[lit-ideas] Re: Feedback please

[John McCreery <mccreery@xxxxxxx>]

Damn, damn, damn.  Here, at any rate, should be the text-only version.

=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D


Ideas to Think About (2): The Great Experiment

In the first posting in this series, I proposed that Republicans have=20
positioned themselves as adherents of the proposition that America is a=20=

Sacred Mission and that Democrats should take the opposite view that=20
America is a Great Experiment. Responses to this thought suggest that=20
we need to think a bit more about what labeling America =93a Great=20
Experiment=94 means.

Few, if any, of the Founders themselves were under any illusion that=20
the institutions they created by writing the Constitution were divinely=20=

revealed and fixed for all time. They were, after all, revolutionaries,=20=

who had fought to overthrow another set of institutions still largely=20
grounded in the notion that kings rule by divine right.

As James MacGregor Burns explains,


" They conceived of themselves as engaged in a grand =91experiment=92=97a=20=

word they often used=97the outcome of which would shape their nation=92s=20=

destiny, and hence their own and their posterity=92s, for decades to=20
come. They saw themselves=97in a word they would never have used [it=20
wouldn=92t be coined for another century]=97as pragmatists, as men =
thinking=20
their way through a thicket of problems, in pursuit of that goal."


The nation had won its liberty, but the victory had not resulted in=20
more prosperity, security or equality for its citizens. Shays Rebellion=20=

in Massachusetts showed how close the new nation was to falling apart.=20=

As they worked on the Constitution, struggling to address these and=20
other problems, the Founders found small comfort in the classics of=20
political thought they read.


"Glumly they recalled the apparent lessons of history: that republics=20
had disintegrated as they descended the fateful road marked by steps=20
leading from LIBERTY TO DISORDER TO ANARCHY TO POPULAR DESPOTISM and=20
finally to TYRANNY."

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The system of checks and balances they devised in the new Constitution=20=

was not designed to ensure that the body politic would be free from=20
conflict=97no such thing is possible=97but, instead, to ensure that =
equally=20
damaging tendencies to monarchy, oligarchy and mob rule would, if all=20
went well, be set against each other in a manner that would keep the=20
damage under control, ensuring civil order and creating an environment=20=

conducive to economic growth. No party or special interest would be=20
able to impose its unimpeded will. There was, the Founders believed, no=20=

other way to preserve the liberty to which, as revolutionaries, they=20
had pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor.

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John L. McCreery
International Vice Chair, Democrats Abroad

Tel 81-45-314-9324
Email mccreery@xxxxxxx

 >>Life isn't fair. Democracy should be. <<

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[lit-ideas] Re: Feedback please