I spent a couple of hours reading your book on Independence Day. I admire your accurate exposition, and your smooth, descriptive writing style. Your good writing has reinforced my sense of depression.
I found myself in complete agreement with your analysis, and ruefully, your forecast. My natural optimism is injured because I don't think our culture is up to the challenge. Our concerns and pursuits show the kind of decadence common in the later years of the Roman empire unable to assert its identity and defend its sovereignty. We now only give lip service to the idea of American exceptionalism; it is a vestigial concept unless we return to the practice of the principles of liberty centered on personal responsibility and the rights of individuals, not blocs. The disintegration of the e pluribus unum idea verges on the fatal. We are a fragmented population and polity, stuck in rigid interest groups defined by narrow objectives that have lost sight of the big, crucial issues you focus on in your book. The system rewards favored ethnic groups with political power by constantly irritating their deep-seated, never to be requited grievances. The so-called moderate majority is self-sedated against the perils of our addiction to the favors of a bureaucratic state that may no longer be dispensed.
Your final chapter is a fine piece of rational exhortation, but given our decadence, I fear that it won't get us out of this mess. Will enough of us strive to overcome the drivel of pandering politicians? Will enough of us focus on the big picture to forge a reality-based consensus about what government should and should not do? Will we force our congressional capos to make the necessary changes?
Or was Plato correct about the superiority of a philosopher kings to manage a society compared to the tyranny of democracy and excesses of tyrants? History shows us again and again that "the man on the white horse" usually becomes a tyrant. Even so, the virtuous Roman consul, a Cincinnatus-type leader with immense capability (does one exist?) is what we seem unable to produce. Do we need such a leader to shake us out of our torpor and help us return to sanity?
I am now depressing myself. I need a break.
Cordially,
Larry Greenberg
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Outstanding letter and commentary.
ReplyDeleteWe (the United States) have already had our encounter with Cincinnatus. He was President from 1789 to 1796. Meeting him again--with a different name--seems unlikely. Countries just don't get that lucky twice.
Ron Pittenger
While human nature has not altered significantly since the fall of the Roman empire, forms of governance certainly have evolved.
ReplyDeleteThe 'modern' nation-states were forged in a European crucible, after empires and monarchies led to two world wars and adoption of Marxist and fascist models. The universal adoption of Marxist bureaucracy merged with oligarchic fascism (Mussolini-Gentile definition of fascism is the alliance of a powerful central govt with corporations) in America has ended in the totally predictable antitheses: the Tea Party and OWS movements.
They are, respectively, producers and small businessmen and housewives, yearning and striving to return to the Constitution and rule of law -- versus students and other largely parasitic 'free spirits' yearning for even more freebies from government.
Marx is failing quite famously in shaking the European Union to its socialist foundations just now, and (arguably) the D.C. Leviathan is not far behind, unless the Tea Party loses its way before gaining real traction in history.
Although Congress and the US Supreme Court have violated it egregiously since the 1870s-80s 'Legal Tender Cases' and 1912-13 'Federal Reserve Act' (with respect to counterfeiting and corrupting America's currency and credit) and 'the Insular Cases' (with respect to plundering foreign peoples and places in total violation of the Constitution) -- there is nothing wrong with the U.S. Constitution.
If enforced, it can still put an end to the shenanigans and crimes pulled by all three branches of the federal servant that now operates as our master.
Log on to TeethForTheTeaParty dot com to view a short video and walk through a quick tour of AmericaAgain! Trust and the AmericaAgain! Indictment Engine(tm), the most realistic, effective mechanism allowing just 1% (or fewer) of the American people to enforce the Constitution, restore lawful currency and honest banking, and shrink fe3deral government radically -- all in just a few years' time.
With Rick Perry or Ron Paul in the White House, and with the Tea Party holding together for just a few more years, we can take this battle back to the states -- hundreds of state criminal courts -- and we can push our own reform legislation through Congress, with a very sharp stick to help things along.
View the video, read the quick tour, and if you like, read my book 'This Bloodless Liberty', available at B&N online and at Amazon. You will see that, far from being a time for pessimism and depression -- Americans have the opportunity to make the coming generations the most blessed in our history, since first colonization.
D.M. Zuniga
Founder, AmericaAgain! Trust