tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4138458.post2553360330020455174..comments2024-02-23T13:15:42.158+13:00Comments on Dissecting Leftism: JRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00829082699850674281noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4138458.post-65455809330445255142014-06-24T03:37:50.244+12:002014-06-24T03:37:50.244+12:00Re: Has America always been leftist?
I don't ...Re: Has America always been leftist?<br /><br />I don't agree that America has always been leftist because I don't buy into abstractions like "America." There are and have been individual Americans of many political persuasions, most of them confused and contradictory. <br /><br />That said, as an enlightened libertarian (i.e., Burkean conservative) I do agree with your characterization of the motives of the authors of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. For example, a latter-day romantic, Timothy Sandefur (author of The Conscience of the Constitution), asserted that "The American founders held that people are inherently freeāthat is, no<br />person has a basic entitlement to dictate how other people may lead<br />their lives." I responded:<br /><br />"Did they, really? All of them, including the slave owners? Or did they simply want to relocate the seat of power from London to the various State capitals, where local preferences (including anti-libertarian ones) could prevail? Wasn't that what the Declaration of Independence and Articles of Confederation were all about? The Constitution simply moved some of the power toward the national capital, mainly for the conduct of foreign policy and trade. Despite that, the Constitution was a "States' rights" document, and remained that way until the ratification of Amendment XIV, from which much anti-libertarian mischief has emanated."<br /><br />Later, I wrote:<br /><br />"Why can't you just admit that the Declaration of Independence was a p.r. piece, penned (in the main) by a slave-owner and subscribed to by various and sundry elites who (understandably) resented their treatment at the hands of a far-away sovereign and Parliament? You're trying to make more of the Declaration -- laudable as its sentiments are -- than should be made of it."<br /><br />In sum, the War of Independence isn't all it's cracked up to be. And there's no doubt that liberty suffered in the long run as a result of the North's victory in the Civil War. But, in my view, those historical missteps have little to do with "left" (or "right") and much to do with human venality and power-lust, which are found in persons of all political persuasions.<br /><br />The genius of the Constitution was that it provided mechanisms for curbing the anti-libertarian effects of venality and power-lust. The tragedy of the Constitution is that those mechanisms have been destroyed. If you were to say that Americans have gradually lost their liberty through successive and cumulative violations of the Constitution, I would agree with you.<br /><br />And if you were to say that Americans are the captives of a leftist state, and are likely to remain so, I would agree with you.<br /><br />In any event, I have been and will remain a faithful reader of Dissecting Leftism, which provides a valuable service in exposing the left's anti-libertarian motives and actions.Loquitur Veritatemhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09206272230792130185noreply@blogger.com