Summary: We have become like packs of dogs, snarling at one another – leashes held by our ruling elites. Our rulers are fracturing us in every possible way, making us better fit for their needs. The result will be a new America. But it is our choice to cooperate with them.
I have learned much by talking to the young men (in their mid- to late-twenties) whom I led when they were Boy Scouts. They are on the streets of America, standing on the fault lines that are ripping America apart. They experience what I see through abstract data. They feel things that I can only dimly imagine (reflecting the rapid and accelerating rate of change as the Left’s social engineering experiments move to the conclusions).
Social changes of large magnitude cannot be well described (as engineers say, a quantitative change of 10x is qualitative – giving it a different nature). So they use metaphors – aka memes – to convey insights. Last summer a young man gave me a haunting vision of the New America that they are joining. It is like your first day in prison. Alone you are just fresh meat, everybody’s victim. Survival requires joining a gang. This will be the biggest decision you will make during your time inside. You look around. The Puerto Ricans, the Chinese, the Blacks, the whites. I’m mostly white, so they are the only option. But the whites are nazis, white nationalists, or some other flavor of awful. What do I do?
This is a dark vision, implying that we have passed the last day with easy or pleasant options. This is multi-cultural America, shattering the social cohesion that was the greatest strength of the America-that-once-was. The history of multi-cultural societies should terrify us, as we evolve. But it did not “just happen.” They opened the borders and dismantled the assimilation machinery that served well in the past. Divide et impera replaced e pluribus unum as American policy. See economist Paul Krugman and columnist Joe Klein (skilled members of the inner party, servants of our elites) boast about this historic accomplishment.
This is a hat trick of social engineering, putting many gifts under their tree. Our elites have successfully divided us, making us easier to rule. The labor surplus pushes wages down and profits up. People from societies with no tradition of democracy are easily ruled. Much of the rural southwest is sliding into Latin America’s client-patron politics.
Ethnic and racial polarization is a powerful force of positive feedback. The more we are divided, people are increasingly forced to choose “their” team. William Lind, as usual, bluntly says the forbidden truth: the Democratic Party is becoming the anti-white party. The anti-male party, too. People are slow to see change, so they have many male and white voters who do not see that their fidelity to the new Demcoratic Party won’t save them – much like the Hollywood celebrities brought down by #MeToo accusations, unaware that they are guilty irrespective of the facts (“believe the victim”).
We are in the early stages of national fragmentation, with much worse ahead. There is lots of time for African-Americans to organize for Black Power. For fourth-wave feminists to organize for women to have advantages over men. For LGBTQ’s to force their beliefs into the education system and crush those that do not support them (expect more cases like Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission). For Hispanics, etc. For the Left to push for radical social change using the power of money, as in “Feminists Declare Victory in Colorado Town, 11-Year-Old Girls Can Now Go Topless” (they couldn’t afford to defend against the Left’s litigation).
The Hollywood propaganda machine stokes hatred along every fault line for both profits and political gain. These have been becoming increasingly explicit. Their latest product is Knives Out. It is a ham-fisted, in-your-face tale of White-people-bad, POC-good. See details here.
Our choices are the problem
“The problem is choice.”
— Neo in The Matrix Reloaded(2003).
Like cattle herded into the chutes, we have a choice between the Left or Right. We can vote for the Democratic Party and its massive social engineering experiments. Enjoy the ride to rising social conflict. Whatever the result, I suspect Americans will look back at the early 1960s as a golden age.
Or we can vote for the Republicans, who are equally loyal servants of the 1%. We get tax cuts for the rich, massive increases in “defense” spending (shiny toys, although they often don’t work), massive mergers to create cartels (eliminating messy competition), deregulation (reducing enforcement of labor and environmental regulations), and union busting. If you like inequality and a robust class system, you will love what the GOP does for America. To see its soul, follow the money.
