Sent in hopes the spirit of Independence Day lingers - Ed
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/070406Z.shtml
Benjamin Franklin, The Example
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 04 July 2006
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.
- Benjamin Franklin
The Fourth of July is upon us again, and with it comes the inevitable
vast, rolling river of patriotic self-congratulation from every corner.
Soldiers and veterans will be lionized even as they are sacrificed and
ignored, flags will fly, and in cities and towns across the nation, the
evening skies will be lit with pyrotechnic brilliance.
Today is a cherished spot on the calendar for politicians of every
stripe, simply because they can spout platitudes on a day off and not be
accounted scoundrels or hypocrites for doing so. Today, they are supposed to
do this. Being patriotic on the Fourth of July is like shooting fish in a
barrel.
Being a good American on the other 364 days of the year is another
matter. There aren't many established definitions for what a "good American"
is supposed to say and do ... or, more accurately, there are far too many.
Support the President, or not. Support the Iraq occupation, or not. Worship
God, or don't. Spin the radio across the AM talk-show dial and you'll find a
ready answer to the question of who and what represents a good American
every other time a voice comes through the speakers.
It is better, perhaps, to nail down a specific example of a good
American on this day. Since this is the Fourth, and since being both of
patriotic mien and historical mind is expected, the appropriate example is
best plucked from that gathering of revolutionary minds who got this whole
thing going 230 years ago. Each can provide a portion of any definition of a
good American, but there is one above all who accurately represents the
entirety of the ideal.
Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston 300 years ago this past January. He
is esteemed as perhaps the greatest of our Founding Fathers, and is the only
man to have his signature on the three central documents of the republic:
the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Paris and the Constitution.
His work as a diplomat for the colonies in Paris is regarded as perhaps the
most important reason why Britain lost the war, for he was the man who
brought France in on our side when the chips were down.
That's the stuff one can read in any civics textbook, and the stuff that
is easiest to lionize on this day of all days. The rest of Benjamin
Franklin, however, stands as the best possible example of who and what we
should all strive to be during the other days of the year.
Above all else, Franklin was a thinker with a voracious intellectual
appetite. His work with electricity laid the groundwork for our
electron-based modern world. His exploration of his world allowed him to
claim credit for a number of remarkable inventions, including the medical
catheter, the lightning rod, bifocals and a really neat stove.
He founded the American Philosophical Society to give other inventors
and creators a place to discuss their work. He played the violin, harp and
guitar. He was an acclaimed writer, was fluent in five languages, and became
an abolitionist in a time when the issue of slavery had barely arrived as a
matter of national contention. He helped to found the first public library
in the nation, and also founded the first volunteer firefighting company.
His parents expected him to pursue a career in the church, but at a
young age he became disillusioned with organized religion in general. For
the majority of his life, he was an avowed Deist, believing that logic and
reason instead of tradition and revelation were the best paths to God. As a
Founding Father, he was central to the establishment of a separation between
church and state.
He was also singularly quirky, enjoying dalliances with a variety of
women even into later age. He enjoyed his drink, and had a sense of humor
that was both playful and profound. He was not in any way the starched
straight-arrow we tend to think of when we imagine the Founders. He was, to
put it plainly, a fun person to have at parties.
The life of the mind, then, and a playful spirit. If Benjamin Franklin
had never become involved with the fight for colonial independence, he would
still have been an American to admire ... and that may be the rub, for if a
man of such intellect had not gotten involved, it is more than possible that
"Americans" would not exist.
We live in a world today of narrowing perspective. Extremists in the
religions of East and West condemn anything not written in the ancient
texts, and politicians who make a living through the sowing of division
spend their time attacking any information that does not conform to their
political beliefs. We are becoming dumber as a nation on a daily basis as
our schools go unfunded and our news outlets offer distraction instead of
data. Worse, shunning the life of the mind has become something to admire.
So what is a good American? If Benjamin Franklin is to be the example,
then a good American is someone brave enough to risk his life for his
beliefs. A good American is an explorer of boundaries, of limits, and of
possibilities. A good American seeks ideas not only to confirm his beliefs,
but to risk the possibility of discovering information that shakes those
beliefs to their foundations. A good American knows when to work, and knows
when to have fun, and knows that the one serves and validates the other. A
good American is someone who thinks.
Lionizing a Founding Father on the Fourth of July is a simple task, to
be sure, but Benjamin Franklin turns this process on its ear. He represents
all we can be and all we should be, and likewise represents all we no longer
seem to be or care to be today. He is worthy of admiration, which is easy,
and worthy of emulation, which is not.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling
author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know
and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.
***
Thomas Jefferson on
Politics, Government, and other issues
http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff0300.htm
"Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [i.e.,
securing inherent and inalienable rights, with powers derived from the
consent of the governed], it is the right of the people to alter or abolish
it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such
principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem
most likely to effect their safety and happiness." --Thomas Jefferson:
Declaration of Independence, 1776. ME 1:29, Papers 1:315
(and Benjamin Franklin - Ed)
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions,
that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when
wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little
rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere." --Thomas
Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1787.
"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion... We
have had thirteen States independent for eleven years. There has been one
rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half, for each
State. What country before ever existed a century and a half without a
rebellion?" --Thomas Jefferson to William S. Smith, 1787. ME 6:372
"I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as
necessary in the political world as storms are in the physical. Unsuccessful
rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of
the people, which have produced them. An observation of this truth should
render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of
rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is medicine necessary for
the sound health of government." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787.
ME 6:65
"[Bear] always in mind that a nation ceases to be republican only when the
will of the majority ceases to be the law." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to the
Citizens of Adams County, Pa., 1808. ME 12:18
"If once [the people] become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I,
and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves.
It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual
exceptions." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787. ME 6:58
"Who will govern the governors?" There is only one force in the nation that
can be depended upon to keep the government pure and the governors honest,
and that is the people themselves. They alone, if well informed, are capable
of preventing the corruption of power, and of restoring the nation to its
rightful course if it should go astray. They alone are the safest depository
of the ultimate powers of government.
"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and
mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day." --Thomas Jefferson
to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours, 1816. ME 14:491
The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether
man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small
elite. --Thomas Jefferson
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