It's About Doing the Wrong Thing

Dear  America,

good morning new world.

good morning Thoreau.

" 'that government is best which governs least;'

and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically.  Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe,  -- 'That government is best which governs not at all;'  and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.  Government is at best an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient...

This American government, -- what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity."

Well now,  now that the president has imagined himself a full mandate to have the will to do and do what he will, let's stop looking forward for a moment and recollect a particular week in a day in the life that has come to pass.

Like the one when Newsweek declared, "We are all Socialists Now."  

After vilifying republicans for socializing our banking industry, the editors of Newsweek just laid it out for us little people:

"If we fail to acknowledge the reality of the growing role of government in the economy, insisting instead on fighting 21st-century wars with 20th-century terms and tactics, then we are doomed to a fractious and unedifying debate. The sooner we understand where we truly stand, the sooner we can think more clearly about how to use government in today's world."

The term "we" not being all the same, we  might add.

For the full scoop, see Tim Graham's blog on Newsbusters, here. And the original Meacham piece, here.

More Thoreau:

"The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it."

Indeed; we are in quite the state now; the role of government has been "abused and perverted before the people can act through it."

Now what?

Hence the mounting petitions to the government for secession. 

"All of this is unfolding in an economy that can no longer be understood, even in passing, as the Great Society vs. the Gipper. Whether we like it or not—or even whether many people have thought much about it or not—the numbers clearly suggest that we are headed in a more European direction. A decade ago U.S. government spending was 34.3 percent of GDP, compared with 48.2 percent in the euro zone—a roughly 14-point gap, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In 2010 U.S. spending is expected to be 39.9 percent of GDP, compared with 47.1 percent in the euro zone—a gap of less than 8 points. As entitlement spending rises over the next decade, we will become even more French." Jon Meacham, just one of 51% of Americans who doesn't mind turning a little French

Back to Thoreau:

"Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? -- in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable?  Must the citizens ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator?  Why has every man a conscience, then?  I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward."

amen.

It's a lesson as old as time; perhaps  this is a good time to remind ourselves 'two wrongs don't make a right.'

This is not the time to lose all good conscience -- even if it's been done before, Mr. Meacham.

And yet, America seems to be evolving, organically,  systematically, right on cue, just as timely as the arrival of the changing season on Walden Pond.

This is our government now.

Back to Thoreau:

"A very few, -- as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men -- serve the state with their conscience also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.  A wise man will only be useful as a man, and will not submit to be "clay," and "stop a hole to keep the wind away [quoting Shakespeare]," but leave that office to his dust at least --

[and again, he's quoting more Shakespeare] 

I am too high-born to be propertied, 

To be a secondary at control, 

Or useful serving-man and instrument, 

To any sovereign state throughout the world."

...All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable....

...Our legislators have not yet learned the comparative value of free trade and of freedom, of union, and of rectitude, to a nation.  They have no genius or talent for comparatively humble questions of taxation and finance, commerce and manufactures and agriculture.  If we were left solely to the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonable experience and the effectual complaints of the people, America would not long retain her rank among the nations....[and can we get a shout out from the town square with a snarky 'no duh' here]

...There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly." [double DUH]

Working on that Christmas list early this year [if you happened to have missed the first thing, it was for Americans to be 'all in' for America, mentioned just a couple of days ago] -- you know what else I want?  I want more men like this.

The thing is -- it would seem as if 'we' have all turned to clay; and worse, we are modeling ourselves from a state of total corruption in every way as if it's totally acceptable.

Sure, maybe in light of the republican governance of late, reinforcing the unmitigated and stark reality the future looks bleak if government continues down this path, it is highly troublesome; just the idea of it -- that they, too, are equally responsible and liable for the growing state of ruin in America as any other.  With any luck in the remains of the day, this realization should be a hard one to accept for every single one of us, all 100%, no party delineation needed.

But if anything else be true -- hardly does this give good cause, to reasonably become a contributing factor to authorize just more civil disobedience and fraud from our legislators until the end of time.   While this notion of a  people's mandate to a president -- to go 'all in'  -- giving government 'carte blanche' -- cannot be anything further from the truth.

Just where is the strength of conviction and good conscience of the common legislator acting on behalf of this nation's first and best intention, for the will of the common man -- to be a free people living with a government which does less, preferably nothing, at best?


Putting all grievances of the Benghazi scandal, along with the miscellaneous, and dangerous, liaisons aside -- this is the day we should find ourselves equally ashamed.

Things Known and Unknown.

Things Seen and Unseen.

It's running rampant;  even running into each another;  ideals colliding or extinguishing
and spiraling us into ruin.

No matter; doing the wrong thing is winning.
And according to some, it's what the people want.

Nothing more, nothing less.

But hey, have a nice day....  :)

Make it a Good Day, G