Al Gore's New Book, "The Assault On Reason"

[RestoreGore]

That is the title of the next book to be released by Mr. Gore, scheduled for next May (2007.) It is to be released by Penguin Press. It is reported to be about the difficulty politics has with making decisions based on facts and reason. I am sure it will then go into great detail regarding the Democracy crisis we face on the whole, and the name of the book does sound like something Thomas Jefferson would have written.

I am very happy to see Mr. Gore pursuing this avenue in speaking his mind on these issues. Being out of the political beltway that I don't believe ever truly appreciated his prescience and intelligence on these matters has certainly given him the chance to be a great advocate for the people and for Democracy.

My comments on this topic are then as follows:

Can we truly get back to this way of thinking as a nation after years of debasement from media and those in government who liken themselves to the very despots we sought freedom from to begin with? I suspect if Thomas Jefferson were alive today he would not run for office in this debased, corrupted, corporate owned political system WE have made either. He would be vocally calling out those who not only have debased it at our expense and at the expense of reason and true Democracy, he would also be forcefully excoriating US for allowing it to happen and to continue and to also perpetuate it by our own inaction while looking the other way when time for responsibility for it rolled around.

A man like George W. Bush nor his ilk would EVER have been tolerated by the likes of a man of reason like Thomas Jefferson. The fact that he is now tolerated only illustrates how far down we have come from the reason that bore this country. Therefore, if Al Gore's new book can in any way shed a light on that and bring us towards turning to that reason again to guide us in our decisions it would be a great contribution to this nation and generations to come that may otherwise never truly understand and respect the brilliant men of reason who believed in this grand experiment and OUR part in making it a success.

The questions I now must pose on that after the last six years are, is it too late? Are we beyond reason? Beyond truth? Beyond being able to even fight for it on our own? Have we become too complacent to care? Can we even place ALL of the blame on media and government, or does some of it also fall on our laziness to even seek the knowledge we need to make change? It is there. All we need is the will to seek it out.

Why then could our founders be victorious over ignorance and yet we find it so difficult to do as they did? Well, they READ BOOKS. They discussed events of the time amongst themselves and had an interest in them because they were important to their lives. Government wasn't just some secret, mysterious, distant entity out of touch with them... THEY WERE the government. They also had a sense of pride in working to build a country that would last the test of all despotism... and their work wasn't completed, because they handed off this country to US to continue building that more perfect union.

However, we have dropped the ball. We have become complacent. We have lost our ability to use reasoned debate and truly Democratic means to secure policy that benefits America as a whole. We have become debased, bought and sold by entities caring not for freedom and Democracy but only their bottomline and getting votes at the highest price. In short, we have become all that Jefferson and others of that time warned against.

It is then past time for us as a nation to come back to the reason that bore us. It is then time to hear our voices in the townsquare again. It is time for us to take a good hard look at what we have become and take responsibility for it. For change can only come once we admit our own part in it. Where our country stands today didn't just happen without our help in one form or another. Inaction and complacency breed corruption and lead us farther away from that reason Jefferson so believed in. And we can no longer allow it to stand.

Therefore, thank you once again to Mr. Gore for being the statesman and advocate for Democracy he is. We most definitely could use more out here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"My hope that we have not labored in vain, and that our experiment will still prove that men can be governed by reason." --Thomas Jefferson to George Mason, 1791. ME 8:124

"I have so much confidence in the good sense of man, and his qualifications for self-government, that I am never afraid of the issue where reason is left free to exert her force." --Thomas Jefferson to Comte Diodati, 1789. Papers 15:326

"Let common sense and common honesty have fair play, and they will soon set things to rights." --Thomas Jefferson to Ezra Stiles, 1786. ME 6:25

"It is comfortable to see the standard of reason at length erected, after so many ages, during which the human mind has been held in vassalage by kings, priests, and nobles; and it is honorable for us to have produced the first legislature who had the courage to declare that the reason of man may be trusted with the formation of his own opinions." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1786. ME 6:10

"Our principles are founded on the immovable basis of equal right and reason." --Thomas Jefferson to James Sullivan, 1797. ME 9:379

