Old ideas hold modern worth

We now have a new mayor. He has an excellent pedigree, compelling credentials and wide community support. With a new year before us, it should bode well for Augusta.

For vacation reading, I reread Aristotle's Politics. Aristotle is very dated on women and slavery (340 years before the Common Era; of course we didn't wise up until 1,900 years or more into the Common Era!). Aristotle makes sense on the partnership of a city. He extols "reciprocal equality." He proposes a system of governance in which each citizen is part of a group that discusses the advantages and disadvantages, the good and the bad, the just and the unjust - and then passes laws based upon an open deliberative process.

The last election brought just those sorts of people together. Augusta can become a "shining light set upon a hill" for all of Georgia.

Aristotle ranks various forms of governance on the potential for virtue or the common good. He ranks democracy third after a benevolent monarchy and an enlightened aristocracy. Having endured our "local democracy" for the past 16 years, I tend to agree that our early attempts at democracy would come in third. However, with the Founding Fathers I must agree that there is more promise in a democracy than any alternative.

I urge all to pray for the Augusta-Richmond County governance at this time of great opportunity. God bless you, commissioners and mayor, to promote the general welfare, and ensure domestic tranquility and economic stability.

Thomas J. Zwemer, Augusta