Tag Archives: The United States

America’s Threat from Within

26 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by in Freedom, Politics

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Joseph Story

“Let the American youth never forget that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of their ancestors; and capable, if wisely improved, and faithfully guarded, of transmitting to their latest posterity all the substantial blessings of life, the peaceful enjoyment of liberty, property, religion, and independence.

The structure has been erected by architects of consummate skill and fidelity; its foundations are solid; its compartments are beautiful as well as useful; its arrangements are full of wisdom and order; and its defences are impregnable from without. It has been reared for immortality, if the work of man may justly aspire to such a title. It may, nevertheless, perish in an hour by the folly, or corruption, or negligence of its only keepers, THE PEOPLE.

Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people in order to betray them.”

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From the 2nd edition of Joseph Story’s Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1851).

More on the threat from without:

Joseph Story

Can We Be Optimistic about America’s Future? (Yes, Says Charles Krauthammer)

02 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by in Freedom, Politics, Speeches

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Charles Krauthammer

“Looking down the road, to the future of the United States, I… I really am, despite the burden of our current problems, optimistic.

If you believe, as I do, in the political ideology of liberty; in the importance of an open civil society, and that the relationship between the citizen and the state should be a limited one, then I think you must believe that, if we can advocate those ideas clearly enough, we will win out in the end. And when you take away the other contaminants — the personalities, the contingencies, the financial crises, the Congressional gridlocks, the things that are confined to ‘the times’ — those ideals will survive for another generation. And that’s why I think, in the end, reality does win out. That’s why I’m confident.

Let me just end by saying that I’ve always had a sense that there is something providential about American history — and this is from somebody who isn’t strictly religious. But here is a nation founded on the edge of civilization by a tiny colony, living on the outskirts of the civilized world — one that, at a time when it needs it, miraculously finds within its borders the most brilliant generation of political thinkers in the history of the world. Then, a century later, when it needs a Lincoln, it finds a Lincoln. Then, in the 20th century, when it needed an FDR to fight and destroy fascism, it found it. When it needed Reagan to revive the country, it found one. And I don’t think there is a Reagan or an FDR on our horizon.

But there’s something about American history that redeems itself in a way that should inspire even the most pessimistic cynic. The way I would summarize the root of this feeling is by quoting my favorite pundit, Otto von Bismarck. He’s not known for his punditry, but he did famously say that, “God looks after four things: children, drunks, idiots… and the United States of America.”

I think he still does. I hope he still does. Thank you.”

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Charles Krauthammer, speaking off-the-cuff at the closing of his address to last summer’s Bradley Symposium.

More from Bradley:

Andrew Sullivan and Christopher Hitchens: What Country Would You Live In?

23 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by in Journalism, Politics

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Andrew Sullivan and Christopher Hitchens

Brian Lamb: If you had to choose a country to live in, besides Great Britain and the United States–

Christopher Hitchens: India. I love India. It’s the only place I’ve ever felt sort of instantly at home. It must seem incongruous when you look at me.

Brian Lamb: And Andrew?

Andrew Sullivan: I would die. I wouldn’t live anywhere else.

Brian Lamb: You would not pick anywhere else?

Andrew Sullivan: No.

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Two British transplants, Andrew Sullivan and Christopher Hitchens, reflecting on where they would live and their love for the United States during a joint interview with C-Span in February, 2002. Both men, though born in the United Kingdom, became American citizens in the last decade.

Watch the whole thing — but this particular segment is below.


The Top 10 American History Posts of 2013

09 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by in History

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American Flag

1. Thomas Jefferson’s Advice to His Teenage Grandson (from a letter sent to the 16-year-old Thomas Jefferson Randolph on November 24th, 1808)

“I was often thrown into the society of horseracers, cardplayers, Foxhunters, scientific and professional men, and of dignified me; and many a time have I asked myself… which of these kinds of reputation should I prefer?”

2. Great Men Cultivate Love by Booker T. Washington (from his autobiography, Up from Slavery)

“I would permit no man, no matter what his color might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him…”

3. ‘The Light Has Gone Out of My Life’: Young Teddy Roosevelt in Love and Grief adapted by me (from Edmund Morris’s Theodore Rex)

“When, as ex-President, he came to write his Autobiography, he wrote movingly of the joys of family life, the ardor of youth, and the love of men and women; but he would not acknowledge that Alice ever existed…”

4. Whether I Stand High or Low in the Estimation of the World by John Adams (from a letter to his wife, Abigail, on July 1st, 1774)

“I will not willingly see blockheads, whom I have a right to despise, elevated above me, and insolently triumphing over me. Nor shall knavery, through any negligence of mine, get the better of honesty…”

5. The Fourth of July According to Ronald Reagan (from a 1981 essay)

“In recent years, however, I’ve come to think of that day as more than just the birthday of a nation. It also commemorates the only true philosophical revolution in all history… Ours was a revolution that changed the very concept of government.”

