I would encourage you to read this entire article but if you cannot, at least read this... When the full mosaic of new governmental powers is considered, and the full array of rights curtailed in the United States, we are left with a disturbing question of self-identity. We more often seem to define ourselves by what we are not than by what we are. In the summer of 1787, a telling moment occurred after a crowd gathered around Independence Hall to learn what type of government had been created for the new nation. When Benjamin Franklin walked out of the Constitutional Convention, Elizabeth Powel could wait no longer. Franklin was one of the best known of the framers working on the new U.S. Constitution. Powel ran up to Franklin and asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin turned to her and said what are perhaps the most chilling words uttered by any framer: “A republic, Madam, if you can keep it.” It may be that it is not the presidency that has changed. We have changed. As a nation, we seem to have grown almost bored with rights like privacy and due process. We have been passive and pedestrian in watching the rise of an uber-presidency. We no longer view ourselves as directing our government, but as merely bystanders watching matters outside our control. Worse yet, we seem to have lost not just our identity but even our interest in governance. It was a republic when Franklin was stopped by Powel. I am not sure that most citizens today would even have stopped him to ask. “Democracy … soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself,” John Adams once said. “There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” What is truly sad is that if one of the greatest republics in history did die, it is not clear if anyone would even notice its passing.
Posted on: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 02:26:48 +0000
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