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Emory Professor Calls President a Despot, Voters Stupid.
The Atlanta Journal and Constitution ^ | 12/14/2004 | Perry Treadwell

Posted on 12/14/2004 10:32:58 AM PST by groanup

The nation of commoners

Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin were skeptical about the common man and government.

By PERRY TREADWELL

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

This has been the year of Alexander Hamilton, with a new biography and a museum exhibit in New York City.

All that I remember about Hamilton from high school senior history taken more than a half-century ago is a quote attributed to him, "The People is a Beast."

More recently, a poem Hamilton may have read by a 17th century Italian cleric, Tommaso Campanella, has appeared. The first stanza goes:

The People is a beast of muddy brain,

That knows not its own force, and therefore stands

Loaded with wood and stone; the powerless hands

Of a mere child guide it with bit and rein.

Hamilton was quite wary of the ability of the common man to make rational choices. The Federalist Papers attest that he was not alone in his fears. As the poem anticipated, we now have petulant children guiding our country.

In spite of the protestations of evangelical Christians, the Constitution of the United States was written by the products of the Enlightenment. These men believed in the right of the people to govern themselves during a time when kings reigned. But they disagreed on the checks and balances necessary to perpetuate that dream.

One of the major fathers of that document, Benjamin Franklin, warned that the government "is likely to be well administered for a course of years and can only end in despotism as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other."

It is a measure of the strength of the Constitution that it has taken more than 200 years for the government to become so corrupt as to re-quire a despot in the White House.

As Abraham Lincoln said, "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." This last presidential election proved that some of the people can be fooled all the time.

They got fooled by spurious arguments while the real issues, such as war, economics and the environment, were ignored.

It is no surprise that the Southern red states (the Bible Belt) have the worst health care, the worst educational systems and the highest divorce rates. Residents have become consumers bought off by their wants supplied by malls.

Muslim Irshad Manji, who has tried to reform her own religion, comments on American values: "I could have become a runaway materialist, a robotic mall rat who resorts to retail therapy in pursuit of fulfillment. I didn't. That's because religion introduces competing claims. It injects a tension that compels me to think and allows me to avoid fundamentalisms of my own."

As a former teacher, I can attest that critical thinking is quite uncommon among students today. Just look at the feeding frenzy developed over the Thanksgiving buying. TV ads show people crashing through doors to get to the malls in the middle of the night.

The electorate has been bought off by the Roman example of "bread and games." The bread is the apparently cheap goods flooding in from abroad. The games are the violent sports in the new coliseums around the country: football, boxing and now basketball. The games appear on more than 100 channels: unreal reality, fear factors, inane sitcoms, in-your-face rap, shout talk shows and more sports.

The United States has become a strange animal, half theocracy, half plutocracy. We have returned to the theocracy of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, figuratively burning witches (gays and lesbians) and hanging Quakers (Muslims).

Consumers of religions sold on Sundays listen to shouters replacing Christian love with Old Testament fear leaning heavily on a vengeful God rather than the Prince of Peace. Americans seem to need to create enemies to destroy, on the battlefield or on the playing field.

While the United States tries to govern the world by spending more than any other nation or group of nations on the military, China and India, followed by the European Union, are becoming economic giants.

The United States will be following in their dust. The life of the U.S. Constitution is being smothered by the theocrats and the plutocrats. Hamilton and Franklin were right.

• Perry Treadwell is a retired Emory University professor.


TOPICS: Editorial
KEYWORDS: alexanderhamilton; emoryuniversity; perrytreadwell
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To: Restorer

Right-o. I forgot to mention the one pressed to death.


21 posted on 12/14/2004 10:47:03 AM PST by Monterrosa-24 (Technology advances but human nature is dependably stagnant)
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To: shekkian

I believe it's Bellisles? Yes, one and the same.


22 posted on 12/14/2004 10:47:43 AM PST by groanup (Rats are afraid of the light so spread a little sunshine.)
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To: groanup

Emory (yawn) University.


23 posted on 12/14/2004 10:48:08 AM PST by JesseHousman
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To: Servant of the 9

"...The property/income restriction should still be around.
No Representation without Taxation is just as important as the reverse."

Well said.