"A government of reason is better than one of force." --Thomas Jefferson to Richard Rush, 1820. ME 15:284

"The idea of establishing a government by reasoning and agreement, publicly ridiculed as an Utopian project, visionary and unexampled." --Thomas Jefferson: The Anas, 1797. ME 1:419

"Our people in a body are wise because they are under the unrestrained and unperverted operation of their own understandings." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Priestley, 1802. ME 10:324

"This blessed country of free inquiry and belief has surrendered its creed and conscience to neither kings nor priests." --Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 1822. ME 15:385

"No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth." --Thomas Jefferson to John Tyler, 1804. ME 11:33

"Truth and reason are eternal. They have prevailed. And they will eternally prevail; however, in times and places they may be overborne for a while by violence, military, civil, or ecclesiastical." --Thomas Jefferson to Rev. Samuel Knox, 1810. ME 12:360

"Truth will do well enough if left to shift for herself. She seldom has received much aid from the power of great men to whom she is rarely known and seldom welcome. She has no need of force to procure entrance into the minds of men." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776. Papers 1:547

"A patient pursuit of facts, and cautious combination and comparison of them, is the drudgery to which man is subjected by his Maker, if he wishes to attain sure knowledge." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.VI, 1782. ME 2:97

"Shake off all the fears and servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear." --Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1787. ME 6:258 Papers 12:15

"I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 1814. ME 14:85

"It is surely time for men to think for themselves, and to throw off the authority of names so artificially magnified." --Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 1820. ME 15:258

"Lay aside all prejudice on both sides, and neither believe nor reject anything because any other persons, or description of persons, have rejected or believed it. Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable, not for the rightness, but uprightness of the decision." --Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1787. ME 6:261

"In a republican nation whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance." --Thomas Jefferson to David Harding, 1824. ME 16:30

"Nothing is so desirable to me as that after mankind shall have been abused by such gross falsehoods as to events while passing, their minds should at length be set to rights by genuine truth. And I can conscientiously declare that as to myself, I wish that not only no act but no thought of mine should be unknown." --Thomas Jefferson to James Main, 1808. ME 12:175

"There is not a truth on earth which I fear or would disguise. But secret slanders cannot be disarmed, because they are secret." --Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, 1806. ME 11:94

"Unlearned views... are, perhaps, the more confident in proportion as they are less enlightened." --Thomas Jefferson to Caspar Wistar, 1807. ME 11:243

"I think it is Montaigne who has said, that ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head." --Thomas Jefferson to Edmund Randolph, 1794. ME 9:280

"Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason, and the mind becomes a wreck." --Thomas Jefferson to James Smith, 1822. ME 15:409

"It was more in our spirit to let things come to rights by the plain dictates of common sense than by the practice of any artifices." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1800. ME 19:120

http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Time to read the words again and live them.

[Drum]

1. Kick & Rec

I'd like to see and hear more discussion on governing with reason!

Thanks for the Jefferson quotes---like sunshine!---and for the notice of Gore's book. I look forward to that, and hopefully to an awakening here in the US.

:kick:

[InsultComicDog]

26. I love the title

...kind of says it all.

:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: <--hey look, it's the DU Rockettes!

[npincus]

2. Gore in 2008

Run, Al, Run!

[RestoreGore]

6. Thomas Jefferson wouldn't even run in this system n/t

[Fridays Child]

3. K & R

[MethuenProgressive]

4. re: TJ quotes- Except if you were female or black or Indian....

"Our principles are founded on the immovable basis of equal right and reason." --Thomas Jefferson to James Sullivan, 1797. ME 9:379

[RestoreGore]

5. Jefferson wrote against slavery

The third panel on the Jefferson Memorial states;

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Establish the law for educating the common people. This it is the business of the state to effect and on a general plan."

Now granted, none of these men were perfect, but the point is that they gave us a basis for a country that can have that perfect union based on reason rather than fear if we continue what they started, which we are not doing right now.

[Diane R]

7. Run, Al. Please run. We need you. n/t

[RestoreGore]

14. We already have him ...

And now America needs us.

