"Protagonist democracy..."

I'm fired up by yet another article on the new Venezuela... I am sure we are not getting the whole picture (when do we ever?) but this is still the most interesting experiment in governance that I know about going on in the world today.

The Bolivarian revolution seems to be taking seriously the concept of "subsidiarity," where the unit of government closest to a given issue holds sway. Very interesting to me is this idea of the local council representing 200 families. This is a totally reasonable unit of government - small enough that people have face-name recognition and yet not so small that it becomes totally parochial.

When, in my own country, people are making statements like "I think most of America would agree that it is time for our nation to stop our tolerance for diversity," it gives me some relief to know that there is still a place for freedom and sanity... at least for now.