“But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom can never be restored. Liberty once lost is lost forever.” John Adams to Abigail Adams, 1775
Watching the news these days is like watching two trains barreling down a single track, each in the path of the other. You can't remove your eyes from the impending disaster.
I am very afraid of what's going on in our country. It seems to me that neither political party is working for the good of the United States, but rather for the good of the party. And in the case of the Republicans this is especially troubling because they are a badly fractured bunch. With all the infighting in Washington, what I'm seeing are many dangerous opportunities for those who would like to see our democracy fail to take advantage of those weaknesses. Where is the unity upon which our Republic was founded? A unity created by two separate parties with differing agendas who nonetheless were willing to work together for the benefit of all Americans despite all their arguing and bickering? We would do well to remember what the founding fathers really were. They were men who had put their lives on the line to give themselves and everyone then and now precious freedoms. Stop arguing over what they supposedly said or intended. Just remember what they were really all about. And that was no less than liberty based on common sense, mutual respect, and mature self control.
Those who have read my previous essays know what I think of Trump. I have not liked the man from the moment I first learned about him way back in the 80's. When he won the presidential election I wasn't disappointed, I was horrified, because I knew the kind of damage he was capable of. Unfortunately, everything I expected to happen, has. The one thing remaining is a civil war and if we don't get a grip on ourselves that is where we are going to end up.
I was raised a military brat. I was indoctrinated early on with the spirit of loyalty to our country. That loyalty means embracing it, warts and all, and doing my part to preserve it. We are not a perfect society by any means, but we have a framework that should hold us together despite our differences, because we have the right to those differences. We share a right to respect, for both ourselves and for each other. We need to grow up and stop acting like spoiled children all wanting their way or the highway. We need to remember the priceless gift that was given to us by brave people willing to die for the cause of freedom.
Because if we don't, we'll lose it all.
c. 2022
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The Republic barely got started when there was a coup attempt by Benedict Arnold who shot Alexander Hamilton to death in a duel. A kind of gentlemanly shootout.
After watching Trump parade to the press and Lord over his The Apprentice for 10 years, I saw nothing presidential in his behavior. Acting like a spoiled child, proven by his unwillingness to just give up the presidency like all the other presidents have and his willingness to defy the law by taking sensitive documents of the people to his house like they belonged to him.
Robert Heilbroner was an economist and historian who wrote many books. He wrote a book in 1967 called The Limits to American Business that I used in my course for MBA students in my course, public policy and private enterprise. I contrasted this pessimistic book with a more optimistic book by John Galbraith. In the book, Heilbroner described the people of the world on the all riding on a single train. The very poor were in cars that looked like those that the Nazis transported the Jews in the front of the train. While in the back of the train riding in cars that rivaled the imagination for their opulence and services were the very, very rich. And the train was hurtling towards a cliff where the very poor would go off the cliff first, but since the world economy was basically all one train, the end of the train would be pulled over the cliff by the front of the train's weight.
Ron