[ourbluenation]

8. Gore/Clark 08 n/t

[elocs]

9. Yes, run Al, but lay low.

Run smart and don't let anybody force your timing. Timing is everything.

[SeveneightyWhoa]

10. Al Gore: "reason and facts are good"

Al Gore: "Reason and fact are necessary in the democratic debate, but are sorely lacking in today's American politics"

RNC response: "Al Gore is being unreasonable in his allegation that reason is lacking in politics today, and he is clearly misconstruing the facts when making such outrageous, baffling claims."

[RestoreGore]

13. Reason and facts are necessary

Of course the RNC would say this, because it effects their wallets. They are also words of truth that show how they have been complicit in slowly eroding Democracy in the ever present atmosphere of government/corporate ownership and manipulation of our airwaves, our newspapers, and our thoughts. This proliferation of corporate ownership (used to send out propaganda messages to the public ever so subtly while freezing out free thought and important information essential to sustaining true free and balanced Democratic thought not only in the marketplace but in our communities,) has also spawned a society more concerned with American Idol rather than the preservation of our Democracy.

The Rule of Reason was the guidepost used by our Founding Fathers as they searched for the freedom they did not know under King George III. They had then come from an aristocracy, a government ruled not by reason, but by divine right. And it was this rule by divine right, the presupposition that wealth and absolute power trumped reasonable free thinking men (and most certainly women) that prompted these seekers of truth and freedom to birth the United States of America as imperfect as they were.

And now in this age of technology those who hold absolute power have so many more mediums with which to use that control besides the written word. In his speech for WE Media last October, Mr. Gore spoke of "digital brown shirts." This phrase seems to have ruffled the feathers of some, but I believe it is accurate. For there is no better example in my opinion of a modern digital brown shirts than Clear Channel Communications, which has been in the pocket of the Bush administration as it slowly gains more and more control over the airwaves. Democracy should not be victim to the dollar, but that is exactly how this system is set up now, and it is having a definite effect on the information being disseminated and the quality of it.

And no matter what medium we wish to use to gather information in this modern age be it the written word in newspapers, blogs, or watching it unfold on our televisions or computers, the true test of a real Democracy is allowing the truth to be told without bias and in an atmosphere that welcomes all men and women whatever their circumstances to have a voice in it. We don't have that now, and that should concern all Americans who claim to believe in the cause of our Founding Fathers in envisioning that more perfect union. Thankfully, we still have statesmen like Mr. Gore out here to FREELY speak about this and who are passionate about the people having a voice in their media to move us towards that goal.

[blm]

18. I hope Gore really means this and that he'll write the book Clinton DIDN'T

The one that fully explains what is in the books that they chose to keep closed while in office and books that the American people DESERVED to see so they could understand the TRUTH about terrorism.

I have been waiting for many years to know more of the facts that led to rampant global terrorism, and Clinton and Gore, so far, have yet to even try and explain their side of it to the public - even after all the accusations about 9-11 came down upon their terms in office.

TRUST the people with t he truth so that they may make the right choices as CITIZENS.

[RestoreGore]

22. I'm actually waiting for that too n/t

[blm]

25. Thank you. Most read the posts I've put up on this and twist it into a

slam against Gore. But that's never my objective. I have always been dead serious about what really went on in IranContra, BCCI, Iraqgate, and CIA drugrunning, and how they are the roots of everything happening today.

Clinton and Gore had to have seen important documents when they were deciding whether or not to pursue those issues of BushInc's crimes once they settled into office. I don't believe Clinton made the decision to close the books on his own. Maybe he did, But Gore hasn't spoken about it, and he needs to if he cares about this country's future the way I believe he does.

[RestoreGore]

30. I understand where you're coming from

And truth is part of reason in government. Perhaps one day we will see it all... I just hope we can handle it.

[Stalwart]

11. Skip This if UML Does Not Ring a Bell

Three cheers for Gore getting to the heart of any inconvenient truth!

Reason is easy to assault if it does not have a well defined structure and language of presentation.

