[Peace-discuss] on Kucinich and Paul

Tue Nov 13 21:36:31 CST 2007

In The Rights of Man (1789), Thomas Paine wrote in response to Edmund Burke's denigration of the French Revolution:

  "It was not against Louis XVI, but against the despotic principles of the government, that the nation revolted. These principles had not their origin in him, but in the original establishment, many centuries back; and they were become to deeply rooted to be removed, and the Augean stable of parasites and plunderers too abominably filthy to be cleansed, by anything short of a complete and universal revolution.

  When it becomes necessary to do a thing, the whole heart and sould should go into the measure, or not attempt it. That crisis was then arrived, and there remained no choice but to act with determined vigor, or not to act at all.

  The King was known to be the friend of the nation, and this circumstance was favorable to the enterprise. Perhaps no man bred up in the style of an absolute king, every possessed a heart so little disposed to the exercise of that species of power as the present King of France.

  But the principles of government itself still remained the same. The monarch and the monarchy were distinct and separate things; and it was against the established despotisim of the latter, and not against the person or principles of the former, that the revolt commenced, and the Revolution has been carried.

  Mr. Burke does not atttend to the distinction between men and principles; and therefore, he does not see that a revolt may take place against the despotisim of the latter, while there lies no charge of despotism against the former.

  The natural moderation of Louis XVI contributed nothing to alter the hereditary despotism of the monarchy. All the tyrannies of the former reigns, acted under that hereditary despotism, were still liable to be revived in the hands of a successor. It was not the respite of a regin that would satisfy France, enlightended as she was then become.

  A casual discontinuance of the practise of despotism, is not a discontinuance of its principles; the former depends on the virtue of the individual who is in immediate possession of power; the latter, on the virtue and fortitude of the nation. In the case of Charles I and James II of England, the revolt was against the personal despotism of the men; whereas in France, it was against the hereditary despotism of the established government.

  .....Every office and department has its despotism, founded upon custom and usage. Every place has its Bastille, and every Bastille its despot. The original hereditary despotism, resident in the person of the king, divides and subdivides itself into a thousand shapes and forms, till at last the whole of it is acted by deputation."

"C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote:
  Is there a German Chancellor whom you "like"? How about a Premier of 
the Soviet Union? Or a Chairman of the PRC? Are those questions as 
reasonable as which president you like? If not, why not?

There is a sort of pre-political -- and even proto-fascist -- view 
(which I think Karen doesn't share) that if we could just elect a "good" 
president (= one we like) then everything would be OK. (For people my 
age, the example is often that "good" John Kennedy...)

I think this is dangerous and unhistorical nonsense. For understandable 
historical reasons, the United States had to be said to be founded on 
laudable, even democratic principles: even then it was impossible to get 
the 1787 constitution ratified without adding more of those principles 
(the Bill of Rights). But from its beginnings, as anyone who looks at 
the matter can see, the US too has been the sort of political society 
described by the protagonist of Thomas More's Utopia (1516):

"When I consider any social system that prevails in the modern world, I 
can't, so help me God, see it as anything but a conspiracy of the rich 
to advance their own interests under the pretext of organizing society."

When we recognize that that's who our leaders work for, we have several 
choices. First, you can hope for the coming of good leader -- a 
president you like -- who will do the right things. This was a common 
view three generations ago, when the leaders of Germany, Russia, and the 
Untied States were each acclaimed as such a leader. (The German term 
for the notion was "Fuehrerprinzip," and we make a mistake if we think 
it only an historical curio.)

Or you can recall what has been frequently pointed out, notably by David 
Hume at the beginning of his First Principles of Government (1748):

"Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs 
with a philosophical eye than the easiness with which the many are 
governed by the few; and to observe the implicit submission with which 
men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. 
When we enquire by what means this wonder is brought about, we shall 
find, that as force is always on the side of the governed, the governors 
have nothing to support them but opinion. 'Tis therefore, on opinion 
only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most 
despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and 
most popular."

That means that within all the high-sounding principles of (any) 
government, effort must be exerted to bring that opinion in line with 
the facts. And that of course means that you have to find out what the 
facts are. In the absence of an accurate analysis, the best will in the 
world can only err, or be correct by accident. --CGE

John W. wrote:
> 
> So what Carl is trying so very hard to say (or perhaps NOT to say) is 
> that there is NO President in the entirety of American history that he 
> likes. :-)
> 
> 
> 
> At 03:03 PM 11/13/2007, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> 
>> Having been reared in Virginia, I've always been partial to Cyrus 
>> Griffin. Of course, his office was undermined by the treasonous 
>> assembly in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787. They'd all sworn 
>> allegiance to the Articles of Confederation and were supposed to 
>> suggest only improvements, but instead made an executive power-grab 
>> because they were afraid that only a militarily strong executive could 
>> put down the movements toward social transformation underway at the 
>> time (e.g., Shays' Rebellion).
>>
>> The Philadelphia putschists were consciously trying to roll back the 
>> clock on democracy, in order to protect wealth: as their chronicler 
>> (James Madison) said, the coup they engineered that year was designed 
>> "to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority." So 
>> poor Cyrus (named for the Persian king who allowed the Jews to return 
>> to Jerusalem) had to go. (He then went off to negotiate personally 
>> for reconciliation with the Creek nation, as he had done in regard to 
>> Great Britain fifteen years before.)
>>
>> For more recent times, we have the lapidary judgment of Noam Chomsky, 
>> "If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American 
>> president would have been hanged."
>>
>> Before the war H. L. Mencken is supposed to have said, "One party 
>> always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other 
>> party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right..."
>>
>> I'd suggest, if you haven't read it, a recent edition of Howard Zinn's 
>> People's History of the Untied States, which tells the story with the 
>> politics left in. We usually get only the jingoist version. --CGE
>>
>>
>>
>> Karen Medina wrote:
>>
>>> Carl,
>>>
>>> I pick on you because you are a historian, is there a president that
>>> you did like? I'd be especially interested in comparing that person's
>>> campaign rhetoric and their deeds.
>>>
>>> -karen medina
> 
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