“For the uninitiated, Paul Singer is a New York hedge fund manager who has made billions by purchasing sovereign debt from financially distressed countries. He’d offer struggling foreign governments a lifeline for their debt, then hound them with costly litigation to make a handsome profit … He bought Cabela, sold it off. It’s headquarters, Sidney, once one of the rare thriving small towns surviving the ‘brain drain,’ found itself decimated by a New York billionaire …
“He was the second biggest donor to the GOP in 2016, and has pumped millions of dollars into Republican campaigns. …He has bankrolled numerous neoconservative foreign policy shops, advocated for more permissive immigration policies, and has been a longtime supporter of pro-LGBT organizations and causes. It’s no surprise that he vehemently opposed President Trump’s ascendance in 2015.” {From an article by Emile A. Doak in The American Conservative about an expose by Tucker Carlson.}
The fallacy that put us in this hole
“We can never see past the choices we don’t understand.”
— The Oracle in The Matrix Reloaded
What an awful choice, between two sides that offer such futures for America. Which should we choose? That we see this as our choice is the problem.
We believe that we are passengers on the USS America, whining that the menu is not what people so awesome – as us! – deserve. The Founders intended that we would be the crew. We should be working the political machinery that produces candidates, not just showing up to vote among the choices given. That work is what makes America a democracy, and makes us worthy of being its citizens.
This is our problem. When we understand this, then reform will become possible.
“Every country has the government it deserves.”
— Joseph-Marie, Comte de Maistre. From Lettres et Opuscules (1811).
For More Information
Ideas! For shopping ideas see my recommended books and films at Amazon. Also, see Chapter One of a story about our future: “Ultra Violence: Tales from Venus.”
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about revolutions, about Republicans and Democrats, about factions, about the Left and the Right, and especially these…
- The pilgrimage of Martin Luther King: an antidote to amnesia about our history.
- Eco-activists benefit from white privilege. Black protesters get gas & tasers.
- We no longer trust each other, or America. It’s our core problem.
- About a cause of America’s rising tide of hatred. We can still stop it.
- Left and Right use race as a way to divide America.
- The Left embraces racism. The result could be ugly.
- An anthropologist explains white privilege: what it is & does.
- Our elites reveal their plan to govern America: divide and rule.
- Alienating poor white men for the Left’s political gain.
- About the coming civil war (our third).
Books about the light and dark
I May Not Get There with You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr.
Hitler in Hell
Agree 100% Larry. For a slightly more benign article on the “reality” of today’s politics see by James Bowman: “On the narcissism of small differences” in the New Criterion.
“For the differences between Americans in the 1830s were deep and real, not the mere rhetorical artifacts that today’s have become. Such revolutionary madness ought to be, but too seldom is, the tip-off that what we are seeing, mostly on television and in the newspapers, is not a real revolution but a post-modern one. It is a revolution staged with the help of the media and mostly taking place in the media (social media included), but characterized by such sound and fury that the media-addicted among us can easily mistake it for the real thing—to the point, even, of embracing socialism (or “socialism”), the most thoroughly discredited political philosophy there has been since there has been political philosophy, if that is what it takes to keep us à la mode. (See “Trying times” in The New Criterion of April 2018.)
“I suspect that even those of us who repudiate the would-be socialists and pretend-revolutionaries cannot entirely avoid being caught up in the post-modern fantasia, and must struggle to hang on to such shreds of detachment and self-awareness as are left to us, lest we become as blind to reality as those whom we oppose.”
Michael,
Thank you for posting that excerpt. James Bowman is consistently brilliant. I’ve reposted much of his work. But they get below-average hits, (guessing) perhaps because of his style. A mild, reasonable, slow-paced voice gets little attention in our new world.
His film reviews are esp great. Unfortunately he now does few of them, and mostly of non-mainstream films.
