"...the clank of chains ... and the whispers of assassins."
1805 to 2024
“We listened to the clank of chains and overhear the whispers of assassins; we mark the barbarous dissonance of mingled rage and triumph in the yell of an infatuated mob; we see the dismal glare of their burnings and scent the loathsome stream of human victims offered in sacrifice…. There are not many, perhaps not 500, even among the federalists who yet allow themselves to view the progress of licentiousness as so speedy so sure and so fatal as the deplorable experience of our country shows that it is….”
In 1805 Fisher Ames, stalwart leader of High Federalists, was, should we say, suspicious of the relatively moderate administration of Jefferson and the Republicans.
A step to the left ---anarchy; a step to the right—despotism. I think we are doing the Time Warp again.
There is a problem. The intellectual weakness that led people to embrace absolutes on the Right, does not make me very comfortable with what is a small part of the American political universe, controlling one branch of Congress.
Those less well educated, or less inherently intelligent, placed in positions of authority, are likely to think in terms of simple rigid abstractions and dig in their heels.
The slogan, “Small government,” is not a surgical tool for better public policy.
And terrible fear of the “other,” a step to the left or right, is not far-seeing statesmanship.