”necessary evil” . . . Even though it was a favorite of Madison’s, I’ve always had a little trouble with that expression. How can something ‘evil’ be thought ‘necessary’? Bad idea? Good idea badly expressed? What?
Despite their remarkable achievement, the Founding Fathers don’t seem to have hit it quite square on the screws. They spoke of even the best-constructed republics as lasting little more than two hundred years, and expressed the hope that their posterity would rise to the challenge of keeping things going. Time’s up.
Aside from a couple of obviously needed changes made by their posterity, I’ll take the vision of the Founders over anything anyone else has proposed. I’ve been waiting for over a half century now, but I haven’t seen anything better come along. Have you?
[Rousseau] “was dead eleven years when the French Revolution broke out.”
Yeah, and Marx was some 125 years’ dead when 0bama broke out. So, what? Am I mistaken in understanding that it was the thought and the spirit of Rousseau driving the French Revolution? Something went awry. What was it?
Mz boop has introduced the idea that something deeper (greater?) than Man’s nature is at the center of the Universe, and that it has guided our more profound thoughts about Man’s relationship amongst his own and with the Universe. Rousseau and the Revolutionaries had little but themselves to fall back on in their attempt to create a greater society. It was a debacle.
The Founding Fathers seemed to have something more. So, while they built a republic that has lasted for over two hundred years, the French went through a king, two empires, a Directory, a Convention, a Consulate a Vichy puppet government, and five republics. Whence might that ‘something more’ have come, do you suppose? From a source with which you find yourself in perpetual denial. But you seem to have no better answer. Jefferson does, however:
“If we are made in some degree for others, yet, in a greater, are we made for ourselves. It were contrary to feeling, and indeed ridiculous to suppose that a man had less rights in himself than one of his neighbors, or indeed all of them put together. This would be slavery, and not that liberty which the [Virginia] bill of rights has made inviolable, and for the preservation of which our government has been charged. Nothing could so completely divest us of that liberty as the establishment of the opinion, that the State has a perpetual right to the services of all its members. This, to men of certain ways of thinking, would be to annihilate the blessings of existence, and to contradict the Giver of life, who gave it for happiness and not for wretchedness. (Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Monroe, 20 May, 1782, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol 4, pg 196)
Yet you seem incapable of looking past doctrine to see values.
How can something ‘evil’ be thought ‘necessary’?
Life is a compromise, so some things that would normally be rejected are accepted reluctantly because of the lack of choice. I don't think in this case the evil is literally the evil, but "evil" nonetheless because it is imposed circumstantially as a practical solution.
They spoke of even the best-constructed republics as lasting little more than two hundred years, and expressed the hope that their posterity would rise to the challenge of keeping things going. Time’s up.
Yup. Now that we have reached the point when the government is telling us what we must purchase, I would say the Founders were right on the money. I don't think this country is morally, and otherwise, the same country it was at its foundation, or fifty, even thirty years ago.
I’ll take the vision of the Founders over anything anyone else has proposed. I’ve been waiting for over a half century now, but I haven’t seen anything better come along. Have you?
No, not by any stretch. The problem with such more perfect union (how can perfect be more perfect?) is keeping it such. The Founders were a perfect storm of free thinkers, an event that doesn't repeat itself very often and an act that is hard to follow consistently, especially when the country itself is undergoing tectonic changes and challenges politically, demographically, economically, etc. This country has radically changed in the last 30-40 years in the direction that seems to be leading her into a third world camp, and most of it is by design, undoing what the Founder did, brick by brick.
Modern politicians are like caricatures compared to the wise Founders. There seems to be a perilous lack of political talent (and political will) in this country, and each successive election seems to produce more bad apples.
Yeah, and Marx was some 125 years’ dead when 0bama broke out. So, what? Am I mistaken in understanding that it was the thought and the spirit of Rousseau driving the French Revolution? Something went awry. What was it?
Progressivism has been alive and well in America practically from Marx's death in 1883, and 0bama is certainly not the first who pushed progressivist agenda. There have been a number of progressivist US presidents who added their 2-cents': Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, and LBJ in good measure (he changed the immigration law which is directly responsible for the irreversible demographic changes in the US in the past 40 years).
What went wrong in the French Revolution is probably misunderstanding or adulteration of Rousseau's idealism. He was not against religion, and he did not advocate violence or mass executions as far as I know.
Mz boop has introduced the idea that something deeper (greater?) than Man’s nature is at the center of the Universe, and that it has guided our more profound thoughts about Man’s relationship amongst his own and with the Universe. Rousseau and the Revolutionaries had little but themselves to fall back on in their attempt to create a greater society. It was a debacle.
So, what will be our excuse when it happens here?
The Founding Fathers seemed to have something more. So, while they built a republic that has lasted for over two hundred years, the French went through a king, two empires, a Directory, a Convention, a Consulate a Vichy puppet government, and five republics.
And Great Britain outlives both the French and the American republics hands down. The Holy Roman Empire existed over 800 years technically speaking. The Roman republic lasted 492 years. China was an empire over 2100 years. Egypt lasted for 1,000 years, etc. What does that prove? That there is a "higher power?"
Whence might that ‘something more’ have come, do you suppose?
Honestly, probably our heads.
But you seem to have no better answer.
I will be the first to admit that I don't know the answer. Trouble is that those who claim otherwise really have nothing to show for it.
Jefferson does, however: ... Nothing could so completely divest us of that liberty as the establishment of the opinion, that the State has a perpetual right to the services of all its members. This, to men of certain ways of thinking, would be to annihilate the blessings of existence, and to contradict the Giver of life, who gave it for happiness and not for wretchedness. (Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Monroe, 20 May, 1782, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol 4, pg 196)
So, he believed that life was given for happiness. I guess he wasn't aware of the misery that exists in the world.
Yet you seem incapable of looking past doctrine to see values.
What doctrine?