YES! Every day <~`> most days, I am too quickly overwhelmed by the absence of big picture thinking among my mostly liberal peers. The few conservatives that I am exposed to express the same in the trees limitations as they too cling to their sides dogma without any idea of where it is all leading us. These limitations are it seems channeling us all in the direction of: “What we really need is a benevolent dictator.”
The quote about Paul singer is from the american conservative.
The tuck is on a roll, which of course means that he must be destroyed, hence the near constant smear of him being a white nationalist.
Isaac,
Thanks for catching that! Fixed.
You are welcome.
I think that your recommendation of Cathy young has expired. Trump broke her brain, so she’s hanging out with the neocons and elite libertarians now, especially Bill effing Kristol. Right now she’s helping a dogpile on someone who dared suggest that mass purges of probalamatic people is a bad thing. The ground of the dogpile is that someone claimed that vdare was a neonazi site, and now it’s spiraling out of control.
See, tribalism. I managed to connect to the post!
Issac,
“I think that your recommendation of Cathy young has expired”
I don’t believe I recommended Cathy Young. I favorably noted some of her articles, and criticized others.
“See, tribalism. I managed to connect to the post!”
Exactly so. Once the phenomenon is seen, it appears everywhere – a connecting thread between disparate events.
Larry, excellent idea to talk to your ex-Boy Scouts to get a picture of what the next generation is facing!
I am still in contact with a few but they tend to either be the Eagle Scouts or sons of friends and they’ve got resources to work the system in their favor so the message is blunted but is similar to what you’re hearing.
One of the most chilling aspects of my recent meetings and discussions with the major political party I joined is the emphasis on getting “the right people to the polls.” There’s even a major fundraising effort to ensure that this happens. You can easily imagine the pushback I get when I ask if they are listening to themselves for autocracy. It starts with “the other guys are doing it so we have to do it too” and goes downhill fast.
They’ve stopped sending me notifications of when the next local meetings are going to occur but I can get that information through other means.
NowMindfulHeart: “These limitations are it seems channeling us all in the direction of: “What we really need is a benevolent dictator.””
To a certain extent, that is how FDR came to be viewed during the 1930’s. As Larry mentioned earlier, Hoover did a lot of the work that eventually led to the end of the Great Depression but being humble was definitely not one of FDR’s strengths so he took the credit. Fortunately the Republicans of his era kicked back a pretty hard and the US courts struck down a lot of FDR’s more innovative proposals.
Trump is setting the Republicans up for an epic failure in 2020 if the Democrats can ever find a candidate that they can all back like Obama in 2008. I’m concerned that the Democrats have learned too much from Trump about how to bully the country, the Congress, and the courts to avoid further wrecking the current US government. They already knew all about obstruction from previous experience.
Discovering that the “beneviolent” dictator has lost the “bene” part after we’ve placed him in power would be a very bad experience for everybody in 2020.
Choose wisely when you vote and don’t avoid making the hard choices or they will come back to haunt you.
So how about the multi cultural Roman Empire? Some of the most loyal Republicans I have known were Asian, and Hispanic. It appears to me that the multi cultural US Navy I served with for over 20 years is a mix of races with a common belief in America.
A former manager in the restaurant business told me what I long believed. His instruction from the owners was do not hire whites, and blacks, hire illegal’s. Smells like Donald Trump to me. Capitalism brought about the social experiment we are experiencing.
The Republican Party has some good basic ideas. Unfortunately the Party has been hi-jacked by bigots. Get back to those basics.
James,
“So how about the multi cultural Roman Empire?”
That was a long time ago, and the world has changed several times. The multicultural empires all crashed during the 20th century, the Soviet empire was the last to die. All of them, from Rome to the USSR, relied on force to crush the centrifugal aspirations of the parts that sought to tear it apart. Since Mao brought 4GW to maturity after WWII, that has consistently failed.
More importantly, modern states differ from those before in that they require high levels of legitimacy to work well. Since the creation of nation-states in the late 18th C, States glued together by force lack that – and are increasingly outperformed by those that do.
