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From BuzzFlash.com: A Republic, If You Can Keep It
by Brent Budowsky
In the entire history of our Republic, there is one day that rises above others as the profound and mysterious moment of the great American Idea: July 4, 1826.
On that day, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams lay dying, two of our greatest patriots and founders, one the father of the more progressive impulse, the other the father of the more federalist, two giant fathers of our democracy...
Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Franklin and the rest created a Republic with protections directly designed to prevent the abuses of the Crown, while General George Washington led the Contintental Army, as our commanders lead our armies today, with fervent disdain for the use of torture and fervent support for the rules of law to prevent it.
Our Founding Fathers directly decreed, and the first generation of Americans directly ratified, that we are not a Nation of secret detentions, secret courts, secret defendants, secret crimes, secret trials, and secret tortures masked by labels of deception.
If there are policies that need to be pursued for special circumstances, let them be proposed in the open, debated by an informed citizenry, decided by a knowledgable legislature, and subject to accountability. Even today, with all of the revelations of abuses and wrongs, not only are there abuses condemned by every democracy on the face of the earth, but our debate is deformed by a secrecy so pervasive, that whole giant blocks of policy are entirely removed from the traditions of our democratic debate...
It is not true conservatism, nor progressivism, nor Americanism for any President to treat the Constitutional procedures for enacting laws as nothing more than mere formality, to be violated at will, signed without sincerity, and violated unilaterally, in what is so far removed from the Americanism of our Founders that it constitutes a systematic contempt, for the American notion, of the rule of law.
It is not true conservatism, nor progressivism, nor Americanism to have our vote counting itself done by electronic machinery, often of foreign origin, using secret codes, without adequate record keeping. This is neither partisan nor conspiratorial; there will be governments of both parties, and voters of all viewpoints must be assured integrity in the most sacred aspect of freedom, the counting and if necessary recounting, of votes. The status quo is a formula for scandal.
It is not true conservatism, nor progressivism, nor Americanism, for the legislative branch of government to systematically abandon its sworn duty of government oversight, its sacred oath to perform its duty in the fateful decision about whether, or not, our country should go to war.
Jefferson, Madison, Adams and Franklin did not design the Congress to be a Potemkin village of partisan cheerleaders, for an incumbent faction, in a one party state. They designed the Congress to serve as a check and balance against abuses of executive power, or Presidential misjudgment...
We can debate our policies, and on many, reasonable people can disagree. But it is not true conservatism, nor progressivism, nor Americanism, to devalue our respect for truth, to demean each other as Americans, to destroy our checks and balances, to disregard the ideas of our democracy so casually, so lazily, so destructively, and so systematically.
In recent days, in response to several pieces I have written on the subjects discussed here, I have received an enormous number of email. I want to thank each and every person who has contacted me.
Because these matters involve great issues at a momentous occasion, what I read in these messages were mostly, but not always, from the progressive side. What was touching about them, in ways I cannot begin to find the words to fully describe, was a quiet, sincere, deeply felt patriotism and love of country that came into my box, one after another, day after day, which I read while we honored the heroes who gave their lives for the country we love, on that day five years ago, and since.
The Mom who taught her four year old about responsiblility and freedom; the painter in New York who was inspired to art; the 15 year old young woman with her brief but eloquent words of patriotism, the sixtysomething grandma who faxed 53 letters to people of responsibility; the Canadian who said he wished he were an American so he would stand with us; a senior Disney official who wrote me privately that he was shamed by his company and stood with us in his heart.
These are the good people of America, with kind hearts and deep spirits that soar above what rules in the Washington today, that Mr. Smith has long ago left.
It is not true conservatism, nor progressivism, nor Americanism, nor the way to defeat the Bin Ladens of the world, to turn against each other, and turn against the institutions and ideals that Jefferson and Adams gave our Nation, as they spoke of each other, and spoke to us, on their last July 4, fifty years from our greatest July 4.
A Republic, if you can keep it... Click here for much, much more.Posted by Carolyn Kay MakeThemAccountable.com |
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