Archive for the ‘Government’ Category

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“Republic.

“I like the sound of the word. It means people can live free, talk free, go or come, buy or sell, be drunk or sober, however they choose.

“Some words give you a feeling. Republic is one of those words that makes me tight in the throat. The same tightness a man gets when his baby takes a first step, or his first baby shaves, and makes his first sound like a man.

“Some words can give you a feeling that make your heart warm. Republic is one of those words.”

—John Wayne, as Davy Crockett in The Alamo.

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A T.R. Reid recently published an article in The Washington Post, wherein he attempts to defend Obama’s universal health care program against the five most common criticism.

It’s really just a reiteration of the same old talking points that keep scrolling over and over on Obama’s teleprompter, but I did a quick, off the top of my head, review of the article in the attached PDF file.

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The book I’m currently reading, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, by Ludwig von Mises, has been an exciting discovery of the logical science behind human behavior.

It occurred to me, this afternoon, while reading Chapter 2, “The Epistemological Problems of the Sciences of Human Action",” that progressives have a fundamental flaw in their understanding of our society. They don’t understand the difference between the individual and the aggregate.

I and We

The Ego is the unity of the acting being. It is unquestionably given and cannot be dissolved or conjured away by any reasoning or quibbling.

The We is always the result of a summing up which puts together two or more Egos. If somebody says I, no further questioning is necessary in order to establish the meaning. The same is valid with regard to the Thou and, provided the person in view is precisely indicated, with regard to the He. But if a man says We, further information is needed to denote who the Egos are who are comprised in this We. It is always single individuals who say We; even if they say it in chorus, it yet remains an utterance of single individuals.

The We cannot act otherwise than each of them acting on his own behalf. They can either all act together in accord, or one of them may act for all of them. In the latter case the cooperation of the others consists in their bringing about the situation which makes one man’s action effective for them too. Only in this sense does the office of a social entity act for the whole; the individual members of the collective body either cause or allow a single man’s action to concern them too.

The endeavors of psychology to dissolve the Ego and to unmask it as an illusion are idle. The praxeological Ego is beyond any doubts. No matter what a man was and what he may become later, in the very act of choosing and acting he is an Ego.

Ludwig von Mises, Human Action (Yale University Press, 1949), p. 44.

When President Obama says “we,” he is including me (and, too often, excluding himself). When I say “we,” in reference to that aggregate known as “Americans,” I am including everyone who meets the citizenship qualifications of the United States of America… this may or may not actually include the President himself; for the purposes of discussion, though, I generally grant him the benefit of the doubt, and include him.

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The substantive nature of those rights which are inherent in all mankind was described by William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws of England:

Those rights, then, which God and nature have established, and are therefore called natural rights, such as are life and liberty, need not the aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in every man than they are; neither do they receive any additional strength when declared by the municipal laws to be inviolable. On the contrary, no human legislature has the power to abridge or destroy them, unless the owner shall himself commit some act that amounts to a forfeiture. (Commentaries, 1:93.)

The Founders Did Not List All of the Unalienable Rights

When the Founders adopted the Declaration of Independence, they emphasized in phrases very similar to those of Blackstone that God has endowed all mankind “with certain unalienable rights, that AMONG these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Let us identify some of the unalienable or natural rights which the Founders knew existed but did not enumerate in the Declaration of Independence:

• The right of self-government.
• The right to bear arms for self-defense.
• The right to own, develop, and dispose of property.
• The right to make personal choices.
• The right of free conscience.
• The right to choose a profession.
• The right to choose a mate.
• The right to beget one’s kind.
• The right to assemble.
• The right to petition.
• The right to free speech.
• The right to a free press.
• The right to enjoy the fruit of one’s labors.
• The right to improve one’s position through barter and sale.
• The right to contrive and invent.
• The right to explore the natural resources of the earth.
• The right to privacy.
• The right to provide personal security.
• The right to provide nature’s necessities—air, food, water, clothing, and shelter.
• The right to a fair trial.
• The right of free association.
• The right to contract.