“appears to me that the multi cultural US Navy”
Using the military as a model of society is a popular genre of political science. Make us all privates, ruled under military discipline by a few Leaders On Horseback. All our problems will go away! Look around. Military-like states seldom do well.
“Smells like Donald Trump to me.”
I think that’s just in your mind. Trump-derangement syndrome, the equivalent of those saying Obama wasn’t a natural US citizen – and those saying that the president (everyone back to Bush Jr) is Hitler. It’s the kind of folly that makes the 1% believe that they are better suited to rule than the public.
“Capitalism brought about the social experiment we are experiencing.”
First, capitalism is an economic system. Political decisions, like open borders, are made by political leaders. Conflating the two is just confusion. The US has both capitalist and non-capitalist elements in it.
Second, almost all of the politicians advocating for open borders (and subsidies for immigrants) are Democrats. That is the relevant fact today.
China’s multi-ethnic state is still around. Perhaps only because they are placing Han colonies everywhere and committing genocide.
Rando,
“China’s multi-ethnic state is still around”
That’s not only wrong, but backwards. “Multi-ethnic” means that there is no one dominant ethnic group. China is 92% Han Chinese. Very few large states are so homogenous.
The USA has never been that homogenous, going back to the Founding. In 1750, almost a quarter of the non-native population were Blacks from Africa.
Larry,
Running a democratic government is hard work. We may no longer be up to it. Our system was in my view built on compromise. It has not always been for the best, but it kept one branch of government from gaining too much power. Donald Trump has a good deal of difficulty in this area. His background is largely hidden, and not transparent. His contacts, and business deals with the old USSR, and Putin raise questions of loyalty. Someone with that background would have difficulty getting a clearance for Top Secret info. There is no background check for a President or Presidential candidate. The suspicion that Trump is comprised and working for Russia is not something that will go away without a lot more transparency.
I stick by my example of the military, and different races, and cultures simply because, for me, it dispelled beliefs I had of the inferiority of other races.
Common beliefs, fair treatment, and shared suffering are more important than race. Judge people as individuals, not by color.
Like it or not, we have a multi cultural society. I would agree that it would be easier or even better if we were of one race, culture, and religion. There are two worlds, the real and the ideal. It will never be ideal. Even within families there are differences. So I hear from Trump, and some of his supporters talk of civil war. Be careful what you wish for.
Trumps solution is to exclude all points of view but his own. So what exactly is your solution?
I agree that we should control immigration. Both parties have a history of turning a blind eye to the problem. I also believe liberal Democrats have immigration ideas that are unworkable. I would agree that conservative beliefs are best for the nation, however conservative is not whatever Trump tweets today. Trump and the party are rigid, and demand total loyalty, The right is packed with conspiracy’s and double standards.
I believe, if the Republican Party was really inclusive, seeking those with conservative beliefs vs race, it would be a winning formula. I don’t see it happening. The Party is on a set track, with a set mindset, demanding complete loyalty, and unwilling to listen or debate a different point of view.
I am an Independent because I believe neither Party will save the Nation.
James,
“I stick by my example of the military”
People always say the military is a model for the nation. The fantastic repeated failures when tried never discourages people.
“Like it or not, we have a multi cultural society.”
That’s grossly missing the key points of the debate. There are two relevant public policy debates. First, should we have open borders – and even subsidize immigrants (to further boost their numbers)? Second, should we rebuild the assimilationist machinery that worked so well in the past – or have a multicultural society that discourages assimilation? “NO” answers to these two questions can drastic and irreversably reshape America in a generation. You might not like the result.
“Trumps solution is to exclude all points of view but his own.”
I’m uninterested in the childlike my political foes are evil so I’ll make up bad stuff about them. Yes, I know Trump is Hitler. Just like Obama. Just like Bush Jr. So long as our politics are discussed in such fictional terms, we will continue to be ruled like a pack of dogs. Perhaps that’s what we are, and this is for the best.
