests of animals and plants, even the planet itself?  

What would politics look like if we asked what effect this or that policy or initiative would have on the future?  What if we asked whether people yet unborn would benefit from this decision, or hate us for it?  Do our decisions make life better or worse for our offspring?  What if we extended Jesus' teaching about doing unto others to include people not yet alive?

Indeed, what gives us the right to do so much as cut down a tree without the tree's permission, let alone slaughter a cow or dam a river? 

Genesis empowers humans to "till and keep" creation, which the word "dominion" sums up.  The example of such dominion we find in Jesus Christ, who exercises it in terms of care, cooperation, respect, love, and seeing every living thing as a sign of God's saving Presence.  The only "rights" we have with regard to nature or anything else -- in other words, the real meaning of freedom -- we find in obedience to the will of the Creator, revealed in Jesus.  We certainly have no right to destroy, poison, exploit, misuse, abuse, deplete, or otherwise degrade something that does not belong to us but to God (Psalm 24:1).

Anyway, a deep democracy would act on behalf and for the benefit of all.

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