Many Founders Used Similar Language Emphasizing “Unalienable Rights”

It was very common among the Founders to express their sentiments concerning man’s unalienable rights in almost the same language as Jefferson. Here are the words of the Virginia Declaration of Rights adopted by the Virginia Assembly June 12, 1776 (before the Declaration of Independence!):

All men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety. (Annals of America, 2:432.)

The above is excerpted from The 5,000 Year Leap, by W. Cleon Skousen, pp. 124–126.

I’ve just started reading Glenn Beck’s latest book Common Sense and was impressed with the numbers he recited about the debt which Obama has incurred on our children’s behalf.

Our interest payment to service our $11,000,000,000,000 in debt now stands at about $26,000,000,000 ($26 billion). Per month. That’s over $300 billion a year that will be sent (likely overseas) to our creditors instead of being used to upgrade our schools, roads, or national defense. Common sense tells us that is unsustainable—a country that cannot educate or secure its population is a country that will not be around much longer.

One of the tricks that our leaders have successfully played on us is the illusion of numbers. If I asked you to send me a check for $4,000 you’d probably think about what you could buy with that money (an amazing vacation, new furniture, braces for your child, etc.) and then you’d wonder why on earth you’d send it to me. But when our government asks us for $26 billion every month we don’t have the same reaction because it doesn’t feel personal. Well, let’s make it personal. With one monthly $26 billion interest payment we could fully fund the annual budgets of the Centers for Disease Control ($6.1 billion, annual budget), Coast Guard ($8.7 billion), and the Department of the Interior ($11.1 billion).

With our annual $300 billion in interest payments we could fully fund the Departments of Commerce ($8.1 billion), Education ($68 billion), Homeland Security ($42.3 billion), Housing and Urban Development ($52.3 billion), Energy ($23.2 billion), Justice ($25 billion), and Labor ($49.6 billion) for an entire year.

By 2019, annual interest payments on the national debt will balloon to a projected $806 billion! Why? Because, as you might know from your own credit cards, interest compounds quickly. Making only the minimum payments will result in the unpaid interest being added to our outstanding debt. It’s a cycle that’s almost impossible to pull out of and the damage to our country will almost certainly be irreversible. That $806 billion is more than what it cost us last year to fund the entire Department of Defense ($583 billion), Veterans Affairs ($86.6 billion), the Department of Transportation ($68.7 billion), and the State Department ($18.9 billion). . . combined.

Where will all of that money come from? Again, the politicians say “the rich!” or maybe “the greedy corporations!”—but if that’s our plan, then we are set up for dramatic failure. The total 2008 profits of Exxon Mobil ($45.2 billion), General Electric ($17.41 billion), Wal-Mart ($12.7 billion), and IBM ($12.3 billion) totaled $87.61 billion. If we taxed those profits at 100 percent we still wouldn’t even have on-third of the amount needed to pay the annual interest payment—let alone any of the principal!

So what about the wealthy? Look at it this way: if we took all personal income tax revenue from every American taxpayer for the next decade you would still NOT have enough money to pay off the national debt, even if you exclude interest. And, as a side benefit, we’d have zero dollars to fund the actual government over those years.

This is modern-day slavery, but instead of being sold to work in the fields our children will be working hundred-hour weeks at their jobs to pay off the debts we’ve amassed.

Glenn Beck’s Common Sense, by Glenn Beck, pp 24–26.

Can you honestly tell me that you think this is the sort of change that we need in this country?

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Have you read Philip Dru: Administrator? The famous anti-communist columnist Westbrook Pegler described this book as “one of the most important political documents of our age.” The author of the book, Edward Mandell House, describes why he wrote Philip Dru in the following letter.

Cabourg, Calvados, France
July 10, 1922

“Philip Dru” was written in December and January of 1911–12 at Austin, Texas, during the six weeks I was convalescing from a protracted illness.

It was my intention to re-write it during the summer of 1912, but when I returned to New York in April of that year I found myself submerged in the campaign being waged to nominate Governor Woodrow Wilson as the democratic candidate for President.

