Posted on 01/28/2022 4:06:19 AM PST by Kaslin
"What do we mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people."
What did John Adams mean when he wrote this to Thomas Jefferson in 1815, after both had served as president?
Adams was saying that America, the country that took up arms and fought for its independence from the British, was already a nation -- before 1775.
America preexisted the Constitution, Adams is saying. America had been conceived and born before he and Jefferson began to write its Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia in 1776. America had come into being even before Lexington and Concord in 1775.
A corollary of what Adams wrote is that America, and the republic created by the Constitution, are not the same thing.
While America is a country, a republic is the form of government created for that country in Philadelphia in 1787.
"A republic if you can keep it," said Ben Franklin to the lady who had asked what kind of government they had created for the already existing nation, when he emerged from that constitutional convention.
What, then, are our elites bewailing when they say that populists, rightists and Trumpists have put "our democracy" at risk?
Answer: It is not America the country or America the nation they are referring to, but our political system as it has evolved.
And what is the nature of the threat they see?
A precondition of democracy is that the results of elections be recognized and respected, and if repeatedly challenged, this is a mortal threat. And this is the present peril.
Yet, there are other preconditions, not only for democracies but for countries, that were enumerated in The Federalist Papers:
"Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people -- a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs ... "
"This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence, that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren, united to each other by the strongest ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties."
John Jay was describing the preconditions of a nation, a country, a people. Do these preconditions still exist in America?
"One united people"? "A band of brethren"? A common ancestry, common religion, common language, common customs and manners?
That may describe the America of 1789. Does it describe the America of 2022? Or does Jay's phrase, "a number of unsocial, jealous and alien sovereignties," better describe the America of today?
Hillary Clinton once wrote off half of Trump's supporters, nearly one-fourth of the nation, as "a basket of deplorables ... racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic ... bigots," who are "irredeemable."
Assume that our elites, who often echo what Hillary Clinton said of the populist Trumpist right, agree with her.
Why would virtuous liberals wish to continue in political association with people like this? Why would they not declare that, if an election again delivers rule to such people, we want no part of the system or polity that produced so intolerable an outcome?
Why would the capture of all three branches of government by people such as Hillary Clinton describes not be cause for dissolving the Union?
How could democracy be a superior form of government, if it could deliver the republic to people such as these, and perhaps twice?
If the progressives' enemies are "Nazis" and "fascists," why would progressives not rise in resistance and reject their rule, rather than cooperate with them in the governance of the country?
Why would good people not battle to overturn an election that produced a majority for such "deplorables"?
Do the commands of democracy take precedence over the demands of decency? Rather than govern in concert with people like this, why not get as far removed from them as possible?
The point here: Not only may the preconditions of democracy be disappearing, but the preconditions of nationhood may be disintegrating.
Again, the American right is today routinely compared to Nazis, fascists and Klansmen. Why would good liberal Democrats accept an electoral victory and future rule by Nazis and fascists rather than seek to overturn it, by whatever means necessary?
And how do you hold up American democracy as a model to mankind if, after two centuries, it has produced scores of millions of citizens like those described by Hillary Clinton?
And, again, if the preconditions of democracy are vanishing, and the preconditions of nationhood are disappearing, is not secession of some kind inevitable and even desirable?
Ultimately, the logic of our situation must lead us to consider something like this. Western Maryland's attempt to secede and join West Virginia, and Eastern Oregon's attempt to secede and join Idaho, may be harbingers of what is to come.
America as founded is dead. It’s over. And if you’re a young White male, especially a Christian White, God help you.
The nation is dissolving and divided because the red bits hold the bible, the constitution and the individual liberties enshrined therein sacred. The blue bits don't.
It is further exacerbated by the fact that the elite leadership, including our beloved RINOs are totally out of touch with what is the common good.
Yes, I believe so. I was born in Atlanta in 1953. The destruction of our country has been a long time coming. It certainly was helped a long with the election of Obama as he had people in place to weaponize the federal government.
OUR elites, our RINOs have betrayed us. We now understand clearly what they think of us because they had power to do what they said they would do and then they didn't do it. The assumption is that all Republicans are RINOs until proven otherwise.
A lot of what is wrong is not that we are divided, but that our elites decided to pursue globalism, crony capitalism and glossed it over with a nod to socialism while they looted the treasury that was supposed to pay for all the promises to the people. Yeah we have issues we need to sort out, but it starts with taking our so-called leadership, all of it out, and making sure they can't hurt the world any more.
The elite leadership of both parties and virtually every large non-profit and for profit institution loves wealth and power—and despise normal people.
They are the enemies of liberty.
China has taken over an d we are at war for the survival of America.
Separating into political enclaves in the U.S. sounds attractive, but I do not see any way to keep out the Marxists riffraff. The only way to restore this Country is to get rid of public education. The fast way is through Parental Educational Savings Accounts being voted in by citizens in the various states. If parents got the dollars now being thrown away by DOE and the states on public education (indoctrination) they would seek out patriotic private educational institutions and we might stand a chance of bringing back this Country.
The secular socialist future imposed on us from above is in free-fall collapse.
Wish I could disagree
America was a great idea, while it lasted.
The secular socialist future imposed on us from above is in free-fall collapse.
Democrats are murdering America.
Republicans are standing by, watching, and clutching their pearls.
Both. It would have been nice if the disgusting GOP had not allowed the 2020 steal. Biden is an illegitimated President doing permanent damage to America. Damn them all to everlasting hell.
“America as founded is dead. It’s over. And if you’re a young White male, especially a Christian White, God help you.”
And what is confounding is that these white males won’t even bother to fight for their own survival. They are too “whupped” and beta male.
...and blogging angrily.
My heart breaks for My nation which was once founded in the fear and the reverence of God, for my grandchildren, my children. 😢.
Our republic morphed into a democracy and democracy becomes tyranny of the supposed majority.
I think the bottom line is that democracy is dying a slow death that was rapidly sped up by the fake election of 2020. Don’t kid yourself. A lot of people know that that result makes no sense. And time has proven that to be the case. The most unpopular president in history after only a year, and yet he also got the most votes in history. Nobody buys that.
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