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

Marcus Aurelius: "The Wise"

“A man’s thoughts are the threads of which the fabric of his days are woven.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius Augustus (“the Wise”; 121 A.D. to 180 A.D.) was Roman Emperor from 161 to his death in 180. He was also considered one of the most important Stoic Philosophers, and his Meditations are reknowned for their clear-mindedness and logic.

Some of my other favorite meditations include:

“If you’re pained by any external thing, it is not this that disturbs you, but thy own judgment about it. And it is in your power to wipe out this judgment now.”

“Take away your opinion, and there is taken away the complaint, [...] Take away the complaint, [...] and the hurt is gone.”

“Words that everyone once used are now obsolete, and so are the men whose names were once on everyone’s lips: Camillus, Caeso, Volesus, Dentatus, and to a lesser degree Scipio and Cato, and yes, even Augustus, Hadrian, and Antoninus are less spoken of now than they were in their own days. For all things fade away, become the stuff of legend, and are soon buried in oblivion. Mind you, this is true only for those who blazed once like bright stars in the firmament, but for the rest, as soon as a few clods of earth cover their corpses, they are ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ In the end, what would you gain from everlasting remembrance? Absolutely nothing. So what is left worth living for? This alone: justice in thought, goodness in action, speech that cannot deceive, and a disposition glad of whatever comes, welcoming it as necessary, as familiar, as flowing from the same source and fountain as yourself.”

“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own-not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine.”

There are many ways to acknowledge another person.

Caritas

You can acknowledge another person with a greeting, a nod, a wave, a salute, and many many other ways.

It seems though, we do a mediocre job acknowledging one another. We pass each other by, each in our own little cacoon…, because we’re too busy or too distracted to do otherwise.

If we are so mediocre at acknowledging others, it makes you wonder how well we practice the virtue of ‘charity’, which is a concern for, and active helping of, others.

In this fresco from the Middle Ages, which is in the Arena Chapel in Padua, Italy – Charity holds a basket of wonderfully painted fruit in the one hand, and with the other receives a heart handed to her by God the Father.

This fresco should serve to remind us, when our pride and our egos get too big, that all of our talents are on loan from above.

Since we were made in His image it would do well for us to acknowledge him in all we do–and then as Saint Augustine teaches: “pray as though everything depended on God, and work as though everything depended on us.”

It would be…, the greatest courtesy.