…Don't you long term doubters ever support the government?
Shall we consider the words of James Madison?
…When a state of war becomes absolutely and clearly necessary, all good citizens will submit with alacrity to the calamities inseparable from it. But wars are so often the result of causes which prudence and a love of peace might obviate, that it is equally the duty and the characteristic of good citizens to keep a watchful, tho' not censorious eye, over that branch of the government which derives the greatest accession of power and importance from the armies, offices, and expences, which compose the equipage of war. In spite of all the claims and examples of patriotism, which ought by no means to be undervalued, the testimony of all ages forces us to admit, that war is among the most dangerous of all enemies to liberty; and that the executive is the most favored by it, of all the branches of power. The charge brought against the French Directory adds a new fact to the evidence which will be allowed by all to have very great weight and to meet the particular attention of the United States.
It deserves to be well considered also, that actual war is not the only state which may supply the means of usurpation. The real or pretended apprehensions of it, are, sometimes of equal avail to the projects of ambition. Hence the propagation and management of alarms has grown into a kind of system. Its origin however is not of recent or even moderate date. The Roman Senate, and Athenian demagogues understood it as well as Mr. Pitt or any of the mimics of his policy. Nor ought it to be doubted, that the stratagem will readily occur to every government that can with impunity and without animadversion, indulge that "unlimited passion," which the frankness of our President has declared to be an attribute of human nature.
An alarm is proclaimed — Troops are raised — Taxes are imposed — Officers military and civil are created. The danger is repelled or disappears. But in the army, remains a real force, in the taxes pecuniary measures, and in the offices a political influence, all at hand for the internal interprizes of ambition. But should no other pretext present itself, one may possibly be found in the jealousies, discontents, and murmurs excited by the very danger which threatens.
The whole field of political sciences rich as it is in momentous truths, contains none that are better established or that ought to be more deeply engraven on the American mind, than the two following:
First. That the fetters imposed on liberty at home have ever been forged out of the weapons provided for defence against real, pretended, or imaginary dangers from abroad.
Secondly, That there never was a people whose liberties long survived a standing army.
Political Reflections
Aurora General Advertiser, February 23, 1799
constitution.org
Or the more oft-quoted (as least on the web):
Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.
War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.
In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.
The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manner and of morals, engendered in both.
No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war, a physical force is to be created; and it is the executive will, which is to direct it.
In war, the public treasuries are to be unlocked; and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them.
In war, the honors and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed; and it is the executive brow they are to encircle.
The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venal love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace
James Madison, from "Political Observations," April 20, 1795 in Letters and Other Writings of James Madison , Volume IV, page 491.
Madison’s opinion was grounded in history – from Athens to Rome to the Europe from which many “Americans” of that time had fled. He stated the above as truism because mankind hadn’t changed.
Has mankind so changed in the 200 years since that his words are no longer valid?
I would submit that it has not, and the citizenry’s first duty is not to support the government blindy but to keep “…a watchful, tho' not censorious eye…” on the executive.
And to be clear, in these essays, Madison, was criticizing to some extent the Government of the United States.
“…The latter theme Madison repeated in his two Aurora General Advertiser essays: "Foreign Influence" and "Political Reflections." Political scientists who tend to forget that Madison wrote significantly more than Federalist No. 10 should read these essays. Although Madison's original handwritten drafts of these essays, the first signed "Enemy of Foreign Influence" and the second "A Citizen of the United States," have not been located, the editors provide abundant evidence to persuade any reasonable Madison scholar of the essays' authenticity. They reveal much about Madison in this period. The first presents him at his rhetorical best. A brief essay intended for mass public consumption, it attacks Federalist attempts to focus public attention on the French threat rather than the British and implicitly acknowledges the importance of moving public opinion to the republican cause. At moments subtly, at others grossly obviously, Madison reminds his readers that "Great Britain, above all other nations, ought to be dreaded and watched" (p. 215). He deftly informs readers that power and influence come in many forms, not the least worrisome of which is British financial influence on American banks and the American press. He observes that "British influence steals into our newspapers, and circulates under their passport. Every printer, whether an exception to this remark or not, knows the fact to be as here stated" (p. 220). "Political Reflections," perhaps even more subtle and vicious in its assault on the Adams regime, begins by equating knowledge with power. Madison then laments that most Americans do not have adequate information to make informed judgments on the French Revolution. He skillfully analyzes that revolution, turning back on the Adams administration the Federalist allegation that it would lead to tyranny by suggesting that Adams was employing the foreign threat to divert public attention from the real danger to liberty at home….
virginia.edu
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