A Long Comment

Hysteria has run amok over at The Smallest Minority....apparently the time has "passed for reasoned discourse." I wanted to reprint my comment on Kevin's post here in case anyone else wanted to chime in.

With all due respect to Cindi, discussing Iraq and how that fits into the "Common Sense" culture you dream about IS on topic. Since he was mentioned in this post,

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Benjamin Franklin said this in the early part of 1775. He also said, "There was never a good war or a bad peace." So, Kevin, you can't have it both ways. And while I agree with you regarding Dr. Paul's insane ideas on the topic of international relations, if you are for "common sense" you should NOT be in support of anything the Patriot Act offers nor invading Iraq and all that comes with it.The world that many of you fear has been here the last eight years and most of you have cheered it on. You have supported neo conservatism by allowing our citizens, as well as citizens from abroad, to be rounded up, without trials nor representation, and sent to prison. Why? Because they were Muslim.

In fact,"your" Franklin "your" Jefferson, "your" Adams, "your" Madison, "your" Washington and "your" Paine have nothing in common with modern day conservatism and I suspect that most if not all of them, if they were alive today, would be vilified by most right wing bloggers. Why, Franklin's quote from above would have elicited calls of treason and cowardice.

In a draft of the Constitution, Jefferson wrote, "All persons shall have full and free liberty of religious opinion; nor shall any be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious institution." How do you think that idea plays with "The Base?" Jefferson, btw, was a devotee of the Muslim faith and his copy of the Koran was used in Keith Ellison's swearing in ceremony.

John Adams said "There is something very unnatural and odious in a government a thousand leagues off. A whole government of our own choice, managed by persons whom we love, revere, and can confide in, has charms in it for which men will fight." Indeed, government can work if the right people are in it. He also said, "Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it." There is whole lot of the superstition and dogmatism coming from the right these days.

James Madison said, ""If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." No shit.

George Washington said, "Every post is honorable in which a man can serve his country." According to writings on this blog as well as the right wing in its current form, serving your country means being a socialist. Or is it fascist? I can never keep track. Any time the talk of common good comes up, screeding flames of death burst forth from the right. He also said, in a letter to Madame Lafayette, "Democratical States must always feel before they can see: it is this that makes their Governments slow, but the people will be right at last." Imagine if he had said that today. The f word? Suffering Jehosaphats! What ever would the response from the right be?

And, finally, Thomas Paine, on whom this post was based, said in Common Sense, "It is of the utmost danger to society to make it [religion] a party in political disputes. Mingling religion with politics may be disavowed and reprobated by every inhabitant of America." Paine would not even be a candidate for janitor in the GOP in its current form.

He also said (quoted here many times), "Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer."

We furnish the means by which we suffer indeed. If I were an alien who landed on this planet and the only information I had on America was the writings here, I would assume the end was near. Thankfully, it is not. Individual freedom and liberty aren't going anywhere, folks. Perhaps your definition of it is and let's be realistic...that's the real problem here, isn't it? It's not the you are afraid of losing your liberty. You are afraid of being wrong. So, you can try to submit the belief that you are aligned with the founding fathers ideologically but every time you do, I am going to be there to call you on your bullshit. And, as a postscript to this very long comment, history has already proved that you are wrong.

In the 1930s and 40s, we came closer to a socialist state then we ever did. And what was the result? We defeated the greatest army this world had ever seen..."strong arming" GM btw. We built a strong economy and had more regulation than we do today. We had a 91 percent tax rate on the top one percent and built the national highway system because of it. This allowed our economy to expand even further and, in a hilarious bit of irony, allowed some of you to go on to very successful careers in engineering.

Happy for you ideologically but perhaps sad for future engineers and innovators, those days are gone and will never come back. Our country has moved too far away from allowing any sort of government institution (NASA for example) that kind of power. Look at the hysteria over the government's temporary involvement in the banking industry and Detroit recently. As Alan Greenspan and many others said in the CNBC documentary "House of Cards" (shown to me by last in line recently and fully torpedoing any last shred of an idea that blames government for our current issues), the corporation and free market rule the day and will forever.

Gordon Gecko would be proud and all of you, rather than gathering pitch forks and torches, should be happy.

I shudder with anticipation at what the response is going to be:)