“I agree …”
No, we don’t. You don’t like the menu, complain, and wish for something more suited to our awesomeness. I say that attitude is the problem. Not Trump. Not the two parties.
“I am an Independent because I believe neither Party will save the Nation.”
Declaring yourself to the flavor of the month is irrelevant.
LK: and those saying that the president (everyone back to Bush Jr) is Hitler.
Let me fix that for you Larry: and those saying that the president (everyone back to Nixon/Agnew) is Hitler, and fascist too.
No thanks necessary. ;)
John,
Just to be clear (probably unnecessary) – I was mocking the “President X is Hitler” insult.
“the president (everyone back to Nixon/Agnew) is Hitler, and fascist too”
I doubt that anybody said that Presidents Ford or Carter were “Hitler” or “fascist.”
I know, it is just so many exaggerate; I thought I should join in. Sorry, head cold day, few things humor me.
John,
Best wishes for a fast recovery. I hope you got your flu shot! Flu season is coming soon.
Larry,
So what I believe I learned as the result of military service is irrelevant simply because you are anti military?
Multicultural society, soon whites will be the minority. That, in my conversation, with other white’s is what they fear. At least that’s what they tell me.
No we should not have open borders, and I do believe we should control immigration. We cannot take everyone who wants to come here. I believe we need to drastically cut back on immigration.
Trump looses support when he demonize’s these people. He has lost support among conservative’s I know because of how he frames the issue.
As for assimilation, we have a ways to go with the minority citizens we now have.
A white friend told me, in a discussion on race and hiring, “We don’t hire niggers where I work even if they are qualified”. This is not an unusual comment.
I don’t think anyone is happy with assimilation that’s been going on since the civil war.
Trumps solution is to exclude all points of view but his own. Trump does not appear to take advice. Rex Tillerson, and John Kelly would seem to agree. I’m sure you have reason to discount them too. Kelly, no doubt because he was military.
As per the military we take orders to engage in military operations like Iraq, and Afghanistan from politicians. Often our job is to make the best of a bad decision. Remember, Kelly’s son died in that fight.
James,
(1) “So what I believe I learned as the result of military service is irrelevant simply because you are anti military?”
I said nothing even remotely like that. I suggest that you read before replying with smears.
(2) “I don’t think anyone is happy with assimilation that’s been going on since the civil war.”
Bizarrely false. The US has successfully assimilated large numbers of immigrants from all over the world. This was done though well-thought-out and executed policies, most of which have been assimilated. The forced immigrants from Africa have assimilated well, and made large contributions to America. The process was only partially done due to resistance from the non-African majority, a legacy from humanity’s (not America’s) “original sin” of slavery. But even there progress has been made in the usual fits and starts – after the long hiatus from the end of Reconstruction in ~1870 to WWII.
The problem now is that our official doctrine is multiculturalism – which says that assimilation is neither necessary nor desirable. It’s the fast-track to a broken nation.
(3) “A white friend told me, in a discussion on race and hiring, “We don’t hire niggers where I work even if they are qualified”.”
Congratulations on your annec-data! I know a person who believes the Earth is flat, and a Wiccan – but I don’t generalize to the whole American population from them. I’ve done hiring for several companies, including one of America’s largest financial services firm. In all of them, they were desperate to hire qualified minorities – including African-Americans. Those in that pool do well. Our broken schools (deliberately so, to some extent, by Leftist policies) and inner-city pathologies make that pool smaller than it can be.
Another indication that your annec-data is increasingly unrepresentative of America is the high and rising rate of inter-marriage among races. That alone will eventually solve the problem, albeit at far too slow a pace.
(4) “Trumps solution is to exclude all points of view but his own.”
Repeating stuff you’ve made up doesn’t make it true. However, in the real world senior people are often self-centered on their perspectives. That’s true of many CEOs, generals, rich people, top-ranked doctors and many others.
