me--> Washington, Dickinson, and others would have shaken their heads in dismay if they had come in contact with the Tea Party
you--> I think you're wrong about that. The people you mention were very afraid of a powerful government and did everything they could think of to limit any concentration of power.
No, I'm right about it Steve. First of all, the people I mentioned believed in education and reading. The Tea Party people I have read about or heard haven't read squat. Second, the people I mentioned didn't like King George, sure, but they believed in the necessity of government and in governing. Indeed, that is why the Annapolis conference in 1786 was called and led to the Constitutional Convention the next year. The central govt wasn't strong enough, it wasn't governing as it should, and the states were gradually becoming a fractious group of power mongers that would in time become like the European states had been--at constant war with each other because without good governance, with bickering and disputes that ought to be resolvable don't get resolved and at some point blow up into full scale war, and warfare can and does become a habit between states just as peace can.
Now, that isn't to say that trusted government. But it would be more accurate to say that they mistrusted power and what having unopposed power can do to a person or a group of people. They knew that power corrupts anyone who has it. Jefferson even knew that power corrupted the slaveholder, although he could never bring himself to give up the slaves that made his life of luxury possible. Above all, the mistrust of power was why they were opposed to each of the individual forms of government--monarchy, oligarchy and democracy, and why they wanted the type of government that Aristotle first invented, mixed government. Mixed govt blends all three types together, and counters one power with another, one group with another. That is the essence of the Constitution that Madison wanted and that came together during the convention (albeit not using the vast majority of Madison's specific suggestions).
The Tea Party people don't have a clue, they represent democracy at its worst, they are an unruly, uneducated mob that has no real, educated opinions and are bankrolled by a group of men who remain in the shadows and are themselves oligarchs of the worst sort (the Koch brothers et al). |
