> It’s the elites who have taken to carving out the people’s brains with a melon baller,
Ayn Rand says that virtually all of the history of Western philosophy is a rationalization of evasion. Where is there a discussion of reality in the 623 pages of the _Critique Of Pure Reason_?
Only two: [1] a well educated citizenry created by a fair media, honest academics, and diligent patriots, and [2] a return to the American culture based on freedom, individualism, opportunity, and equality. We must remember that in a democracy, the political class follows, it does not lead.
I think first step to establishing the the conditions required for restoring republican liberty would be to understand the concept of "liberty" and how we arrive at it.
This requires understanding what a rights-protecting government is, which in turn requires understanding what individual rights are, which in turn requires understanding the more fundamental philosophical groundings on which all of this is built.
Intelligent, balanced. Bravo for the inclusion of Greek and Roman historians when speaking of democracy. Government corruption, political instability, economic problems, led to the fall of Rome, from which those who lead us should take lesson.
The Romans recognized that their political system could become dysfunctional and harmful to the commonwealth and so the office of dictator for a term of years to set matters aright was a constitutional office. I hear Michael Anton raises that point in his new book.
The way back to something that might resemble the revolutionary generations’ idea of a functioning constitutional democratic republic would seem to be to go back to basics. That would involve at least tripling the size of the House of Representatives and getting rid of universal suffrage in favor of limiting suffrage to net rate payers or something like the 40 shilling freeholder test for voting that was the usual custom in the provinces before the Revolution and during the tenure of the Second Continental Congress.
In the 1640s, it was commonly thought by the parliamentarians that government office holders, their clients, tenants and dependents should be disqualified from voting. That might help, too.
Don't forget Fed 49; built up reverence for the Constitution matters, says Madison (who surely had thought of that Polybius passage before):
"If it be true that all governments rest on opinion, it is no less true that the strength of opinion in each individual, and its practical influence on his conduct, depend much on the number which he supposes to have entertained the same opinion. The reason of man, like man himself, is timid and cautious when left alone, and acquires firmness and confidence in proportion to the number with which it is associated. When the examples which fortify opinion are ANCIENT as well as NUMEROUS, they are known to have a double effect. In a nation of philosophers, this consideration ought to be disregarded. A reverence for the laws would be sufficiently inculcated by the voice of an enlightened reason. But a nation of philosophers is as little to be expected as the philosophical race of kings wished for by Plato. And in every other nation, the most rational government will not find it a superfluous advantage to have the prejudices of the community on its side. The danger of disturbing the public tranquillity by interesting too strongly the public passions, is a still more serious objection against a frequent reference of constitutional questions to the decision of the whole society. Notwithstanding the success which has attended the revisions of our established forms of government, and which does so much honor to the virtue and intelligence of the people of America, it must be confessed that the experiments are of too ticklish a nature to be unnecessarily multiplied."
Keep up the great work!
> It’s the elites who have taken to carving out the people’s brains with a melon baller,
Ayn Rand says that virtually all of the history of Western philosophy is a rationalization of evasion. Where is there a discussion of reality in the 623 pages of the _Critique Of Pure Reason_?
Only two: [1] a well educated citizenry created by a fair media, honest academics, and diligent patriots, and [2] a return to the American culture based on freedom, individualism, opportunity, and equality. We must remember that in a democracy, the political class follows, it does not lead.
I think first step to establishing the the conditions required for restoring republican liberty would be to understand the concept of "liberty" and how we arrive at it.
This requires understanding what a rights-protecting government is, which in turn requires understanding what individual rights are, which in turn requires understanding the more fundamental philosophical groundings on which all of this is built.
Intelligent, balanced. Bravo for the inclusion of Greek and Roman historians when speaking of democracy. Government corruption, political instability, economic problems, led to the fall of Rome, from which those who lead us should take lesson.
The Romans recognized that their political system could become dysfunctional and harmful to the commonwealth and so the office of dictator for a term of years to set matters aright was a constitutional office. I hear Michael Anton raises that point in his new book.
The way back to something that might resemble the revolutionary generations’ idea of a functioning constitutional democratic republic would seem to be to go back to basics. That would involve at least tripling the size of the House of Representatives and getting rid of universal suffrage in favor of limiting suffrage to net rate payers or something like the 40 shilling freeholder test for voting that was the usual custom in the provinces before the Revolution and during the tenure of the Second Continental Congress.
In the 1640s, it was commonly thought by the parliamentarians that government office holders, their clients, tenants and dependents should be disqualified from voting. That might help, too.
Don't forget Fed 49; built up reverence for the Constitution matters, says Madison (who surely had thought of that Polybius passage before):
"If it be true that all governments rest on opinion, it is no less true that the strength of opinion in each individual, and its practical influence on his conduct, depend much on the number which he supposes to have entertained the same opinion. The reason of man, like man himself, is timid and cautious when left alone, and acquires firmness and confidence in proportion to the number with which it is associated. When the examples which fortify opinion are ANCIENT as well as NUMEROUS, they are known to have a double effect. In a nation of philosophers, this consideration ought to be disregarded. A reverence for the laws would be sufficiently inculcated by the voice of an enlightened reason. But a nation of philosophers is as little to be expected as the philosophical race of kings wished for by Plato. And in every other nation, the most rational government will not find it a superfluous advantage to have the prejudices of the community on its side. The danger of disturbing the public tranquillity by interesting too strongly the public passions, is a still more serious objection against a frequent reference of constitutional questions to the decision of the whole society. Notwithstanding the success which has attended the revisions of our established forms of government, and which does so much honor to the virtue and intelligence of the people of America, it must be confessed that the experiments are of too ticklish a nature to be unnecessarily multiplied."
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed49.asp