During a hurried trip to Russia that summer I had but scant time to go over the manuscript, and when I returned to America I again became engrossed in the national elections, and being pressed by the publishers, consented to its immediate publication anonymously. Early November of 1912 found it upon the book-stands, but it also found Woodrow Wilson President-elect of the United States, therefore, I have never had the leisure to read “Philip Dru” except in manuscript.

It was written in the form of fiction in the hope that it would reach a wider public in that guise, but when it was finished, I saw that the material of an economic and governmental character which I had put in it was far too heavy to carry any story, much less the one around which I had thrown it.

When I indicated my purpose to read and perhaps re-write the book I was advised to discard the fiction and put out the substance of it in a number of essarys [sic] on government. However, I have finally concluded to leave it as it is, and to write this word of explanation.

Governmental affairs, both domestic and foreign, have been almost my sole interest during and since boyhood. For a long time it had seemed to me that our Government was too complicated in its machinery and that we had outgrown our Constitution. It has been by constant wonder that our people were willing to go along without protest with such an inefficient machine.

When our Republic was conceived, there was no modern guide-post to point the right direction in which to go. France had overthrown one monarch only to accept another. Therefore it was to be expected that the makers of our Constitution should proceed with caution and place within it checks and balances.

The climate, the character of the population and, more than all, our great natural resources have caused us to move forward in the acquisition of wealth at phenonmenal [sic] speed, and this in itself has been sufficient to keep our people content.

When things are going well it is the part of wisdom to use care in making changes of any sort, and things have undeniably gone well with us up to the present. But we have taken many chances which were unnecessary, and still continue to take them. One of these chances has been the succession to the Presidency. If the crisis of 1876 had not followed so closely upon the Civil War, or if a man of different temperament than that of Samuel J. Tilden had been “counted out,” there can be but little doubt that physical force would have been substituted for the milder measure of compromise which was adopted.

We hearkened to the warning sufficiently to change the method of procedure somewhat, but there is still must to be desired. It has never been settled whether the House, Senate or both concurrently shall count the vote and determine its validity. The makers of the Constitution contemplated an entirely different procedure from that now in use. In the early days Electors were voted for as now, but these, in turn had the sole responsibility for choosing a President. Today an Elector is a mere automaton, and while he has the constitutional right to vote for whom he pleases, he would no more dare to exercise it than the King of Great Britain would dare to use his right of veto.

Without entering into a discussion of whether the change which has come about is for the best, there should be no difference of opinion as to the advisability of adjusting the legal procedure to fit conditions as they are now rather than as they were a century and a half ago.

The partisan heat now engendered in the election of a President should in itself be a warning to us to change the procedure so there should never be a question as to its legality. And while doing so, some method determining the disability of a President should definitely be reached. If this is not done, a conjunction of circumstances may some day arise which may cause civil war.

These questions do not present any insoluable [sic] difficulties, and all that is necessary to take away the hazard of danger is for the President and Congress to clarify the law in order to meet the requirements of the situation.

The negative character of our Government and its lack of responsiveness to the will of the people makes it less efficient than it should be. No unprejudiced student of governmental affairs will question the assertion of Lord Bryce that “America is the most undemocratic of democratic countries.” When he wrote this he probably had in mind Russia, Japan and Germany as being the only countries throughout the world less democratic than the United States.

One of the purposes in writing “Philip Dru” was a desire to bring to a [sic] our people a realization of this. We are pleased to consider ourselves the most democratic of all nations, but as a matter of fact, our Government is not as democratic as the Governments of Great Britain, France, Italy and others. I have tried to explain why in “Philip Dru”, and I have also tried to present a really responsive form of government. It has been my purposes to show how our laws could be simplified so as to become understandable, and our courts rendered more effective, and stripped of their power to obstruct.

In order to bring about composure between capital and labor, some plan like Dru’s might be tried, for, surely, our present method is a failure.

