The Wisdom of America / A Canadian Point of View

[Demeter]

http://www.pogge.ca/archives/001591.shtml#more


I and many other critics of the current U.S. regime have been accused of "hatred of America" by lizard-brained right-wingers who cannot help but equate criticism of George Bush and the Republican Party with "anti-Americanism". It is amongst their more stupid tropes, but one which they still wield with righteous indignation to fend off occasional attacks of reality.

Of course, the exact opposite is true. I love America. I love the promise of that nation, and the hope that it brought to a world still unconvinced that this whole "democracy" fad would take hold. I love the generosity of spirit that embodies American ideals.

And I find it fascinating that in what was at the time a backwater nation on a wild continent, a group of men of staggering intellect came together to enshrine in the founding document of their new nation the nascent principles of freedom that first took root with magna carta and found rhetorical voice during the Enlightenment.

Which is why I so loathe the corporatocracy that America has become. The bloated militarism, the rampant inequality, the mindless religiosity, and the erosion of freedom disguised as the protection of liberty has resulted in a twisted vision of the America that these men of the Enlightenment strove to build. To illustrate just how forward-thinking these men were, I recently found a series of quotes that shows that they saw the seeds of failure in the great national project they had just launched, and clearly identified the means of America's undoing.

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I don't like it, but I will vote for it because we need something right now. But this constitution in time will fail, as all such efforts do. And it will fail because of the corruption of the people, in a general sense. ~ Benjamin Franklin on being shown the new constitution of the United States of America.

We are free today substantially, but the day will come when our Republic will be an impossibility. It will be an impossibility because wealth will be concentrated in the hands of a few. ~ James Madison

If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs . . . Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual expectation. ~ Thomas Jefferson 1787

Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak. ~ John Adams

If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. ~ James Madison

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes. ~ Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.

In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. ~ Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814

Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ John Adams

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I am struck again by how clear the vision of these great men was, and how tragic it is to witness the downfall of their dream at the hands of infinitely lesser men.

(Thanks to an unsuspecting Holly Stick, whose comment in the Gore Vidal post below led me to the Ben Franklin quote and then on to others. By such roundabout routes are blog posts born.)

Posted by Tim at June 8, 2007 05:23 PM | TrackBack

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