My Fourth of July thoughts . . .

[indianasmith]

Happy Fourth of July.




No silly memes or cute cat pictures this post.  I want to talk about what it means to be an American Patriot on our nation's birthday.  America is a nation of astonishing diversity, both in ideas and in cultures.  Yet our one of our national mottos is this: "E Pluribus Unum" - Out of many, one.  We are ALL Americans, with all our different ideas, skin colors, and religious beliefs.




   It disturbs me when I see some people on the far right or far left saying it is time for a second Civil War.  Patriotic Americans do not wish their fellow citizens dead and maimed; patriotic Americans have no desire to see American cities in flames, America's beautiful countryside turned into a battleground, America's wives widowed and her children orphaned.  The last Civil War killed 750,000 Americans - a second one, with the brutal technologies of war that exist in the modern world, would leave millions dead. 




   Right and left, Democrat and Republican, liberal and conservative, we are all Americans.  We may have very different ideas about how to run the country, about what candidates to support, about what rulings our courts should make.  But in the end, we live in one country, we salute the same flag, we are governed by the same Constitution.  On this Fourth of July, let us remember the words of a great American, at a time when the country was almost as bitterly polarized as it is today.  It was 1801, and Thomas Jefferson had just emerged as the victor in a bitterly contested Presidential election that was thrown to the House after the electoral votes ended in a tie.  This is what he said:




"During the contest of opinion through which we have passed the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. . . . . But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."




Happy Birthday, America. 

[ER]

This was a well-written dose of clear-headed optimism bubbling over with your delightful way of seeing the world and its people with a refreshing degree of hope.

To me, your Jefferson quote stirs the pot on an old question: do great times bring out the best in ordinary individuals, drawing out what shines in them, showing what is possible when a greater effort is made, or was there something indefinably singular about the fact so much greatness seemed concentrated in the small population of the thirteen American colonies? (I refer to Jefferson's capacity to think such thoughts in an age when most leaders lacked that sort of faith in the "common" man.)

David McCullough brought up the question of how it was  a collective colonial population about the same size as 21st century Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania contained a Jefferson, a Franklin, an Adams, a Washington, a Hancock, and others of their brilliance and collective gifts, and that is a stirring question to ask, how did it?

Or maybe it's as I said and monumental struggles elevate the ordinary to levels of the extraordinary. Or maybe the explanation lies in other realms, as has also been suggested.

In any case, your hopes there are founded on the best in idealism, and this nation certainly could use a contemplative time out these days.

Thank for sharing that post/blog entry.

[javakoala]

This was a well-written dose of clear-headed optimism bubbling over with your delightful way of seeing the world and its people with a refreshing degree of hope.

To me, your Jefferson quote stirs the pot on an old question: do great times bring out the best in ordinary individuals, drawing out what shines in them, showing what is possible when a greater effort is made, or was there something indefinably singular about the fact so much greatness seemed concentrated in the small population of the thirteen American colonies? (I refer to Jefferson's capacity to think such thoughts in an age when most leaders lacked that sort of faith in the "common" man.)

David McCullough brought up the question of how it was  a collective colonial population about the same size as 21st century Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania contained a Jefferson, a Franklin, an Adams, a Washington, a Hancock, and others of their brilliance and collective gifts, and that is a stirring question to ask, how did it?

Or maybe it's as I said and monumental struggles elevate the ordinary to levels of the extraordinary. Or maybe the explanation lies in other realms, as has also been suggested.

In any case, your hopes there are founded on the best in idealism, and this nation certainly could use a contemplative time out these days.

Thank for sharing that post/blog entry.

I think that is the nicest way of avoiding saying, "I have serious doubts about the future of the USA, but I like your sense of optimism."

Then again, I've have no sleep and had trouble remember what year I was born a few minutes ago.

Indy, you truly have a knack for finding hope in a pitch black room at midnight. Gotta respect that. Good post, sir.

Now I'm gonna go pet my dust bunnies and hope their cries of hunger no longer disturb my sleep.

[ER]

Oh, yeah, but then niceness defines me. The United States and outer western civilization beyond it are both on the ropes, undermined from within by the very diversity too many people think somehow gives it strength, threatened from without by a foe who is larger than we are and who is never going to go away until it destroys itself in its xenophobic, ethnocentristic crusade to eliminate all of us. But at the very least we can be polite to one another while we collectively sit through our distracted roll toward extinction, Indy is right there, as he often is right in general.

[javakoala]

But at the very least we can be polite to one another while we collectively sit through our distracted roll toward extinction, Indy is right there, as he often is right in general.

This is true. We should sound like the Canadian stereotype as we slaughter the rest of the world. "Sorry. Oh, my fault. Geez, that didn't hurt, did it? So sorry about this." It is only reasonable and humane.

Oy, do I need sleep. Snuffleupagus is muttering things about Third-World re-construction and various types of cleansing. I don't like his tone.

[indianasmith]

Try reading Karl Marx's DAS KAPITAL.
You'll be snoring in minutes!

[javakoala]

Try reading Karl Marx's DAS KAPITAL.
You'll be snoring in minutes!

Never tried that one. I did read THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO and found it to be very interesting.

[ER]

Try reading Karl Marx's DAS KAPITAL.
You'll be snoring in minutes!

Never tried that one. I did read THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO and found it to be very interesting.

Many years ago during the Cold War MI5 bugged Marx's grave at Highgate, because it was a shrine for Communists to come visit, and they (sensibly, I think) figured, hey, if they're gonna show up and implicate themselves, why not take notice? But somehow that makes me laugh.

[indianasmith]

I think an often overlooked reason for the demise of European communism is that it is the most mind-numbingly BORING philosophy in all of human history.

[Trevor]

Try reading Karl Marx's DAS KAPITAL.
You'll be snoring in minutes!

That happened to me in 1987 when I tried to read Mein Kampf: my paternal grandfather would go "Oy" if he saw me reading that. 

[clockworkcanary]

America: Where everyone should have a seat at the table. I love my American neighbors, ESPECIALLY the ones who disagree with me :) as it makes for better conversation and learning. There are many types of Americans and that's a great thing.