We Got These Things Called Unique Moments
The Rest is Just the Usual
Where we are now in the temporal scheme is nothing but our own little ripple in the cosmic river meandering its slow way around again, again and again. Every extinguished civilization was great in its time and its people at its height always thought themselves admirably modern. Every new mind-virus that the infected will call their religion rises and plagues other people unfortunate enough to be in the way of its spread until another people’s mind-virus rises and does its best to suppress the previous one out of existence.
But sometimes—not very often—there’s a unique moment in all that circular flowing of the waters of time, when something remarkable is achieved.
Our people had one. Principles were established by which human society could provide a life of dignity and liberty to each and all of its members, no matter who they were or where they’d originally come from, or what mind-viruses they tend to succumb to.
My big thoughts on this were published, in a pair of letters, in my regional newspaper several years ago, as responses to the letters of other readers. I figure this is a good time to say the more general parts from each again because I think they should be said often. (I did a wee bit of editing too; if one revisits one’s work it should be with a stern eye.)
We who were granted a secular republic by the extraordinary wisdom of the founders mostly fail miserably to appreciate its value and to defend it with the ferocity required.
During their lifetimes, by some alchemical magic the framers of our Constitution achieved something extraordinary, despite their ordinary human failings and moral contradictions.
They established the first nation-state on earth governed by secular principles and freed from the spurious “rights” of noble lineages and victorious clans.
They were helped by excellent foundations in classical liberal studies, and though I have no patience, myself, for excesses of philosophical navel-gazing, such works do force one to think about ideas and where they lead to.
We are not an exceptional nation, because Americans are as human as anyone else anywhere, and do wrong things just as often as they may do right ones.
But our system is exceptional, and we have a foundational document to haul us back in the right direction whenever we divert from it.
I wish that instead of feel-good parades and memorial ceremonies held to mark various events in the civil calendar, we instead sponsored public readings of our Constitution, since civics classes are apparently extinct in our public schools. That’s a more meaningful way to honor men and women who died for what they were told was the defense of our freedoms and way of life.
I myself didn’t much appreciate American history when I was in school; as the grandchild, great-grandchild, great-niece and cousin of immigrants, I felt little personal connection to the events of the eighteenth century on this soil. But I’ve got a lifetime under my belt now, some of its months and years spent living in other places, and now I understand what we need to be fighting for.
Justice, yes. Accompanied by a sensible retort to any who deny the value of some of those dead white guys and what they built for us.
Very nicely written!
"...sensible retort to any who deny the value of some of those dead white guys and what they built for us."
Brilliant!
I enjoyed this, very much. I just read a book I wish I’d read years ago. “John Adams” by McCollough. Amazing men,and women, did amazing things. Reading that and letting the sacrifice, dedication, and bravery of those who founded this country sink in, I got pretty angry at so many who are ready to treat it with such disregard, without care and tending, and jeopardize it’s future. No one in this country has it bad enough to bitch as much as we’ve been bitching...especially at each other.