We’re all Republicans now. We’re all Federalists now.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Are we every going to move beyond demogoguery and ideological stalemate?
Are our elected representatives ever going to be able to work together constructively to do the will of the American people?
Is the United States a democracy “of the people, by the people, for the people”, or is it an oligarchy “of corporate interests, by corporate interests, and for corporate interests?”
Perhaps our representatives on both sides of the aisle, and the journalists whose opinions that pass as news should stop shouting long enough to remember Thomas Jefferson’s words from the very 1st inaugural address.
His words are very much in the spirit of Barry Goldwater, when he said “To disagree, one doesn’t have to be disagreeable”.
If we are a society of people like the one that I imagined I grew up in…, a people that cares about ideas and ideals…, a people that cares about our neighbors…, a people that cares for those who cannot take care of themselves…, there is one word that will solve our problem:
Respect.”
Let’s stop the personal attacks. And let’s start showing some respect.
Respect for elders. Respect for our neighbors. Respect for the other guy. Respect for ourselves. Respect for the truth. Respect for our world.
Let us, then, restore civility to our civic discourse (”without which liberty and life itself are but dreary things“), and let us show the world we are still the world’s best hope.
Let’s show some respect, and (1) work together to take responsibility for our country’s problems, (2) implement practical ideas that will build the foundation for a society that cares about our world and the people who live in it, and (3) give ourselves the chance to create real opportunities for sustainable growth.
We owe it to ourselves, our children, and future generations of Americans.
~~~
The 1st Inaugral Address, by Thomas Jefferson, 1801
[...] “All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.
During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety.
But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this Government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world’s best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest Government on earth.” [...]
~ Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 1, 1801