24 posted on 12/14/2004 10:48:41 AM PST by Monterrosa-24 (Technology advances but human nature is dependably stagnant)
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To: groanup

A tribute to our Armed Forces:

http://home.insightbb.com/~armedforcestribute/


25 posted on 12/14/2004 10:50:13 AM PST by shield (The Greatest Scientific Discoveries of the Century Reveal God!!!! by Dr. H. Ross, Astrophysicist)
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To: Restorer

It was actually called "turning off". A nice way of saying something that was pretty nasty. Because they just pushed them off the ladders.
Pressing was also used.

Wasn't Arron Burr the VP when he shot Hamilton? Or was he just a lawyer?


26 posted on 12/14/2004 10:50:35 AM PST by Holicheese (MMMMMM I like Canukistan strippers!)
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To: aculeus
As a former teacher, I can attest that critical thinking is quite uncommon among students teachers today.
27 posted on 12/14/2004 10:51:08 AM PST by Ignatz (Strategic Air Command: Peace is our profession...........bombing's just a hobby!)
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To: groanup

Those who can do, those who can't go to a university and get tenure so that they can warp your children's brains.


28 posted on 12/14/2004 10:51:18 AM PST by Sthitch
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To: groanup
? Perry Treadwell is a retired Emory University professor. .....

British Psychiatrists, British Lawyers, and British Darwinist Economists are really,....running the world?

naw

/sarcasm

(the British Pound is 3X less in value than the U.S. Dollar)

29 posted on 12/14/2004 10:51:54 AM PST by maestro
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To: groanup

I knew I was getting that name wrong. Shows us how relevant he is.


30 posted on 12/14/2004 10:51:58 AM PST by shekkian
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To: groanup
We have returned to the theocracy of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, figuratively burning witches (gays and lesbians) and hanging Quakers (Muslims).

Too bad we weren't doing more than figuratively burning the queers and hanging the Muslims. Perry Treadwell likely fears that outcome for personal reasons. ;>)

31 posted on 12/14/2004 10:54:29 AM PST by Lunkhead_01
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To: shekkian
"I knew I was getting that name wrong. Shows us how relevant he is."

I'm not sure I got it right. And yes his shot at fame resulted in a man no one cares about except those of us who remember him for his prevarication.

32 posted on 12/14/2004 10:54:59 AM PST by groanup (Rats are afraid of the light so spread a little sunshine.)
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To: groanup

I found the number of non-sequiturs and seques between unrelated points to be somewhat bewildering, to the point of losing all interest in deciphering whatever point this author might have had aside from his obvious loathing of republicans and republicanism.


33 posted on 12/14/2004 10:57:32 AM PST by King Prout (tagline under reconstruction)
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To: groanup

>>As a former teacher, I can attest that critical thinking is quite uncommon among students today. <<

If he's a FORMER teacher, how does he know about the thinking skills of students TODAY?


34 posted on 12/14/2004 10:58:52 AM PST by 1L
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Comment #35 Removed by Moderator

To: groanup
As a former teacher, I can attest that critical thinking is quite uncommon among students today

Strange how critical thinking is only thinking of which he approves.

Another left wing elitist.

Regards, Ivan

36 posted on 12/14/2004 10:59:37 AM PST by MadIvan (Gothic. Freaky. Conservative. - http://www.rightgoths.com/)
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To: groanup

Is not it funny when the want to be despots of the ivory towers throw snit fits when things do not go their way?


37 posted on 12/14/2004 11:03:31 AM PST by fella
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To: Servant of the 9

Actually, suffrage was a matter for the states to determine and a few in New England allowed blacks who met the property requirements to vote at the time of the constiution.


38 posted on 12/14/2004 11:04:59 AM PST by Austin Willard Wright
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To: groanup
North Dakota, Utah, Iowa, and Nebraska are among the top six states in high school graduation rates...all states that voted for Bush.

Another good quotation from that era that this author is probably unfamiliar with is "the swinish multitude," an expression used by Edmund Burke. Burke was the first to predict what a disaster the French Revolution would turn out to be. Before that he was known in America for speaking out in Parliament on behalf of the colonists' rights.

39 posted on 12/14/2004 11:05:21 AM PST by Verginius Rufus
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To: 1L

Trust me....it hasn't improved but only gotten worse.


40 posted on 12/14/2004 11:05:31 AM PST by Austin Willard Wright
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