(5) “Trump does not appear to take advice”
Obviously false. Trump’s judgment is poor and he is ignorant, so he tends to take advice from similar people. On the other hand, he has made few changes to US policies – many of which he promised to change – showing that your statement is bizarrely false. To mention the obvious, we have military operations running in a score of nations – accomplishing nothing, with no likely gain to US national interests. Today’s WaPo story about Afghanistan shows that Trump has listened to his military advisors and continued that mad and incompetently conducted war.
(6) “As per the military we take orders to engage in military operations like Iraq, and Afghanistan from politicians”
Bizarrely false. The senior generals and admirals have a gigantic influence on national policy. Look at biographies of presidents and military leaders going back to JFK. I suggest starting with The Virutal JFK, about the Vietnam War. Often presidents bow to the generals, fearful that the generals will go to Congress and the public – stirring emotions that will override prudent statecraft.
Trump has not even been able to get us out of Syria, despite trying for 2 years – and despite the military’s policy being quite nuts.
Hitch a ride aboard Greta’s borrowed $900,000 plastic yacht, equipped with two 30hp Volvo dirty diesel engines, just in case.
Do it for the children, whatever “it” may be.
The TV told me if I pay money to the Democrats the weather will be gooder.
Ron,
You’re making stuff up. Please stop, or do it elsewhere.
Quick question related to my post
Is vdare actually what everyone says it is, or has the overton window shift towards open borders so much that they get called neonazies
Isaac,
That’s an important question. I don’t read vdare. But the Overton Window has unmistakably and drastically shifted to the Left. See the treatment in public spaces of trans activists and “Drag Queen Story Hour.”
During the past few generations, the Left has gained power in many of America’s “high ground” institutions – esp the media and academia. Now they’re using it to remold America. Step by step.
Their success is measured in the lack of awareness of Americans as to how much we have changed. It is essential when herding cattle into the stockyard chutes that they be kept calm – and unaware of what lies ahead.
Having grown up abroad in a former French colony with many French people in my community, it is hard for me to view female toplessness as “radical” social change.
Besides, we’ve survived routine male toplessness for decades – and please don’t tell me that breasts are erotic in a way that the male chest and shoulders are not. I know many women and gay men who beg to differ!
Margaret,
“it is hard for me to view female toplessness as “radical” social change.”
If you had grown up among cannibals, you wouldn’t regard serving the “long pig” at Thanksgiving as a radical change.
Your thinking reveals the typical leftist mad scientist at work. You know almost nothing about the complex and subtle social dynamics that make a society (any society) function. Yet you think you can switch parts between societies in a child-like fashion that would be considered nuts by teenagers (of any gender) fixing a 1985 Chevy.
The effect on a society of people like you at the controls is like that of a troop of monkeys let loose in the control room of a nuclear power plant. The only question is the magnitude of the resulting bad news.
Sooo what are the terrible consequences you foresee if women end up sunbathing publicly or mowing the lawn without shirts on? Also, this is not a “top down” change (no one like me is “at the controls”); rather, it is a change that allows women to choose and thus for change to occur naturally and organically (or not at all) based on the free choice of individuals. As such, it is the opposite of the dreaded “social engineering” you often invoke.
Margaret,
“this is not a “top down” change (no one like me is “at the controls”)”
It is a top down change. There was a law, which has been repealed by the force of external money applied to a small community. The external leftists funding the litigation were people like you. That they forced this change is them “at the controls.”
“Sooo what are the terrible consequences you foresee”
If you grab a beaker in a laboratory and consume the contents, what will happen? I doubt you will find solace in the fact that the consequences are unpredictable. Fiddling with controls of systems we poorly understood produces unpredictable changes. Most unpredictable changes are bad.
That’s why large social changes in the UK-US society have been both incremental and done with popular consent. That’s why we have been successful.