Words alone as they are expressed in written or spoken containers (media) are failing us.

Unified Modeling Language (UML) discovers, reveals, and defines relationships in a documented system structure. It is a business tool with wider implications and application. The same concepts and computer aided methods can be used to bring clarity to a complex world of various ideologies and their social implementations. Doing it would equal the scope of our space program.

I am not a UML expert. If you are, or at least understand the idea, and find that everything you read regarding world affairs is assembling in your head in an intuitive UML manner (or perhaps a "Semantic Web in Your Head") then please private email me.

No idea what will be in Gore's book but I would guess there will be some means presented to deal with the complexity of advancing the application of reason to our current world. That means might be a structure that organizes and relates the complexities and might evolve to become the new language of reason.

Pierre Leévy said: http://www.humanities.uci.edu/mposter/syllabi/readings/levy.html

"We may either cross a new threshold, a new stage in the evolution of man, by inventing some attribute of humanity as essential as language but on a superior level. Or we may continue to ³communicate² through the media and to think in institutions detached from one another, organizing moreover the suffocation and division of intelligences. In the second case the only problems we would still be confronting would be problems of survival and of power."

What has Gore in store for us? A new "meta structure something" to follow the internet and get our reasoning act together? A super Wikipedia that our collective intelligence can contribute to using UML type methods and tools?

What is this vision thing?

[RestoreGore]

16. I've heard of it...

But don't know much about it. I tend to believe reason is inate in humans when the right circumstances avail themselves to it.

[Guaranteed]

12. What a title, even. He's correct- they hate intellectuals, and

people who tend to say things that are right.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[RestoreGore]

17. He's talking about politics, not religion

Jefferson considered himself a Christian as well, but had little use for much of the clergy. And actually, I would tend to think that believing that you must love your neightbor as yourself is very reasonable, and the sum of all religion. However, perhaps that is also why Jefferson believed in that wall between church and state, because while you most certainly can believe in a higher spiritual power (as I do)which that may be seen as abandoning reason, that doesn't mean you cannot apply reason to matters of state.

[BlooInBloo]

28. I'm ok with overlooking that silliness, so long as there's evidence...

... that he won't let said silliness adversely affect his worldly decision-making...

Everybody has their sillinesses after all - they're often only a problem when they spread to *other* spheres of one's life...

[Uncle Joe]

19. Excellent news, I am looking forward to Al's new book,

thanks for posting RestoreGore.

Kicked and recommended

:kick:

[RestoreGore]

23. You're welcome. I can't wait for it to come out n/t

[lildreamer316]

20. Would you mind

answering the question I posed here?:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2515390&mesg_id=2515727

I'd like your opinion.

[JNelson6563]

21. Run Al, run!!

I would work very hard to get Gore re-elected.

Julie

[Land Shark]

24. All abuses of government to be heard by the bar of public Reason... K&R

"I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power." --Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820. ME 15:278

"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIV, 1782. ME 2:207

"The most effectual means of preventing to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts which history exhibits, that possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes." --Thomas Jefferson: Diffusion of Knowledge Bill, 1779. FE 2:221, Papers 2:526

"The diffusion of information and the arraignment of all abuses at the bar of public reason, I deem the essential principles of our government, and consequently those which ought to shape its administration." --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural Address, 1801. ME 3:322

[tomreedtoon]

27. Why isn't he releasing NOW? NOW? NOW?

Or at least post a couple of sample chapters? If he were to do that, he would win the hearts and minds of a lot of people. And it would be a dramatic way of saying - whether he wants to run as President or not - that he has something he wants to say about the future of politics and this country.

[NYCGirl]

32. Perhaps he hasn't written it yet. He's been pretty busy lately, you know.

He's giving a major speech at NYU today.

[EVDebs]

29. Al Gore is now 'de facto' president of the US. Bush is 'de jure'

but has lost all credibility. Bush has been allowed to get all he wanted. See where it has lead us ?

[RestoreGore]

31. Mr. Gore has been my President since Dec. 13th 2000

And will always be in my heart no matter where life takes him.