A Republic, if you can keep it
Feb 1st, 2007 | 11 responses
Cross-posted to Random Fate.
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Here is the result of almost six years of fear-mongering:
“It had a very sinister appearance,” Coakley told reporters. “It had a battery behind it, and wires.”
We’re now panicked by Lite-Brites that have “batteries and wires” behind them.
This is what we’ve come to.
It’s not Iraq that we have to worry about when it comes to the “terrorists winning”; it’s right here at home when we allow fear to make our decisions and guide our lawmaking.
Question posed at the end of the Constitutional Convention of 1787: Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?
Benjamin Franklin: A Republic, if you can keep it.
Can we keep it?
-warrantless wiretaps
-the attorney general asserting that the government can open and read private mail, an institution previously kept sacred for the 200+ years of our Republic
-declaring US citizens “enemy combatants” and making then disappear into a system that tortures them to near insanity
-holding non-citizens in an extra-legal prison that also conducts torture and has no established method of appeal
The list goes on…
Can we keep it when fear has become the coin of the political realm and saying “the terrorists will win” the trump card in any attempt at discussion or dissent?
After all the distortions of the recent years, should we keep it?
God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. … What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
-Thomas Jefferson
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11 Responses to “A Republic, if you can keep it”
President John F. Kennedy, welcoming forty-nine Nobel Prize winners to the White House in 1962:
“I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”
It is truly frightening how quickly our nation was warped into something different and how many people have applauded the change.
My sad prediction is that we won’t regain our footing for some time to come.
Not to divert the comments too far afield, but that quote by Thomas Jefferson certainly me think of a conversation I had we CS a few days ago here about “fundamental values.” TJ’s view of armed, violent revolution nourishing liberty seems certainly to be at odds with our modern pride in peaceful regieme change. I would say this is a good example of how our fundamental values are ever changing and hard to pin down.
“I would say this is a good example of how our fundamental values are ever changing and hard to pin down.”
I agree, Kevin. This bloodthirsty statement made me shudder, too:
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.”
Jefferson, to W. S. Smith, Nov. 13. 1787
The Aqua Teen Hunger Force is objectively pro-terrorist.
And I’m pretty sure the milkshake attended an Indonesian madrassa.
“It is truly frightening how quickly our nation was warped into something different and how many people have applauded the change.”
I never really appreciated the power of a President till Bush turned into a nation that jumps at shadows and drops Daisey Cutters on them afterwards.
So, Jack. You’re saying that Lite-Brites are not part of an Islamist plot? How about the Illuminati?
interestingly enough, skippy found a boston report that points out how their police department is last among all big metropolitan cities in solving major crime. also, a report from abc that the two guerilla marketeers were told by their bosses to keep quiet about their involvement in the fracas even as the chaos was unfolding yesterday.
[...] But it’s not really very funny, is it? As Jack Grant writes at TMV, this is what six years of fear-mongering has reduced us to. [...]
Reading a description of what they were meant to represent made me wonder how the authorities could be so worried about them. Then I saw a picture and had no doubt that somebody had really screwed up and hit a 100 on the overreaction meter.
How to Cause a Panic in Boston…
What is quite curious is that the ad campaign was in 10 cities around the country, and it only caused an uproar in Boston. Was there something about where those things were placed that made the difference or did other cities’ residents simply ignore ….