6. When and How You Should Break the Law by Martin Luther King (from his televised interview on Meet the Press, March 28th, 1965)

“…  I don’t think any society can call an individual irresponsible who breaks a law and willingly accepts the penalty if conscience tells him that that law is unjust.”

7. Meet John Adams by David McCullough/ Meet Thomas Jefferson by Jon Meacham

“Adams could be high-spirited and affectionate, vain, cranky, impetuous, self-absorbed, and fiercely stubborn; passionate, quick to anger and all-forgiving; generous and entertaining. He was blessed with great courage and good humor, yet subject to spells of despair, and especially when separated from his family or during periods of prolonged inactivity.”

“He drove his horses hard and fast and considered the sun his ‘almighty physician.’ Jefferson was fit and virile, a terrific horseman and inveterate walker… He delighted in archaeology, paleontology, astronomy, botany, and meteorology…”

8. ‘Tragedy without Reason?’: Robert Kennedy Endures His Brother’s Death by Arthur Schlesinger (from Robert Kennedy and His Times Vol. One)

“… he was struggling with that fundamental perplexity: whether there was, after all, any sense to the universe… He scrawled on a yellow sheet:

The innocent suffer—how can that be possible and God be just?”

9. A Shallow Pretext for Extorting Compromise by Abraham Lincoln (from his 1861 letter to James T. Hale)

“We have just carried an election on principles fairly stated to the people. Now we are told in advance, the government shall be broken up, unless we surrender to those we have beaten…”

10. Alexander Hamilton the Bachelor (from his 1779 letter to John Laurens)

“She must be young, handsome (I lay most stress upon a good shape), sensible (a little learning will do)… But as to fortune, the larger stock of that the better…”

Honorable mentions: Those Who Won Our Independence by Louis Brandeis; ‘The Strongest of the Stricken’: Robert Kennedy Reacts to His Brother’s Death by Arthur Schlesinger; The School of Affliction by Thomas Jefferson; John in Joe’s Shadow by Robert Dallek; The Great Anniversary Festival by John Adams

Stateless, But Not Voiceless

21 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by in Current Events, Journalism, Politics

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Edward Snowden

“Today, if you carry a cell phone in Sao Paolo, the NSA can and does keep track of your location: they do this 5 billion times a day to people around the world. When someone in Florianopolis visits a website, the NSA keeps a record of when it happened and what you did there. If a mother in Porto Alegre calls her son to wish him luck on his university exam, NSA can keep that call log for five years or more. They even keep track of who is having an affair or looking at pornography, in case they need to damage their target’s reputation.

American Senators tell us that Brazil should not worry, because this is not ‘surveillance,’ it’s ‘data collection.’ They say it is done to keep you safe. They’re wrong. There is a huge difference between legal programs, legitimate spying, legitimate law enforcement — where individuals are targeted based on a reasonable, individualized suspicion — and these programs of dragnet mass surveillance that put entire populations under an all-seeing eye and save copies forever. These programs were never about terrorism: they’re about economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They’re about power…

[After leaking documents] I was told my government had made me stateless and wanted to imprison me. The price for my speech was my passport, but I would pay it again: I will not be the one to ignore criminality for the sake of political comfort. I would rather be without a state than without a voice.”

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From Edward Snowden’s Open Letter to the Brazilian People.

Although I like Francis, my nomination for person of the year is Mr. Snowden, the man who did something in 2013 which was not only fascinating, but brave.

Read on:

Lady Justice

Why the Obama Administration Is Wrong about Ed Snowden

Surveillance Cameras

In Today’s News: Bridling the Surveillance State

A Shallow Pretext for Extorting Compromise

02 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by in History, Politics

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Abraham Lincoln

“What is our present condition? We have just carried an election on principles fairly stated to the people. Now we are told in advance, the government shall be broken up, unless we surrender to those we have beaten, before we take the offices.

