Brother Franklin's Concern

September 17, 1787 at Philedelphia

"Mr. President

I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them: For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged 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 Churches in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrines is, the Church of Rome is infallible and the Church of England is never in the wrong. But though many private persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility as of that of their sect, few express it so naturally as a certain french lady, who in a 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 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 Constitutionbecause 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 whispered a syllable of them abroad. Within these walls they were born, and 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 endeavor 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 favor among foreign Nations as well as among ourselves, from our real or apparent unanimity. Much of the strength & efficiency of any Government in procuring and securing happiness to the people, depends, on opinion, on the general opinion of the goodness of the Government, as well as of the wisdom and integrity of its Governors. I hope therefore that for our own sakes as a part of the people, and for the sake of posterity, we shall act heartily and unanimously in recommending this Constitution (if approved by Congress & confirmed by the Conventions) wherever our influence may extend, and turn our future thoughts & endeavors to the means of having it well administred.

On the whole, Sir, I can not 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."

Delegate B. Franklin via
Proxy J. Wilson from the notes of
Secretary J. Madison

Later on the same day, “Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?”

“A Republic, if you can keep it.”

The highlights in the above quotations of Benjamin Franklin illuminate the precipice at which our great republic now finds itself; one that is likely not a sheer drop into the abyss, but rather more like the top of a gravelled slope above it:  navigable perhaps, though one slip will lead to an interminable slide.  Notice that he says that a Despotic government  only transforms from one good and just to meet the needs of a corrupted people.  He goes on to note that the efficacy of any government is largely dependent upon the regard in which it and its constituent members are held in the eyes of the public.

We find ourselves now at a time of the crossing of bad and worse; a time of utter distrust of the people towards their government when the degree of moral decay, what's more the pervasive indifference towards the accelerating malignancy of that decay, is at a pitch not seen since the Reign of Terror, if ever, and never in these United States!

If we can keep it indeed!

In Response To An Article Regarding The Disappearance Of Western Civilization In Education

(A part of a conversation regarding the nature and status of the West and it's ideas and ideals)

I've given a lot of thought to this idea/ideal for about the last ten years. I'll get to the heart of my point and converse directly with yours, but first I need to frame the topic in a paragraph or two.

Man cannot create nor grant universal rights. Universal rights are those things which Man possesses equally in society as well as in the presence of no one. I have thus far found only two: Life and Liberty. Being alive I possess my life, and being in Time I possess the prerogative of choosing how to spend it. There's a lot of things that we call rights that are not. Do you think that you, as a human being, have the right to vote? Go to China, see how that works for you. Do you think that you have the right to free speech? Go to Saudi Arabia and try to exercise that right.

When mankind comes into close contact, being of a like nature, we tend to interact. These interactions amount to transactions of a sort that are governed by mutually agreed upon privileges or are transactions of another sort which are used to establish privileges by which to govern future interactions. In our society we have mutually agreed that free speech is a privilege which we consciously extend to each other, hence the conversation we're having now. In our society we have mutually agreed that you and I can hold different cosmological positions and either choose to or choose not to worship in any way we each see fit. That's a privilege that we have agreed to extend to each other.

Mankind, being alive and engaging in activities, is a slave to another universal: his interests. A man's actions are and will be governed by his interests. What informs and shapes his interests? His values! Those things which he holds dear regarding what he believes is the best way to live constitute his values. When that man comes into contact with another whose interests are contrary to his own because that man doesn't hold his same set of values, the resultant transaction is either going to resemble a triumph of one set of values over the other because their was acquiescence on one side or some compromised alloy of the two.

This is what constitutes the differences between world cultures. It's not superficial qualities like skin color or language, it's values. Now we say that there is a spectrum of values that we in the West hold dear: rationalism, self-criticism, the objective search for truth, the separation of church and state, the rule of law and equality thereunder, freedom to think and express ideas individually, human protection from unjust harm, etc. Why. Why are those important? When entering into a transaction with someone who doesn't value these things, can you defend them? Will these things prevail or will you acquiesce to his interests which may contradict directly these values?