The tendancy [sic] of the times is to give more power to the executive of a state, for only in this way can efficient and economical government be reached. But in placing such power in the hands of one individual, the wise and cautious thing to do is to make the duration of the term of office subject to the will of the popular legislative body. Otherwise, great dander to the state may conceivably result.

The negative form of our Government has at times caused the President to assume almost dictatorial powers in order to bring about desired legislation, and the people of the United States have accepted this assumption without protest. It is the executive part of the Government, both in the States and Nation, that almost always has the sympathy of the public, while the legislative side is generally ridiculed and belittled. In this way the already too great powers of the President have become augmented, and there have been no corresponding checks upon it.

It is true that in foreign affairs the Senate has sometimes refused to entirely accept the President’s recommendations regarding treaties, but in the most pronounced instances it has been when the opposition party was in control and the issue became more a matter of politics than of policy.

Dru, in his plan of governmental reconstruction, tried to prevent these periodical hiatuses which must occur in such a government of negation as ours. It is a tribute to the good sense and self restraint of the American people that we have passed through so may crises without serious harm, but it is not wise to leave these loop-holes for trouble which some day might bring disorder and revolution.

It is astounding that an intelligent people having universal franchise as a means to remedy matters are willing to move along year after year and not better their governmental conditions. Was not Hardy right when he told Dru that the people received as good government as they deserved?

As an example let us take the costly and unnecessary monetery [sic] panics which swept over the United States at such frequent periods. No other country in the world had them and it was obvious that our banking an currency laws were at fault. It was not necessary to have any prescience in order to be able to frame a law which would correct the trouble, for we had the existing laws in Great Britain, France, Germany, Canada and other commercial nations to guide us. And yet we continued our wasteful and costly system for fifty years without changing it. What are we to say of a people who are so indifferent to their self-interest when it touches public affairs?

Those who were responsible for the Federal Reserve Act have recieved [sic] much commendation for securing its passage, but such commendation should be purely relative as it was the obvious thing to do. Would it not be more to the point if the people blamed themselves and those who were in power before who failed to do their obvious duty. [sic]

Governmental power has become so largely invested in the executive that only measures which he recommends and back of which he puts the strength of his office, have much chance of becoming laws. And the executive as a rule, is so busy with the day’s work that he ahs but little time, and little inclination, to initiate legislation not on his party’s program.

At no time should there be deadlocks between the Executive and Legislative branches of our Government. The one which occurred between President Wilson and the Senate has had disastrous consequences not alone to us but to the entire world. The future historian may well reckon that quarrel as one of the great tragedies that have befallen mankind. The consequences have gone far beyond the limits anticipated by the chief actors in it. It halted the most promising epoch in human history, and changed an expectant and exalted fervor in behalf of universal peace and good fellowship, into a spirit of sullen and cynical distrust.

It not only changed a hopeful world into a skeptical world, but its effect permeated the economic structure to an unbelievable degree,. Industries have slackened when the waste form the Great War should have accelerate them; debts have piled upon debts, and millions on unhappy men, women and children have needlessly starved or died from preventable deseases. [sic] It is a terrible reckoning and one which could not have occurred had out legislative and executive system of government been so constructed as to make impossible such a deadlock.

It might well be claimed that it should have been impossible even as it was, but when the baser human passions are aroused as then, it is wise and prudent not to have governmental machinery convenient through which such passions can be safely and constitutionally exercised.

The trouble with the world is that it never learns,. We go blindly on making the same mistakes which those preceeding us have made. We listen to the sophistry of the eloquent self-seeker, and turn a dull ear to the blunt honesty of those not given to flattery or fluent speech. The demoagogue [sic] with his extravagant promises has his followers, just as the swindler has his victims. Something is seldom gotten for nothing, and that is a lesson many of us learn too late. If we are to prepare for old age or retirement, we must needs be [sic] frugal, energetic and painstaking. If we are to have good government we must be vigilent [sic] and willing to devote some of our time to its accomplishment. Philip Dru will have served his purpose if he has awakened even a small portion of his countrymen to a realization of this fact.

