Democracy breathes deep

through dissent,

lives in the cacophony of

voices refusing singular truth,

where protest becomes pedagogy

for collective thought.

 

Vitality is sustained not through

unthinking consensus

but through this work of friction:

the necessary abrasion of competing visions,

agonistic:

grinding against each other

to reveal what matters.

 

Free speech isn’t civility’s opposite

but its very condition,

creating the ground where ideas are

opened and tested in the steaming

cauldron of lived experience.

 

Silencing discordant voices hollows

out democracy, eviscerating its blood

and muscle and guts,

like a lamb on the altar

prepared for disintegration,

leaving only

narcissistic echo chambers where

power performs for itself as ‘truth’.

 

Let controversy flourish undiminished,

let argument rage and quiver,

let citizens gather and shout their refusal,

for this noisy,

confronting,

uncomfortable,

vital turbulence

is how the democratic remains open,

alive,

transformative.

 

10/1/2026