Education, Philosophy, Political Commentary

Those Nutjob Founding Fathers

11 Comments

Obama tells students, hey, don’t sweat this tyranny stuff. Big Brother Barack loves you!

As others point out, this experiment in self government was born from a justified fear and rejection of tyranny. Yeah, what would George Washington, John Adams or James Madison know about tyranny? And then there’s this wingnut:

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and those will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

Man, that black guy, Fred Douglas, must be one of those crazy militia types.

Jonah has more thoughts:

I like America’s instinctual fear of tyranny. It is single best bulwark against, you know, tyranny. It’s a bipartisan tendency by the way. Conservatives tend to fret most over government exceeding its Constitutional authority to encroach on civil society. The left tends to fret over excesses in the government’s constitutional obligation to protect our citizens from crime and foreign threats. Libertarians have an abundance of both concerns. Not surprisingly, I tend to find the left’s excesses more annoying than the right’s (“Oh no, the state is trying too hard to fight our enemies!”) but both instincts are healthy and shared to one extent or another by all Americans. It is the fundamental dogma of Americanness and I for one would hate to see it erode further.

It’s just another facet of the president’s lack of understanding of the founding principles, and his deep aversion to limited government and Constitutional principles.

11 thoughts on “Those Nutjob Founding Fathers”

  1. Not only is our entire system predicated on a distrust of government, the Constitution itself screams that distrust. Limited, enumerated powers. In case that wasn’t clear, a Bill of Rights to absolutely ensure the protection of key liberties.

    And the Founders and other great libertarian thinkers in the U.S. said again and again that government was a necessary evil (not good) that had to be watched closely at all times, or it would become dangerous. Like George Washington said, “Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

    Skepticism and distrust of government may be the one thing that, historically, could truly be called the core American value. We do not submit to the inevitability of government absolutism, nor do we easily surrender our liberties. At least, we didn’t used to do those things.

  3. But none of this shows that Obama neglects the political thoughts of that era, it just shows that he might have spent his time reading the political tracts that explained that King George was like our father and that we should trust and obey him.

  4. From the moment it is formed all governments are tyranny because they can never do the will of the entire population. The question is not, is it tyrannical. The question is how tyrannical is it?

    We have gone so far down the road to tyranny that we have a president saying not to worry. That’s too far.

  5. If the Founding Fathers had imagined income taxes, border fences, and the Transportation Security Administration, they probably would have decided to stick with King George.

    Of course, even King George was a crazy libertarian according to some of the people who post here. He did not require travelers to even show a passport when entering the country.

  6. I liked Glenn (“Instapundit”) Reynolds’ comment on Il Dufe”s “Trust Me” speech to the kids: “Also, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”

  8. Wondering why Baghdad Jim hasn’t stopped by yet to tell us that Il Dufe’s remarks were taken out of context.

    1. The man can’t spend *all* day copying and pasting articles from Talking Points Memo. The man has a business to run managing three programmers, thus making him an expert on every industry.

  9. I happen to like this particular quote attributed to Machiavelli:

    Whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it.

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