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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