The day before this year’s presidential election was my birthday. Each of my daughters’ families sent me a book: one entitled “The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad” by Fareed Zakaria, the other “If You Can Keep It: The Forgotten Promise of American Liberty” by Eric Metaxas. I decided to read the first chapter of each before I called to thank them for their thoughtfulness.

I found these books particularly profound after witnessing a chaotic election year that I thought was an embarrassment to the American public, not just because of the behavior of the candidates but even more so the behavior of the electorate: both for tolerating it and the way they joined in as participants. An outside observer might conclude that the electorate’s role was simply to scream slogans or invectives, and to take no personal responsibility except to vote for the person who authored the slogan or invective. The opening chapter of the first book “call(s) for self-control for a restoration of balance between democracy and liberty.” The other calls for citizen responsibility: “So by itself the Constitution could do very little. What it promised would require efforts of all those who thenceforth called themselves Americans.”

If I am troubled by the state of governance of our nation, it made me think that perhaps governance in the Adirondack Park is functioning amazingly well. I have often been quoted for the comment, “This is the only place I have lived where the people would rather fight than win.” Now I see that this fighting is part of the great experiment that we call the Adirondack Park and perhaps has lessons for the country as a whole. What I see here is citizens not simply wailing at each other and the institutions of government, but taking responsibility for shaping their future.

This past year or so I have tangentially been involved or at least been an interested party in the unit management plan for the Essex Chain of Lakes, the classification of the Boreas Ponds area and a legislative process to forward a constitutional amendment that would assist in the development of broadband and expedite safety and health infrastructure in our municipalities. These processes were often unruly and unpleasant, the outcomes not necessarily to my liking, and sometimes I even questioned the ethics of some of the participants, but they illustrated the citizenry taking responsibility. The participants had strong opinions on the issues at hand, they got involved, and they persevered during the time that the decision process unfolded.

Perhaps democracy and liberty are alive and well in the Park — perfect, far from it; better than at the national level, absolutely. Here the people are invited to express their opinion on the substance of issues. Here they make sure their opinion is heard loud and clear. Here a decision is made that we may find quite unsettling because it is government’s attempt at meaningful compromise.

Ross Whaley lives in the Upper Saranac Lake area and is a former chairman of the Adirondack Park Agency Board of Commissioners.