 

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While the Constitution was being considered by the States for ratification, Alexander Hamilton weighed in with his thoughts. Hamilton, of course, was a Statist, through and through. He was less concerned with individual liberties and more interested in an “efficient” corporate government.

The new constitution has in favour of its success these circumstances—a very great weight of influence of the persons who framed it, particularly in the universal popularity of General Washington,—the good will of the commercial interest throughout the states which will give all its efforts to the establishment of a government capable of regulating protecting and extending the commerce of the Union—the good will of most men of property in the several states who wish a government of the union able to protect them against domestic violence and the depredations which the democratic spirit is apt to make on property; and who are besides anxious for the respectability of the nation—the hopes of the Creditors of the United States that a general government possessing the means of doing it will pay the debt of the Union and of the necessity of the union to their safety and prosperity; of course a strong desire of a change and a predisposition to receive well the propositions of the Convention.

Against its success is to be put, the dissent of two or three important men in the Convention; who will think their characters pledged to defeat the plan—the influence of many inconsiderable men in possession of considerable offices under the state governments who will fear a diminution of their consequence power and emolument by the establishment of the general government and who can hope for nothing there—the influence of some considerable men in office possessed of talents and popularity who partly from the same motives and partly from a desire of playing a part in a convulsion for their own aggrandisement will oppose the quiet adoption of the new government—(some considerable men out of office, from motives of ambition may be disposed to act the same part)—add to these causes the disinclination of the people to taxes and of course to a strong government—the opposition of all men much in debt who will not wish to see a government established one object of which is to restrain this means of cheating Creditors—the democratical jealousy of the people which may be alarmed at the appearance of institutions that may seem calculated to place the power of the community in few hands and to raise a few individuals to stations of great preeminence—and the influence of some foreign powers who from different motives will not wish to see an energetic government established throughout the states.

In this view of the subject it is difficult to form any judgment whether the plan will be adopted or rejected. It must be essentially matter of conjecture. The present appearances and all other circumstances considered the probability seems to be on the side of its adoption.

But the causes operating against its adoption are powerful and there will be nothing astonishing in the Contrary—

If it do not finally obtain, it is probable the discussion of the question will beget such struggles animosities and heats in the community that this circumstance conspiring with the real necessity of an essential change in our present situation will produce civil war. Should this happen, whatever parties prevail it is probably governments very different from the present in their principles will be established—A dismemberment of the Union and monarchies in different portions of it may be expected. It may however happen that no civil war will take place; but several republican confederacies be established between different combinations of particular states.

A reunion with Great Britain, from universal disgust at a state of commotion, is not impossible, though not much to be feared. The most plausible shape of such a business would be the establishment of a son of the present monarch in the supreme government of this country with a family compact.

It’s astonishing to me that, less than a decade after the Revolution, Hamilton feels safe in proposing a reunion with the Crown!

If the government is adopted, it is probable general Washington will be the President of the United States—This will ensure a wise choice of men to administer the government and a good administration. A good administration will conciliate the confidence and affection of the people and perhaps enable the government to acquire more consistency than the proposed constitution seems to promise for so great a Country—It may then triumph altogether over the state governments and reduce them to an entire subordination, dividing the large states into smaller districts. The organs of the general government may also acquire additional strength.

If this should not be the case, in the course of a few years, it is probably the the contests about the boundaries of power between the particular governments and the general government and the momentum of the larger states in such contests will produce a dissolution of the Union This after all seems to be the most likely result.

But it is almost arrogance in so complicated a subject, depending so entirely on the incalculable fluctuations of the human passions, to attempt even a conjecture about the event.

It will be Eight or Nine months before any certain judgment can be formed respecting the adoption of the Plan.

