As Fukuyama writes on page 188, "An American politician could harbor
ambitions to be a Caesar or a Napoleon, but the system would allow him or
her to be no more than a Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan - hemmed in by
powerful institutional constraints and political forces on all sides, and
forced to realize their ambition by being the people's 'servant' rather than
their master."
Presidents, perhaps all of them, have had people rabidly hate them. We look
back at the evidence of what these presidents did and find they were just
ordinary presidents doing the best they could. Some of them made mistakes,
but the allegations of those who hated them, and virtually all of them had
those who hated them, were largely unjustified. History looks back on many
of these haters as being unbalanced. . People hated and tried to kill a
number of our former presidents and we hardly know why. They were unhinged
by their hatred. We look at the cartoons attacking Monroe, Teddy Roosevelt,
Harding, FDR, Truman and marvel. Those doing the attacking and hating are
but footnotes in the history books, testimonies to the difficulties those
presidents had to overcome in order to perform their duties as servants of
the American people.
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Andreas Ramos
Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2006 10:08 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Shall Iran blink or shall we?
From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
On page 193 of The End of History and the Last Man, Fukuyama writes, "We
value praise or recognition of our worth much more highly if it comes from
somebody we respect, or whose judgment we trust, and most of all if it is
freely given rather than coerced. (...) Or, to take a more political
example, the satisfaction of a Stalin or a Saddam Hussein on hearing the
adulation of a crowd that has been bused into a stadium and forced to
cheer
on pain of death is presumably less than that experienced by a democratic
leader like a Washington or a Lincoln when accorded genuine respect by a
free people.
When I read that paragraph a few weeks ago, I thought about Bush.
He was here in Palo Alto a few years ago. He came back last Friday for two
days.
" ... when accorded genuine respect by a free people."
Let's see: it wasn't announced at all that Bush would be here. No mention in
the papers.
Why? It would give the population enough time to organize demonstrations.
On Friday afternoon, Bush shows up and is taken to a secret meeting.
He then went to Stanford. Or, tried to go to Stanford. People in Palo Alto
blocked the
streets to keep him out. He had to cancel the meeting and was taken to
another undisclosed
location.
That is genuine respect, shown by a free people. Bush is a liar and he is
corrupt. His
administration is in shambles. He can not show his face in public in
America.
yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com
