Response To Bloodline of Tyranny

Received This response from a person for whom I have a lot of respect. I think he provides an interesting perspective but it I would like to change it. Any Feedback from our forum members would be appreciated.

David

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I don't mean to offend, but in my view this guy is beyond the pale. I read on and on and finally skipped to his bottom line. It seems to me he has really leaped to radical and unjustified conclusion based on his reading of history and spinning it to support his views. I suspect that he first formed his conclusion and then worked backwards to support it, sort of like the way we decided to go into Iraq..

I have huge problems with US domestic and foreign policy. On the other hand, I have worked in many countries and have difficulties with each of their domestic and foreign policies. Our system is flawed but so is just about every other one that I have become acquainted with. That is not justification for some radical restructuring which would likely bring on unintended consequences such as those we stumbled upon in Iraq.

One of the major flaws in our system is the poorly informed electorate, but that is probably equally true almost everywhere - maybe an argument for a more limited "elite" (the landholders of Colonial Virginia) electorate, not that I would advocate that. The campaign rhetoric really seems to work at the lowest common denominator. To the extent that I read or hear the entire speeches of people like Obama and Jeremiah Wright, probably equally applicable to McCain and Clinton, the sound bite presentations via the media fall far short of capturing the nuances that they understand and make their apparently simplistic positions brought down to earth.

All of this could be discussed on and on and advocates of differing views would be unlikely to agree. I don't think that such extreme conclusions as appear to be stated at the end of this guy's piece are at all constructive. They appeal to impulses which seek solutions which are probably attractive in theory, but which are unworkable in practice, e.g. hardly any of Virginia's delegates have any viable opposition. I would argue that gerrymandering is contrary to the intent of the founders. But I recall that Madison appealed to the Baptists within his jurisdiction to win his seat in the state legislature. He was effective in recognizing the dominant views of his constituents.

I am an admirer of Hamilton, so that would certainly put me at odds with the author.

A difficulty that I have seen with our relatively weak central government, is the very uneven development of social rights among the states. This allows Virginia to decide to be at the bottom of the nation in providing services to our physically and mentally disabled rather than to meet a higher standard as exemplified by Sates such as Minnesota. At the other extreme we have a president who has, perverted our system which was designed to impose some checks and balances. Working in the UK helped me to understand that our system is far superior to parliamentary forms of government which sometimes can be tantamount to an elected dictatorship. On the other hand , the UK has a mercifully much shorter period of campaigning for elections and spends a fraction of what we do, adjusting for the fact that its population is about 16% of ours.

So, in my view, the design of a political system and what to do about it is very complex, and not amenable to simple solutions, and certainly not reason to embark on some radical revolution. We can thank Madison and Hamilton with so much assistance from others to design, as Madison put it, a system which was the least bad of many bad possibilities. They both would be the first to agree that it was and continues to be flawed and I guess that we just have to do the best that we can to make incremental improvements.

It is funny to me that advocates today argue as if we should return to the original limits and intent of the Constitution. But my little reading of the founding fathers and the days after that and the Bill of Rights was approved indicates that everyone was arguing from the very beginning as to what the Constitution required or entitled us to. My sister has taught the constitution and I think would support that it was a controversial document. From day one, there has been no agreement as to what the constitution allowed or prevented on many issues, much less how it might be applied to a future which the founders could not imagine. I have just read a very small amount of The Federalist papers. But, I think that it is true that one can seize on various papers to support whatever view one wants to espouse, a bit comparable to selectively using verses and scripture from the Bible.

It is difficult for me to have much optimism that there will be much improvement in government for our children. A hope would be for progressive leadership that could inspire a larger number of our citizens so that we might rise to a highest common denominator rather than sink to a lowest common denominator. That is a noble wish but one that it is difficult to imagine it happening.