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After Dr. Franklin’s speech was published, another patriot writing under the pseudonym of “Z” published this response:

Mess’rs. Adams & Nourse, When I read Dr. Franklin’s address to the President of the late Convention, in the last Monday’s Gazette, I was at a loss to judge, till I was informed by mere accident, from which of the contending parties it went to press. “I confess,” says the Doctor, (and observe the Printers tell us it was immediately before his signing) “I confess that I do not entirely approve of this Constitution at present.” Surely, I thought, no zealous fœderalist, in his right mind, would have exposed his cause so much as to publish to the world that this great philosopher did not entirely approve the Constitution at the very moment when his “hand marked” his approbation of it; especially after the fœderalists themselves had so often and so loudly proclaimed, that he had fully and decidedly adopted it. The Doctor adds, “I am not sure I shall never approve it.” This then is the only remaining hope of the fœderalists, so far as the Doctor’s judgment is or may be of any service to their cause, that one time or another he may approve the new Constitution.

Again, says the Doctor, “In these sentiments I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general government necessary for us, and there is no FORM of government but what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered.” But are we to accept a form of government which we do not entirely approve of, merely in hopes that it will be administered well? Does not every man know, that nothing is more liable to be abused than power. Power, without a check, in any hands, is tyranny; and such powers, in the hands of even good men, so infatuating is the nature of it, will probably be wantonly, if not tyrannically exercised. The world has had experience enough of this, in every stage of it. Those among us who cannot entirely approve the new Constitution as it is called, are of opinion that any form may be well administered, and thus be made a blessing to the people, that there ought to be at least, an express reservation of certain inherent unalienable rights, which it would be equally sacrilegious for the people to give away, as for the government to invade. If the rights of conscience, for instance, are not sacredly reserved to the people, what security will there be, in case the government should have in their heads a predilection for any one sect in religion? what will hinder the civil power from erecting a national system of religion, and committing the law to a set of lordly priests, reaching, as the great Dr. Mayhew expressed it, from the desk to the skies? An Hierarchy which has ever been the grand engine in the hand of civil tyranny; and tyrants in return will afford them opportunity enough to vent their rage on stubborn hereticks, by wholesome severities, as they were called by national religionists, in a country which has long boasted its freedom. It was doubtless for the peace of that nation, that there should be an uniformity in religion, and for the same wise and good reason, the act of uniformity remains in force to these enlightened times.

The Doctor says, he is “not sure that this is not the best Constitution that we may expect.” Nor can he be sure that it might not have been made better than it now is, if the Convention had adjourned to a distant day, that they might have availed themselves of the sentiments of the people at large. It would have been no great condescension, even in that august Body, to have shown so small a testimony of regard to the judgment of their constituents. Would it not be acting more like men who wish for a safe as well as a stable government, to propose such amendments as would meliorate the form, than to approve it, as the Dr. would have us, “with all its faults, if they are such.” Thus the Doctor consents, and hopes the Convention will “act heartily and unanimously in recommending the Constitution, wherever their influence may extend, and turn their future tho’ts and endeavors to the means of having it well administered.” Even a bad form of government may, in the Doctor’s opinion, be well administered—for, says he, there is no form of government, but what may be made a blessing to the people, if well administered. He evidently, I think, builds his hopes, that the Constitution proposed, will be a blessing to the people,—not on the principles of the government itself, but on the possibility, that, with all its faults, it may be well administered;—and concludes, with wishing, that others, who had objections to it, would yet, like him, doubt of their own infallibility, and put their names to the instrument, to make an Unanimity MANIFEST! No wonder he shed a tear, as it is said he did, when he gave his sanction to the New Constitution.

I totally agree with “Z” when he expresses his disappointment that Dr. Franklin would grant his “stamp of approval” on a Constitution whose success depended upon good people administering it.

The core flaw in Dr. Franklin’s reasoning is the presupposition that “a General Government [is] necessary for us.” The original confederation of independent states was working quite well in terms of individual liberties. The problem the Convention had been called to address, was the ability to pay its debts. Strengthening the federal government simply to raise money was a drastic sin, in my opinion!

