Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Masterpiece 6: The Peaceful Transition of Power


A friend recently attended a lecture by Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico. When asked about corruption in Mexico or about the Mexican drug lords or some such thing, Fox pointed out that he was the first president in Mexican history who was able to stay in the country after leaving office. Fox reportedly pointed out how lucky the U.S. is to have such a history of smooth transitions of power, something that Mexico is just growing into.

Isn't that a masterpiece? We smoothly flow from Hoover to FDR, from LBJ to Nixon, from Billary to Bush, and now Bush to Obama never thinking twice how impossible that is in so much of the world.

Credit much of that to our electoral college system, some of it to a three branch system with checks and balances, and lots of it to the American culture's insistence on of the rule of law.

It's why people are still lined up all over the world to get here.

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