Can we expect future generations in the West to continue to defend and advance these values in the face of direct opposition, stated or not, if they are ignorant of how and why these values were discovered, developed, and adopted? Probably not. That's what I'm talking about when I say our culture is in decline. We're like those denizens of the science fiction theme which explores the actions of a people in possession of and dependent upon an advanced technology that their ancestors created that they now have no understanding of how it works. Something breaks the magic machine that they need to live, or it simply breaks down, and they are left in a crisis trying to fix what they don't understand. That's the world that I feel like we've allowed to grow up around us! Our society operates within constructs of ideas that most of the current population, when asked as to their composition, could not give you a coherent answer regarding what that thing means, why it's important. Ask an average college kid why freedom of speech is important as well as when, where, and why it was first realized by mankind. Ask them to cite positive examples of its accomplishments and negative examples of its use and of its censure. They can't do it! Most of them, if they endeavored to answer at all, would be trying to make something up.

The fact is that most of the West, our kids in particular, are completely unprepared to defend the values of our society in the face of contrary opinions. And yes, there are a whole host of contrary opinions, both without and some within our civilization.

An American Argument Against Socialism in Three Paragraphs

You do realize that "socialism" as you put it necessarily requires that some part of all things be held in reserve from their rightful owners for the purposes of being freely given to others according some rationale determined by those charged with their distribution. I'm fairly certain, actually, that you do realize this. That all "things" are representative of our effort, leveraged to whatever degree we can manage, has been firmly established by greater minds than mine. But to put it another way, our efforts take time which, when stripped of all of life's superfluities, is ultimately all that we have; our lives which have been granted to us and the time in which to live them. So could we fairly say then, since our lives cannot be lived outside of time, that time spent equals life spent? If so could we then go on to conclude that our lives, spent taking the time to fashion things though our efforts, are in fact the currency which is being exchanged?

Well, if that's the case, here's what your socialism sounds like to me. Your socialism requires that some part of my life be held in reserve from myself, its rightful owner, for the purposes of being given to another according to some arbitrary rationale determined by those chosen to be charged with their distribution. I've added a few choice words, but the point is, socialism seeks to manipulate the very lives of the people whom it afflicts but not those whom it benefits. In a democracy it is the ultimate device of influence generation, for no one wants to be afflicted. To say that benefits, that is to say other people's lives, are to be given out beneficently is naive. Humans being such as they are will exercise favouritism somewhere, somehow, someway. The result of this arrangement, as history has shown in the cases of various European countries who have tried this, is that society will become a small group of designated distributors, their beneficiaries who attain such status by "toeing-the-line", and everybody else whose lives are being used as currency. It's a monarchy without a king; a feudal despotism without titles of nobility; a fascism without a figurehead to bear the fasces; an insipid slave state founded upon man's pretensions; in all cases a tyranny of statism, or really just tyranny alone.

That popular governments are to administrate programs of beneficence for the relief of some part of the citizenry is not the point. Such governments who do so with the consent of the governed,---the consent of the governed!, here is puzzle piece which socialism cannot fit!,---are beyond rightful reproach. I've wrestled with the distinction between rights and privileges for beyond a decade now, and thus far I have determined that two rights exist, Mr. Jefferson labeled a third which is, in my mind, a result of the combination of the other two. In the absence of all men, within Time yet without Eternity, two things are mine: Life and Liberty. These two things should be eternally inviolate, or as we Americans have come to believe, are inalienable. Socialism, seeking to suspend the latter in order to spend the former, can be safely described as wholly un-American. That government should maintain programs directed toward the support of its citizens is without argument. That it should not compromise the core of its very existence to do so should be likewise without argument.

I'm nearly finished reading a novel within whose story arch the author editorializes at considerable length about the political and social convulsions of France and of the French in the late 18th century and the first half of the 19th. I find it truly ironic that the American progressive of today is the post-Napoleonic French monarchist of yesterday; they want all the safety, security, privilege, and fortune of the central state, wrapped in the ideals and retaining some of the institutions of La Révolution, while compromising, and as such diminishing and ultimately discarding, those very ideals in order to secure these ends.