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On Monday September 17th, 1787, Benjamin Franklin stood before the Constitutional Convention as it was wrapping up, and gave his support to the proposed Constitution with these words:

I confess that I do not entirely approve of this Constitution at present, but Sir, I am not sure I shall never approve it: For having lived long, I have experienced many Instances of being oblig’d, by better Information or fuller Consideration, to change Opinions even on important Subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow the more apt I am to doubt my own Judgment and to pay more Respect to the Judgment of others. Most Men indeed as well as most Sects in religion, think themselves in Possession of all Truth, and that wherever others differ from them it is so far Error. Steele, a Protestant, in a Dedication tells the Pope, that the only Difference between our two Churches in their Opinions of the Certainty of their Doctrine, is, the Romish Church is infallible, and the Church of England is never in the Wrong. But tho’ many private Persons think almost as highly of their own Infallibility, as that of their Sect, few express it so naturally as a certain French lady, who in a little Dispute with her Sister, said, I don’t know how it happens, Sister, but I meet with no body but myself that’s always in the right. Il n’y a que moi qui a toujours raison.

In these Sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its Faults, if they are such: because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no Form of Government but what may be a Blessing to the People if well administered; and I believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a Course of Years, and can only end in Despotism as other Forms have done before it, when the People shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other. I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better Constitution: For when you assemble a Number of Men to have the Advantage of their joint Wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those Men all their Prejudices, their Passions, their Errors of Opinion, their local Interests, and their selfish Views. From such an Assembly can a perfect Production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this System approaching so near to Perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our Enemies, who are waiting with Confidence to hear that our Councils are confounded, like those of the Builders of Babel, and that our States are on the Point of Separation, only to meet hereafter for the Purpose of cutting one another’s Throats. Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure that it is not the best. The Opinions I have had of its Errors, I sacrifice to the Public Good. I have never whisper’d a Syllable of them abroad. Within these Walls they were born, & here they shall die. If every one of us in returning to our Constituents were to report the Objections he has had to it, and endeavour to gain Partizans in support of them, we might prevent its being generally received, and thereby lose all the salutary Effects & great Advantages resulting naturally in our favour among foreign Nations, as well as among ourselves, from our real or apparent Unanimity. Much of the Strength and Efficiency of any Government, in procuring & securing Happiness to the People depends on Opinion, on the general Opinion of the Goodness of that Government as well as of the Wisdom & Integrity of its Governors. I hope therefore that for our own Sakes, as a Part of the People, and for the Sake of our Posterity, we shall act heartily & unanimously in recommending this Constitution, wherever our Influence may extend, and turn our future Thoughts and Endeavours to the Means of having it well administered.—

On the whole, Sir, I cannot help expressing a Wish, that every Member of the Convention, who may still have Objections to it, would with me on this Occasion doubt a little of his own Infallibility, and to make manifest our Unanimity, put his Name to this Instrument.—

I have mixed feelings about Dr. Franklin’s eagerness to embrace an inferior form of government, merely because some government is better than no government. However, there are some points within this speech upon which I completely agree; especially those observations of human character.

I would love to hear what you think of this speech, and whether you think it is still a valid point of view, based on the current state of affairs in the United States.

My dad forwarded me this humorous email. While it claims to be true, who can really know with these forwarded emails… regardless, it’s funny!

HOW TO CALL THE POLICE WHEN YOU’RE OLD

George Phillips of Meridian , Mississippi was going up to bed, when his wife told him that he’d left the light on in the garden shed, which she could see from the bedroom window. George opened the back door to go turn off the light, but saw that there were people in the shed stealing things.

He phoned the police, who asked “Is someone in your house?”   He said “No.”  Then they said “All patrols were busy.  You should lock your doors and an officer will be along when one is available.”  George said, “Okay”  He hung up the phone and counted to 30.

Then he phoned the police again.

“Hello, I just called you a few seconds ago because there were people stealing things from my shed. Well, you don’t have to worry about them now because I just shot them.” and hung up.

Within five minutes, six police cars, a SWAT team, a helicopter, two fire trucks, a paramedic, and an ambulance showed up at the Phillips’ residence, and caught the burglars red-handed.

One of the Policemen said to George, “I thought you said that you shot them!”

George said, “I thought you said there was nobody available!”

(True Story)