Some years ago I served on what was then known as the Mullis Senior Center Advisory Committee. Each committee person began as a volunteer subsequently elected by a majority vote of the senior membership for a term of three years. Briefly, the committee’s role was to oversee the use and maintenance of the facilities for the benefit and enjoyment of our seniors.

Also, I am a volunteer vet who once honorably served his country in one o fits moments of crisis. I don’t bruit it about because I don’t have the compulsion to drape myself in the flag and strut, or man the barricades to make an impression. Further, I have no need for a dose of the Pledge of Allegiance three times a week with lunch because I’m confused. I know who I am.

If I were on the more aptly named Operation’s Committee today, what would be my take? I think I would suggest official polling of the senior membership to discern its wishes. If it chose to retain the ritual of the pledge, so be it, even though personally I think it an intrusive anachronism in the circumstances. If the majority wished to excise, all the better. Let the democratic process prevail.

“Tyranny of the majority” might well be the rallying chant of the losers. Not a bit of it, for with patience, persistence, decorum, civility and sound ideas rather than bombast, badgering, bullying, intimidation, the minority honorably can become for a time, the majority. It is the beauty of our system for governing ourselves peaceably even at grassroots. It is worth protecting and preserving at all costs against those who intentionally or not would subvert it.

And so I say to our crabbed and rancorous super-patriots, “What have you got against democracy?”

Glenn Kaufmann

San Juan Island