I will not apologize, Colby Girard, for my reverence for the
founding fathers. They were a group of extraordinary thinkers and remarkably brilliant
men. They steeped themselves in the
wisdom of the ages, could read Latin, Greek and French. Along with The Bible and The Qu'ran, their
writings reflect knowledge of Homer, Virgil, Marcus Aurelius, Cicero,
Shakespeare, Thomas Aquinas and Rene Descartes; and they profited from studying
thinkers of their time like John Milton and John Locke and Francis Bacon.
Today we
steep ourselves in The Housewives of any and every metropolis and the sexual
exploits of the Kardashians. Probably 99 per cent of us have not read our own
constitution. And what their scholarly pursuits taught them was that the gathering
of all the wisdom of the ages does not change one important thing, the ills of
the human heart. Men may be “noble is reason, infinite in
faculty… like an Angel…the paragon of animals,” but he is yet the “quintessence of dust.”
Colby
is, of course, correct. The founders did
recognize the need for a federal government stronger than what the Articles of
Confederation allowed, but none of them, not one, wanted a “strong central
government.” They recognized the lust,
pride, and greed in their own hearts and knew that a government had to be carefully
restricted, bound in chains, or it would naturally violate our God given
rights. They may be gone, but their
world is very much alive. We are still
governed by dangerous passions.
Now tell
me Mr. Girard, what in my dissertation leads you to consider me “backward?” Which
of my sentences are evidence of my “foaming at the mouth?” Which illustrate my tendency to “vain empty
argument?” Am I the “ babbling skunk trying to smell like a rose?”
I agree
with you. We should discuss our ideas on
their merits or lack thereof, and our arguments should reflect that, though we
may disagree, we have profound respect for one another.
