Please take the time to read this essay from Kevin Baker's The Smallest Minority.Sample grafs:
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...For whatever reason, we have not passed on our culture. We have systematically discarded it, forgotten it, refuted it, and in some cases reviled it. Card himself, in one of his more recent novels, described America thus:
(America) was a nation created out of nothing - nothing but a set of ideals that they never measured up to. Now and then they had great leaders, but usually nothing but political hacks, and I mean right from the start. Washington was great, but Adams was paranoid and lazy, and Jefferson was as vile a scheming politician as a nation has ever been cursed with.
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America shaped itself with institutions so strong that it could survive corruption, stupidity, vanity, ambition, recklessness, and even insanity in its chief executive.
But can it survive emnity?The Constitution is the fundamental legal document of our nation. It is the philosophy of John Locke laid down as the basic law of the land: Life, liberty, property. Protect all three against attacks from both private individuals and governments - including our own.
But socialism is based on the philosophy of Rousseau, and the two are totally incompatible. As Jonah Goldberg put it during an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt back in February of last year:
Rousseau says the government is there, that our rights come from the government, that (they) come from the collective. Locke says our rights come from God, and that we only create a government to protect our interests. The Rousseauian says you can make a religion out of society and politics, and the Lockean says no, religion is a separate sphere from politics. And that is the defining distinction between the two, and I think that distinction also runs through the human heart, that we all have a Rousseauian temptation in us. And it's the job of conservatives to remind people that the Lockean in us needs to win.
And I'm afraid we've already lost that fight...
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Read the whole thing.
My two cents?
Kevin clearly articulates why, absent a "velvet revolution" a la Slovakia and the Czech Republic, civil war is unavoidable here in America in the near term.
The Rosseaueans will not leave the Lockeans alone.
And the Lockeans will not submit.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.
“Washington was great, but Adams was paranoid and lazy, and Jefferson was as vile a scheming politician as a nation has ever been cursed with.”
ReplyDeleteI realize this is off the topic but I just feel compelled to address it.
After reading Hologram of Liberty by BTP, and Hamilton’s Curse by DiLorenzo, I’ve about come to the opinion that Washington was the dupe of Hamilton and Madison. He was totally honest and sincere, but he allowed those two to take some paths that led to a very flawed constitution.
And Jefferson as “vile and scheming”! He was brilliant, and his vision of a weak central government, had it been adopted fully, would have avoided the whole mess we’re in today. The scheming worm that was so influential in doctoring the final draft of the constitution was that dirtbag Hamilton. His vision for a powerful central government long outlived him, thanks to men like John Jay and John Marshall.
I hope you'll forgive me for deviating from your point.
I have to second that. Hamilton was the vile puppet master, and Washington let all too much vile crap happen on his watch. Washington certainly set a great example of a man who lets go of power and steps down (he did that twice, to the astonishment of the world), but he let the vipers within his admin scheme to undermine the Constitution.
ReplyDeleteIf it were not for Jefferson, joined by a repentant Madison, our Republic would have died in 1800. Jefferson was as good as we are going to get, save for some off the wall chance that Ron Paul is actually elected in 2012, which is extremely unlikely (presuming we even have an election).
But as to the broader point, it may be that we will be better off if the economic collapse is so bad it leads to dissolution, as you allude to often.
Whichever way it goes, get to high ground, circle the wagons, and keep your powder dry.
HPL