Wow what a article of cognitive dissonance and self delusion. I had much more thorough frisking with my own thoughts but will instead let a better arguer and wordsmith than I, do most of the heavy lifting.
But to highlight some of the issues I have with the Claremont article.
“Over the past fifty years the rules of public and even of private life in America have well-nigh reversed, “
So what we have been all down hill since 1970? or is it round down so say from 1968 or maybe say 56 years? What has gotten worse in those 56 years as the article cites.
“…Altogether, they have transformed a constitutional republic into an oligarchy at war with itself as well as with the rest of society. The U.S. Constitution and the way of life lived under it are historical relics.
Our ruling class transformed America’s regime by instituting a succession of scams, each of which transferred power and wealth to themselves. These scams’ blending into one another compel us to recognize them, individually and jointly, as the kind of governance that Augustine called “magnum latrocinium,” thievery writ large. Thievery of power even more than of money—colloquially, scamocracy.”
I was going to cite the Declaration of Independence and the beautiful ideals it cites and the failure of the constitution to live up to those ideals as a scam, and concentrated power in the states oligarchys and the times we had tried to live by the ideals cited in the Declaration but have fallen back till the 1968. The 1968 voting rights act finally gave all men equal vote. That this article wants to recede the hard earn progress to achieving the ideals declaration of independence back to pre 1968 levels is a scam.
But as David French’s article does a much better job of generically stating my case and covering much of the same bases.
“The American founding declared universal principles: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” But then its constitution and laws granted only a particularized and narrow defense of those rights.
Even the Bill of Rights, sweeping in its language, was extraordinarily limited in its scope. It originally restrained only the actions of a small and relatively weak central government. The ink blot of liberty was tiny. The only people who could confidently assert those universal rights were a small class of white male property owners clustered on the Eastern Seaboard of the new United States.
Everyone else, to a greater or lesser extent, lived still within the ordinary state of nature, with slaves, as always, the most vulnerable of all. But the combination of a universal declaration of liberty — and the obvious joy and prosperity of its exercise — created an unbearable tension within the new nation. There was a tension between our founding ideals and our founding reality.”
…
“But it’s a mistake to think that our chief task is to point backwards, to look at the immense gap between slavery and freedom, between Jim Crow and civil rights, and believe that our work has been done. One does not undo the consequences of 345 years of legalized oppression in a mere 56 years of contentious change. Instead, our task is to continue the struggle to match American principles with American reality. It’s to spread the ink blot — to continue the American counterinsurgency against the chaos of history.”
So the Claremont article prefers the 345 years of legalized oppression and Oligarchy.
I was also going to question how does the Defense of Marriage act, live up to the ideal of Declaration of Independence of “that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” and the negation of this act allows men to pursue the happiness as their god given right declared in the Declaration.
Wow what a article of cognitive dissonance and self delusion. I had much more thorough frisking with my own thoughts but will instead let a better arguer and wordsmith than I, do most of the heavy lifting.
But to highlight some of the issues I have with the Claremont article.
So what we have been all down hill since 1970? or is it round down so say from 1968 or maybe say 56 years? What has gotten worse in those 56 years as the article cites.
I was going to cite the Declaration of Independence and the beautiful ideals it cites and the failure of the constitution to live up to those ideals as a scam, and concentrated power in the states oligarchys and the times we had tried to live by the ideals cited in the Declaration but have fallen back till the 1968. The 1968 voting rights act finally gave all men equal vote. That this article wants to recede the hard earn progress to achieving the ideals declaration of independence back to pre 1968 levels is a scam.
But as David French’s article does a much better job of generically stating my case and covering much of the same bases.
So the Claremont article prefers the 345 years of legalized oppression and Oligarchy.
I was also going to question how does the Defense of Marriage act, live up to the ideal of Declaration of Independence of “that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” and the negation of this act allows men to pursue the happiness as their god given right declared in the Declaration.