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Reflections on a statement by Edward R. Murrow on Senator Joseph McCarthy and an “Age of Unreason”
Regarding Senator Joseph McCarthy:
His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind . . . We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason.
-Edward R. Murrow
Does that sound familiar at all, despite describing actions and circumstances of half a century ago?
Now, dissent and disagreement mixed with fear are regarded as permission to trash any and all people who don’t agree completely and identically. There is no longer any loyalty to our system of government, only towards those who “think right, by God!”
Benjamin Franklin when asked what kind of government was being created out of the Constitutional Convetion replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” It was a grand experiment at the time, for no truly representative government over such a large expanse had been attempted before. It was the American Experiment.
My fear is that the American Experiment has failed because we are willingly, and seemingly gladly, entering an Age of Unreason.
I am having difficulty finding refutations of that fear.
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Cross-posted between Random Fate and The Moderate Voice.
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7 Responses to “Reflections on a statement by Edward R. Murrow on Senator Joseph McCarthy and an “Age of Unreason””
I have a theory that we are entering a reverse dark age. The dark ages of course were so bad because we lost so much knowledge so quickly, at least thats what upsets me about it. I think we are seeing too much information and knowledge without the ability to sift through it and separate the fact from the propaganda which would have much the same historical affect as the dark ages but is caused by too much instead of too little. I am not be comforting am I…
We lost our Republic after the Civil War when we allowed the Federal government to encroach upon the States. We were founded as The United States of America, unfortunately we are more and more becoming a federally controlled nation, a United State of America, united in disunity by the powergrabbing of an overextended Federal Government that the founding fathers would have looked upon with horror.
Wow, I agree with you, its been a while but its always nice:). I really see no way out of it short of a truly Libertarian shift though. We would need to erase most of our history and regulations. Empire America would need to end and we would need to pull out of all of our world bases, all fed programs would need to end and we would no longer be the bankers and corps favorite muscle to bully others into appeasing them. The down side is that they would eventually turn those weapons on us in an attempt to strong arm us into this or that treaty or trade deal. The advantage of a strong fed is that we are a nation to listen too or run from. The good news is that with our current military superiority it would take 20 yrs or so for them to be able to gather an army large enough to make it happen but then they would still need to deal with the gun bunnies in the mountains screaming “Wolverines.” It's a common punch-line but its true, think we are mean to each other? I double dare you to try something on us and see how cruel we can be to people that are not our neighbors.
It amazes me that here we are in the 21st century and there are more people than ever who seem to be living in the 19th. Clearly the high standards I had assumed were universal only existed in the imaginations of a few. Yes indeed, welcome to the age of unreason! Where is the Edward R. Murrow of today?
Sadly his name is Jon Stewart and he would really like to just be a comedian.
Tim Russert was as close as we got to Murrow recently. Jack Tapper shows potential though.
“disunity by the powergrabbing of an overextended Federal Government that the founding fathers would have looked upon with horror.”
Which founding fathers? Almost immediately, the Federal Government began throwing it's weight around. The Whiskey Rebellion began because the big distillers in Philadelphia were given a huge tax break while federal tax collectors went out into the hinterlands of western Pennsylvania to levy higher taxes on the small, home-based distillery businesses. Worse, the Government wanted cash money, which was hard to come by in a barter based economy.
You are right about State's Rights, the Civil War settled that argument. If a State can't quit the union, then it loses it's ace card or another way to say it is that “People went into the war saying, “The United States are” and came out saying, “The United States is.”
I find that people that complain about “our founding fathers” really don't know much about them or the history of their times.