From this balcony overlooking the Aegean, I watch ferries slip in and out of Naxos' harbor, just as ships did in the age of Athens. The waters shimmer with history, and I cannot help but think of democracy itself -- an idea as enduring as these seas, yet as fragile as the boats that cross them. My thoughts return home, to the United States, and to the lessons we have learned -- and the ones we seem determined to forget.
More than 2,500 years ago, the Athenians chose a daring path. They rejected kings and strongmen, daring instead to trust ordinary citizens with extraordinary responsibility. It was messy, imperfect and fragile, but it offered something no monarchy or tyranny could: the promise that citizens themselves could shape their destiny.
The Framers of our Constitution looked to that example with both admiration and caution. Athens showed the brilliance of self-rule, but also the dangers of mob rule and unchecked ambition. So the Framers built a republic that drew from Athens' spirit but was strengthened by new safeguards -- checks and balances, separation of powers and an enduring Bill of Rights. What emerged in Philadelphia was not a copy of the ancient world but a reinvention: a system meant to give voice to the people while resisting the corruption and collapse that destroyed Athenian democracy.
The Enlightenment added fresh oxygen to these ancient embers. Locke's natural rights, Montesquieu's separation of powers, Rousseau's "general will" -- all filtered into the American mind. These ideas made clear that government was not the gift of kings but the compact of free people, a covenant that only endured so long as it reflected consent and reason. In this sense, our Constitution is as much a child of the Enlightenment as it is the grandchild of Athens.
But another strand was woven in -- one not from Greece or Paris, but from Jerusalem. The monotheistic belief that all people are created in the image of God introduced a radical moral equality. If every life bears inherent dignity, no ruler has divine right over another. This belief, carried through the Reformation and beyond, emphasized individual conscience and responsibility. It harmonized with Enlightenment reason, creating fertile soil for liberty to grow.
Jefferson captured that fusion when he wrote, "all men are created equal." Athens' courage, Enlightenment philosophy, and monotheism's moral insistence distilled into one line.
And yet, as I look out across the Aegean, I wonder if America is now testing the limits of its own grand experiment. Institutions meant to protect our freedoms are treated as obstacles. Leaders put power above principle. Conspiracies are exalted while truth is despised. The corrosion is slow but steady, like saltwater against stone.
Worse still, freedom of speech -- the cornerstone of democracy -- is increasingly under attack. Courts, once trusted to stand above politics, now face open challenges to their legitimacy. In some cases, judges themselves bend the boundaries of law in service of raw power. And behind it all, an authoritarian impulse gathers strength, cloaked in legality but embodying the very forces that have always destroyed democracy. The Athenians would recognize this pattern. They lived through it. And they lost their republic because of it.
Here at home, the silence is not abstract; it is a choice. Republicans and Democrats alike -- people who know better -- stand mute while institutions are tested and truth is diminished. That silence is complicity. So let me ask plainly of every elected official and public figure who values a career more than a country: is your next campaign, your next speech, your reputation more important than the legacy of democracy? Is your comfort worth the future of the free world, the safety of your children, your grandchildren? If the answer is yes, then history will remember the choice you made. If the answer is no, then speak now, act now, and join the hard work of saving what was entrusted to us.
Athens fell not because it lacked brilliance, but because it lacked vigilance. Its people allowed ambition to outstrip virtue, and its institutions collapsed under the weight of corruption. The Framers tried to guard against that fate, but even the strongest foundations can be worn down by neglect.
Still, for me -- and for many others -- surrender is unthinkable. To yield would be to betray the ancients who lit the torch and the generations who carried it forward. Democracy has always been fragile, but fragility is not failure. It is a call to vigilance, to courage and to the hard work of citizenship.
The Athenians gave us the idea, the Enlightenment refined it, and our Constitution enshrined it. As these waters remind me, democracy's fate is never written in stone. It endures only so long as citizens refuse to yield. And so the question is not whether democracy can survive -- it is whether we will rise to defend it. The answer cannot rest with one person or even a few. It must rest with all of us. Because if we abandon the fight, we abandon the very promise that has carried humanity from the hills of Athens to this very moment.