That you don’t understand this is what makes you and others like you so dangerous. You are the equivalent of the mad scientists in Golden Age comic books. Drunk with power, eager to experiment on us.
Larry,
It was not “the force of external money applied to a small community” (oh those poor underdogs!) that led to the repeal of the City’s ordinance. (NOTE: Fort Collins, Colorado is hardly a tiny community or even a “town;” it is a well-populated city of over 150,000.) The ordinance was repealed because it violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution. That clause (along with the precedent interpreting the clause prohibits the government from treating the sexes differently unless doing so is substantially related to an important government objective.)
The concept of equal protection as applied in this case is not some new-fangled, lefty idea but rather is the result of consensus (through the process of amending the Constitution to add the 14th Amendment) and the slow accumulation of precedent. Far from being the underdog, it is the City of Fort Collins that wants to impose its will and sexualized concept of women’s bodies on the women within its borders in a way that deprives them of equal protection of the laws.
Margaret,
(1) 150 thousand people is a small community in the US. Fort Collins is the 4th largest city in Colorado, which makes it small by US standards. It would be one of the larger cities in the East Bay California area (population 2.5 million), which is one of the several suburban areas around the 15th largest city in the US.
To say it is “well-populated” is meaningless gibberish.
(2) As to why the ordinance was repealed, read the news article. The city spent $322,000 to fight the lawsuit. This is how leftists work: filing such litigation against small communities or individuals who cannot afford to fight their well-funded teams of attorneys. Create precedents, which are then applied against others by leftist-friendly judges. It’s called Lawfare.
(3) “The concept of equal protection as applied in this case is not some new-fangled, lefty idea”
The average women on the street would say you were nuts to say that repealing laws about going topless is not “some new-fangled, lefty idea.” They would be right.
“The Founders intended that we would be the crew. ”
With all due respect, this is entirely mistaken. Our founders envisioned a classically educated, Christian, Anglo Saxton, male, elite who would guide the nation. Just look at who could vote in our early republic.
In fact this set up worked for a very long time, it’s no accident that our decline can be traced to the decline of that same WASP elite.
I respect your writings, and you’re one of the few who can see what is occurring. But there’s never been a civilization in the history of the world that was ruled from the bottom up, attempts to create one are just as utopian as the left’s attempt to make a genderless society.
J. Allen,
“Our founders envisioned a classically educated, Christian, Anglo Saxton, male, elite who would guide the nation. Just look at who could vote in our early republic.”
That’s a legitimate point, if a bit over-stated. Most of the voters were not classically educated. Roger Sherman had no formal education, but was the only one to sign the big four: the Continental Association, the Declaration, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution. The non-Anglo-Saxon communities were allowed to vote. I doubt that the Founders considered them second-class citizens, or assumed that they would not politically contribute to the nation.
But I doubt in their wildest dreams that the Founders imagined that women would vote – or that America would have large non-Christian population. So you have a powerful point.
On the other side – I believe that the words of the Declaration and Constitution stand by themselves as the best expression of their beliefs.
“But there’s never been a civilization in the history of the world that was ruled from the bottom up,”
Athens was, and their contributions are remembered and valued 2500 years later. And America was governed “bottom up” in its best years – from roughly 1900 (and more so after 1932) until we lost our way in the 1970s.
J Allen,
In a stunning bit of blindness, I omitted one group from my list. Restating that correctly, with the addition in italics.
None of my business (Canadian), so I’ll just say, Bravisimo! Hope and dignity have helped many through the darkest nights.
“If there is hope, it lies in the proles” ~ George Orwell
peasant,
Thank you for those uplifting words! And especially for the Orwell quote (which is new to me).
Lol!!! How on earth did you get that from Knives Out? Just nuts!
Voyeur,
I didn’t “get it.” It’s from the reviews, one of which is cited.
In what way is it incorrect? Saying “it’s nuts” tells us nothing.