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logo    Are there Really Any Reasons to Celebrate?


Since I see no point in reading what I already know, many years ago, I gave up reading journalistic commentary, because once one knew the point-of-view of the journalist, one could predict with 100% accuracy the commentary's content. But in search of a diversion from the disappointing play of the Cowboys in Cincinnati, I read your piece, Reasons to Celebrate. Unfortunately, you are mistaken because your point is based on a flawed vision of the country that the founding fathers envisioned, and no one really knows what our ancestors fought and died for. Having once gone to war at this country's call myself, I can tell you that most soldiers have no idea of what they are fighting for. Did, for instance, those who fought in the American Civil War fight for the preservation/destruction of the nation or the emancipation of/the continued ownership of slaves? I don't know. You don't know. Nobody knows.

But the point I wish to make does not involve criticism of such vapid statements.

The United States of America today has not even a faint resemblance to the nation envisioned by our founding fathers. This nation is characterized by faction--two to be exact. And our founding fathers were well aware of the threat to democracy that faction poses. If you haven't done so or have but have forgotten it, read The Federalist Papers numbers nine and ten. Had the colonists believed that this nation would some day be characterized by faction, the Constitution would never have been ratified.

Of course, the arguments in the Federalist Papers, while cogent at the time, are no longer so, because of the technological progress that has made mass media possible. Nevertheless, what they knew about the threat of faction to the endurance of democracy are just as true today as it was in the 1700s. They knew that historically, democracy was ultimately destroyed by faction, and the extreme factional discourse of the recent election should certainly be cause for concern, and thus the election is nothing to celebrate.

Furthermore, although no journalist will say so, this nation has become vastly more repressive that it was when I was a young man (I am now in my seventies). One of the measures used by international bodies that measure repression in countries is the number of its people a society imprisons. If one were to judge by this standard alone, this nation would have the distinction of being the most repressive in today's world.

Such repression is the result of governmental actionthe passage of laws. But it was recognized as far back as the nineteenth century that such repression, while bad, was not the worst. The worst kind of repression is socially generated. And as I look back the changes that have taken place in this United States since I attained adulthood, it is depressingly evident that many of the freedoms that we Americans enjoyed then are now lost. I need not enumerate them for you; you know what they are. But to understand the consequences of such socially generated repression, you should read John Stuart Mills little tract, On Liberty.

If you read both of these works and have even a tincture of intellectual honesty in your soul, you too will lament what is happening in this country. Unfortunately, even if you do, I doubt that it will change the tone of a single sentence you write, for your point-of-view is the stuff that butters your bread. Without your point-of-view, you would be nobody. (Mark Davis The Dallas Morning News 4/11/2007)