Flight from Trantor

The Man Who Would Not Be King

Today is the anniversary of the birthday of George Washington.  His frank and honest words are quoted in the masthead of this blog.  Reading any of the writings of the Founders' now, one has to wonder whether they would stand aghast at what has become of the new country they birthed.

In his famous Letter to Touro Synagogue, Washington responds to a letter from the congregation which among other things expresses the members' rejoice at the freedoms they enjoy as citizens of the young (1790) republic.  Washington writes, "It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent national gifts. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support."

In our day, tolerance has become something of a fetish.  Count the many ways in which our political elites fail to "... give[] to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance...."  Indeed, many of them owe their careers to exciting bigotry and promoting persecution.

Would you like to come to Tea?

As it becomes ever more apparent that the new administration has difficulty planning a simple tea party, others fill the void.  My recollection of our early history is that is was a small band of radicals that pushed the colonies to the point of independence from Britain.  Is that what is happening again?  And where exactly will we find our Terminus?

UPDATE:  "Frankly, the patriots who took part in the Boston Tea Party would probably call us cowards for not responding in a more full-throated manner."

The Worst of Both Worlds.

In college, many many years ago, I thought I had determined that the greatest threat to liberty and creativity was "bigness".  Either a cog in a large corporate entity or a government bureaucrat in some alphabet agency seemed to be the usual outcomes of career decisions.  In my own career I think I steered my way through this modern day Scylla and Charybdis by pursuing self-employment and entrepreneurship.  When pressed, between the two my feeling was that government was the more malleable and forgiving if only because it was predicated on the Constitution and nominally under control of the electorate.  This predisposition contributed to a number of political decisions and attitudes over the years.

Since then I have seen AT&T, IBM, and US Steel, to name just a few of the seemingly intransigent fixtures of American economic life of the day, either reduced to mere shadows of themselves or outmaneuvered by free spirits working in garages.  Government, on the other hand, has grown incessantly, steadily, and now has taken a giant leap forward.  Like an anaconda devouring a horse, the multinational conglomerate and the Leviathan become one, with common goals and interests, one of which,and by no means the least, is the diminution of personal freedom.  I fear for my son's future.

...the same tired arguments and worn ideas....

You know:  Freedom.  Personal responsibility.  Common sense.  Prudence.

Jimmy?

"You're either with us or against us!"

Didn't a president of the United States catch a lot of heat for saying something like this about 7 years ago?  Oh, yeah, that was that Bush guy.  Right, the same rules don't apply to the non-Bush. Said Newt Gingrich, "I thought last night's speech in Williamsburg actually was a lot more like Carter ...."  Heck, Carter and the non-Bush even have the same disdainful expression on their faces when they talk down to the rest of us.

Here's a laugh:  In that Politico article linked to Newt's name above, Gingrich is quoted as saying, "What has happened in the past two weeks has absolutely revitalized the Republican base in this country, because they looked up and saw all of the House Republicans collectively having the guts to vote no and thought 'Finally we're back.'"  Outside of Beltway wonks, who really believes that anything a Republican in Congress does excites anybody?  If anything, people are getting exicted about the idea of kicking all those bums out in 2010.