In this they are either attempting to play upon us, or they are in dead earnest. Either way, if we surrender, it is the end of us, and of the government. They will repeat the experiment upon us ad libitum… They now have the Constitution, under which we have lived over seventy years, and acts of Congress of their own framing, with no prospect of their being changed; and they can never have a more shallow pretext for breaking up the government, or extorting a compromise, than now.”

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Abraham Lincoln’s letter to James T. Hale. January 11th, 1861. You’ll find it in Lincoln : Speeches and Writings: 1859-1865.

Two quotes:

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” — Joseph Anthony Wittreich

“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” — André Gide

Both can now be found on the quotes page.

Read another sublime letter from Lincoln below:

Abraham Lincoln

The Bixby Letter

Our Relationship to Our President

18 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Politics

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Steinbeck

“The relationship of Americans to their President is a matter of amazement to foreigners. Of course we respect the office and admire the man who can fill it, but at the same time we inherently fear and suspect power. We are proud of the President, and we blame him for things he did not do. We are related to the President in a close and almost family sense; we inspect his every move and mood with suspicion. We insist that the President be cautious in speech, guarded in action, immaculate in his public and private life; and in spite of these imposed pressures we are avidly curious about the man hidden behind the formal public image we have created. We have made a tough but unwritten code of conduct for him, and the slightest deviation brings forth a torrent of accusation and abuse.

The President must be greater than anyone else, but not better than anyone else. We subject him and his family to close and constant scrutiny and denounce them for things that we ourselves do every day. A Presidential slip of the tongue, a slight error in judgment — social, political, or ethical — can raise a storm of protest. We give the President more work than a man can bear. We abuse him often and rarely praise him. We wear him out, use him up, eat him up. And with all this, Americans have a love for the President that goes beyond loyalty or party nationality; he is ours, and we exercise the right to destroy him.”

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From John Steinbeck’s essay “Government of the People,” published in his 1966 book America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction.

I had never heard about this lesser-known work of Steinbeck’s until yesterday, when I read William Vollman’s essay “Life as a Terrorist: Uncovering My FBI file” in the newest edition of Harper’s magazine. In this account, the FBI’s bumblings and hysterical misappraisals of Vollman and his friends are counterposed to the sagelike voice of Steinbeck, that most native of American authors, whose understanding of the American project — especially its sincerity and idealism, and how it may be cynically twisted by the powerful — still echoes into our own age.

I highly recommend Vollman’s essay as well as Jonathan Franzen’s “A Different Kind of Father”, a look at literature and paternalism, in the September edition of Harper’s.

The Great Anniversary Festival

03 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by in Freedom, History, Politics

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John Adams

Philadelphia

July 3rd, 1776.

Evening

Yesterday the greatest question was decided, which ever was debated in America, and a greater, perhaps, never was or will be decided among Men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony “that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states, and as such they have, and of right ought to have, full power to make war, conclude peace, establish commerce, and to do all the other acts and things which other states may rightfully do.” You will see in a few days a declaration setting forth the causes which have impelled us to this mighty revolution and the reasons which will justify it in the sight of God and man. A plan of confederation will be taken up in a few days…

I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations, as the great Anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp, shews, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of the continent to the other, from this time forward forever.

You will think me transported with enthusiasm; but I am not. I am well aware of the toil, and blood, and treasure, that it will cost us to maintain this declaration, and support and defend these states. Yet, through all the gloom, I can see the rays of light and glory; I can see that the end is more than worth all the means, and that posterity will triumph, although you and I may rue, which I hope we shall not.

John Adams

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A letter from John Adams to his wife, Abigail Adams. You can put it on your shelf — My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams.

Throughout the next day, I’m enrolling myself (as I think we all should) in a self-taught crash-course in the history of American liberty, beginning with King George III’s Proclamation Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition, then the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom, The Declaration, and The Constitution. Part two will orbit other figures: George Washington, Mark Twain, Thomas Paine, Patrick Henry, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Samuel Adams, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass, Anna Howard Shaw, Theodore Roosevelt, Jack Kerouac, George Washington Carver, Sam Houston, Ronald Reagan, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and others.

I think of these as the champions of our great American tradition of individual liberty, moral courage, opportunity — not the commercialized, commoditized, flag-waving, beer-chugging junk that to so many Americans now represents our Independence Day.

This is the best of our proud tradition, and it’s the material we need to ventilate and reflect upon now, perhaps, more than ever. I’m going to be posting the best of it here throughout the next day, so stay tuned.

Read another letter from Adams:

John Adams

Whether I Stand High or Low in the Estimation of the World