I could not think of what would be appropriate to write on a day like this when groups of politicians fight over our country's future like vultures and ravens trying to determine on which side of the road the corpse will rest while they pick its bones clean.
That's not really the way I see this latest contest of wills between the Democrats and the Republicans, but it pretty well sums up the way a lot of people do see it. They want to believe there are better ways to get government's business done than what they see happening. You know, like what they were taught in school about how government works.
Those last two words are the problem in that. The textbooks gave most of us a very wrong impression. If the percentage of the time that government works was a score for a school grade it would be an 'F' across the last couple decades and many decades prior. At it's best, on a federal level it could manage a 'C' across a year here or there. The idea that government works as a rule is wrong. It works more often than not but that's about it. And that's not because there is anything wrong with our government. It's a just a fact about how organizations of all kinds lose efficiency as they grow.
What works about America and always has been what works is not its government but the American people. Currently our government has grown so big and cumbersome that it threatens to pull us down into the same state that is its norm, that of minimal functionality.
My warning to my fellow Americans is to not mistake our government for us. Lincoln said it is a government "of" the people and he was right, but that does not mean it is the people. It means it belongs to us and not us to it.
So as the politicians battle over the carcass of government (not America) let us read a great poem about freedom and liberty by the Scottish poet Robert Burns. And one does not need to be Scottish to appreciate it because it is about liberty, and liberty you see never misses an opportunity to recognize that individual nations and people are distinct and allowing for that is part of liberty's mission.
I.
Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led;
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to glorious victorie!
II.
Now's the day, and now's the hour--
See the front o' battle lour;
See approach proud Edward's power--
Edward! chains and slaverie!
III.
Wha will be a traitor-knave?
Wha can fill a coward's grave?
Wha sae base as be a slave?
Traitor! coward! turn and flee!
IV.
Wha for Scotland's king and law
Freedom's sword will strongly draw,
Freeman stand, or freeman fa',
Caledonian! on wi' me!
V.
By oppression's woes and pains!
By our sons in servile chains!
We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall be--shall be free!
VI.
Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty's in every blow!
Forward! let us do, or die!
That's not really the way I see this latest contest of wills between the Democrats and the Republicans, but it pretty well sums up the way a lot of people do see it. They want to believe there are better ways to get government's business done than what they see happening. You know, like what they were taught in school about how government works.
Those last two words are the problem in that. The textbooks gave most of us a very wrong impression. If the percentage of the time that government works was a score for a school grade it would be an 'F' across the last couple decades and many decades prior. At it's best, on a federal level it could manage a 'C' across a year here or there. The idea that government works as a rule is wrong. It works more often than not but that's about it. And that's not because there is anything wrong with our government. It's a just a fact about how organizations of all kinds lose efficiency as they grow.
What works about America and always has been what works is not its government but the American people. Currently our government has grown so big and cumbersome that it threatens to pull us down into the same state that is its norm, that of minimal functionality.
My warning to my fellow Americans is to not mistake our government for us. Lincoln said it is a government "of" the people and he was right, but that does not mean it is the people. It means it belongs to us and not us to it.
So as the politicians battle over the carcass of government (not America) let us read a great poem about freedom and liberty by the Scottish poet Robert Burns. And one does not need to be Scottish to appreciate it because it is about liberty, and liberty you see never misses an opportunity to recognize that individual nations and people are distinct and allowing for that is part of liberty's mission.
I.
Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led;
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to glorious victorie!
II.
Now's the day, and now's the hour--
See the front o' battle lour;
See approach proud Edward's power--
Edward! chains and slaverie!
III.
Wha will be a traitor-knave?
Wha can fill a coward's grave?
Wha sae base as be a slave?
Traitor! coward! turn and flee!
IV.
Wha for Scotland's king and law
Freedom's sword will strongly draw,
Freeman stand, or freeman fa',
Caledonian! on wi' me!
V.
By oppression's woes and pains!
By our sons in servile chains!
We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall be--shall be free!
VI.
Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty's in every blow!
Forward! let us do, or die!
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