Harvey Mansfield: The Crisis of American Self-Government

Wall Street Journal ^ | 30 Nov 2012 | Sohrab Amari

[docbnj]

"We have now an American political party and a European one. Not all Americans who vote for the European party want to become Europeans. But it doesn't matter, because that's what they're voting for. They're voting for dependency, for lack of ambition, and for insolvency."

[docbnj]

Harvard’s "pet dissident" speaks out in an interview.

[elkfersupper]

Thank you for posting this.

[Jacquerie]

"But if we get serious about what it means to vote, we immediately go to the notion of an informed voter. The others are all lesser voters, or even not voting at all. They're just indicating a belief, or a whim, but not making a wise choice. That's probably because they're not wise."

The Framing generation described such voters as being "without will." Slaves and indentured servants were dependent on others and had no place at the polls. To vote in Virginia meant a freehold of 50 unimproved, or 25 improved acres.

BTW, check Article I Section 2 and the 17th Amendment. Any state can still remove the parasites from voting for reps and senators.

[WashingtonSource]

This interview with Harvey Mansfield is one for the ages.

[Jack Hammer]

The main question facing the United States at this point is precisely this: were the Founders wrong in their assumption that Mankind can manage his own government.

At the moment, the reply isn’t looking too good.

[BibleGunClinger]

Excellent article.

[LongWayHome]

Harvey is the real deal, and was never the type of professor who went along to get along. He had a difficult career path at Harvard, but he did it with dignity & got into no small trouble exposing the race & grade situation in Cambridge that caused him a lot of career damage. His late second wife Delba Winthrop was an outstanding professor in Cambridge also.

[hinckley buzzard]

The Founders' explicitly stated assumption was that an "educated and informed" and "moral" electorate was capable of self governance-- but none others.

They would have been repulsed by the idea of "universal suffrage" as it is enacted today. The current state of this government would be an obscene scandal to the Founding Fathers. They wouldn't recognize it.

[BenLurkin]

What the Founders created was sublime. It was the highest quality form of self-governance.

Unfortunately, a high quality system of government requires a high quality society.

The quality in American society has rotted out, and will not return in our lifetimes......if ever.

[Revolting cat!]

We all agree. But if you read the comments under the article on the WSJ site, you’ll soon see that we are living in a sick society.

[Graewoulf]

Communist Obamanation File.