Given the demands of defending a large area, though, the central government was bound to grow. Madison, who fought against the creation of the First Bank of the United States on constitutional and policy grounds, accepted the creation of the Second Bank. Jefferson who condemned the Alien and Sedition Acts, took recourse to similar policies in the Embargo Enforcement Act.
The potential for exercising greater power was there from the beginning and would be used by whoever was in power. Perhaps the unconscious of the founders or the natural tendencies of government should also be plumbed.
Surely voting won't accomplish it. Debates won't work. Speech will solve nothing. The decent, good people have two choices -- be forced into a continued retreat, or fight like bloody h*** to get what was lost, ceded, and taken back.
But we are all sitting at home typing on our computers. America is a nation of wimps -- I confess, I am included, and ashamed. Still, we all know that 10% actually fought in 1776, the balance either went into denial, hid in their homes, or were Tories. The point is it is in our nature to wimp out and avoid confrontation. Unless we have a powerful incentive to participate in something as radical and dangerous as a hot war with an enemy, we won't go there. Even Jefferson hid out at Monticello during the war, and then when the coast was clear, he lived it up in France for a number of years after Adams did all the hard work. (Jefferson is WAY over rated)
The founders had a financial stake. Adams saw an opportunity for glory. His thinking was this was an unprecedented opportunity to shape and form the laws and constitution of a nation from the ground up. The soldier's motivation was that they were starving and needed the clothes and food the army provided. The rest (militias, etc) saw the Atlantic Ocean, and realized they had a golden opportunity to own land free and clear of Royal claims -- an unprecedented opportunity. Patriotism was linked for the most part to self interest.
From what I have read from Tocqueville, he talks of English refugees in Holland who sailed to the new world to get away from the old one in the pursuit of an idea. The pilgrims did not have the crass money motive of those of the 1776 era, but nonetheless, they had a strong self interest that was so strong, and so powerfully motivating, they boarded a ship and sailed to a distant new land, totally raw, hostile, and undeveloped. They had to know that the journey was one to a grave sooner rather than later. But they went anyway.
The huge difference between then and now, is the modern Puritan (which is a VERY watered down version of the original thing, whereby if the original were to revisit America today they would declare their species utterly extinct) has nowhere to sail to! As for the modern puritan's bedfellows (a strange mix it would be), who desired to be rid of the federal government, and their state government which sanctions the butchering of unborn children, which promotes homosexuality, which is a big fat bloated pig that over taxes and over regulates, one tied to a group of sleazy bankers in Europe who call the shots, where leaders are not elected but chosen, where the body politic is dumbed down to the dirt, and oh my, the list is too long, even IF they could all agree on a game plan, where the heck would they go?
There is nowhere to go. America represented the last opportunity to get it right. Things were looking good, albiet pretty dang rough, in Puritan New England, but this is 2001, and the very state the Puritans landed in (MA) is now THE modern mecca of filth and degeneracy -- at least viewed through a Puritan lens. This irony should not be lost on a Christian.
Since there is nowhere to go, the only possibility of escape is through some sort of divorce. Yet history shows us that when a land mass is settled with millions of people, and there is an internal fracturing, things become decidedly messy, and there are no winners. The French revolution is a goods example in that, after the smoke from Napolean's cannons cleared, little had changed. The people who had the power to begin with still had the power in the end.
Some would argue that America is simply a European province, and has been since 1913, the goal on the other side of the Atlantic being to find a way, no matter how long it took, or by what method, to recapture America. As an aside, it is my understanding of the facts that this was accomplished through the mechanism of the central bank, a wholly owned subsidiary of Rothchild and Co.
The whole idea of making a clean break from this present government, and cultural cesspool, to be removed back to the start is a fantasy -- a great one, indeed. It would be great to let the leftists rot in their excrement. We could do what Abram did with Lot. Abram let Lot pick, what appeared to Lot, at least, the choicest land, and Abram took what Lot did not choose. Eventually the Lot paradigm imploded and Abram ends up winning on that play after all.
The good guys could simply reform another country, and just wait for the leftists to self destruct. Then we could purchase what they have left for pennies on the dollar, and retake the whole thing. The key would be that the good guys get to dictate the terms. No more ACLU. No more immoral garbage. No more fiat central banking. No more eco fanaticism. No more land grabs. No more UN. No more all kinds of stuff.
I believe the truth is unless there is some type of clean division, some sort of clean break, some sort of new country formed, all the good guys will end up doing is getting into losing arguments with immoral scum who specilaize in non-liner BS, and will forever keep losing ground. The trend for America is DOWN DOWN DOWN, and it will just get worse without a divorce.
Just wait until the Witch gets elected in '04. The point is, even though it SOUNDS crazy to talk of separation, divorce, secession, revolution, or whatever, the fact is if you even have an ounce of the love of the type of freedom Adams envisioned Americans could have, without such a definitve parting of the ways, your groans will only get that much stonger. It WILL get MUCH worse. That is the TREND. Trends are powerful. Unless there is some other greater force that can stop this trend, the trend will continue.
I can tell you, that makes me pretty sad. I am a liberal minded person, but in certain key areas, the government, and the part of the body politic that empowers this government, has totally crossed the line. This web site at the Free Republic is a REACTION to that line crossing. It turns out that the ecletic, amusing, and seemingly harmless bunch of the 60s, from whom in some respects I think America got a few good books out of, some good music, and even a good business idea or two, still, sadly we discovered that the core constituency turned out to be radical communists who take no prisoners in the cultural war, and who have, by a relentless campaign in the last 40 years particularly, turned America upside down and destroyed the very foundation She used to stand firmly upon, and have replaced it with Marxist sand.
That is a problem -- a big problem -- not just for us, but for them as well, even though they are too blind to see that the very things that stupidly espouse and promote are the ingredients that will take us all down IF we are joined together. As it is, we ARE joined together. I do not know about you, but I sure would like to DISCONNECT from the sinking ship and swim back to shore. This, however cannot and will not happen unless, as crazy as it sounds to our soft ears, there is a revolution that leads to a separation.