Let's Be Honest

Benjamin Franklin famously said to someone that the Founding Fathers had given us a democracy/republic, "if [we could] keep it."

In the 1860s, this country fought a Civil War, because almost half the country didn't believe in universal freedom and democracy for all Americans.

It took until the early 20th C for women to be given the right to vote.  Until then, many Americans didn't want them to have that right.

Very recently, some right winger said we were about to have the "second Revolution," which would be bloodless, "if the left chose it to be."  This person was really saying that the result of the first Revolution, which gave us freedom and independence (from England) was not what the right wing wanted.  We need a "second Revolution," because the first Revolution turned out to be an unwanted mistake.  They realized that in their opinions, the US Constitution was wrong to have anticipated that democracy would be "perfected."  It's not much of a surprise that a number of them now want to dismantle the Constitution.  You can use Charmin, or you can use copies of the Constitution.

The issue was not that we couldn't keep the democracy/republic the Founding Fathers had given us.  It's that many of us don't want a democracy/republic.

The people who lost the Civil War, or the presidential election in November, 2020, don't accept the losses, because they don't believe in representative government where the representatives are chosen by election by all Americans, to represent the interests of the public.

We have recently been reminded how many Americans do not accept the idea that women have independent rights.  (Well, OK, it's not so many people, but they've mindlessly put in power people who do think women don't have independent rights.  And they don't think men have rights, either.  If a pregnancy results where no one wanted it, and both people made an effort to prevent it, they've still surrendered their right to make decisions.)

And whose idea was it that people from anywhere could just up and come here, and make a better life for themselves?  Well, yeah, the Pilgrims, the Irish, the Chinese, the Germans, the Cubans, and many other groups.  But we now appreciate much better what a messy din of people, many of whom have accents, that is.

We either made a mistake with these efforts at universal liberty, or some of us changed their minds.  And those of us who think a mistake was made, or who changed their minds, ought to admit it.  We can take all rights away from women, re-enslave Africans, and give ourselves back to England.  Although the latter is complicated, because the British wound up emulating us, and they now rely primarily on an elected representative government, instead of a monarchy, so maybe we'd do best giving ourselves to the most primitive Muslim country we can find: no rights for women, unflinching execution without fair trials, and an Imam to make all the rules.  And if we choose the right one, they can enslave us, too, as they do the Yemenis.  It gives us the added bonus of a crushing theocracy, which a number of us seem to crave anyway.  What difference does it make if school children (boys, of course) are required to learn the "ten commandments," or if they have to pray to "allah" five times a day?  It's all invented, but at least it provides the structure that a number of people prefer.  And you don't get reliable structure when anyone in society can have the freedom to do more or less whatever they want, and make their own decisions.  Somehow, in the headiness of it all, it seemed like a good idea at the time.