Our founding ideals included the fact that systems naturally decay and have to be restored. Well-regulated militia, tree of liberty? I'm looking around and I see what your departures from those ideals led to. The obsessive "government vs individual" polemic, focusing so much on the government itself instead of society, claiming it has a "monopoly" on force, etc. are what shift responsibility away from the people and prevents them from making the needed corrections.
If there was any shortcoming with the Founders, it's that they didn't do enough to secure their ideals.
Sure. And placed more emphasis on nationalism, at least. They put slightly too much trust in society to maintain its own principles. Hindsight is 20/20 obviously, they knew the power of newspapers and were already seeing some of the industrial revolution's affects on society, but I don't think they could've imagined how far it would go.
We do know that though, so there's no excuses now.
Our founding ideals included the fact that systems naturally decay and have to be restored. Well-regulated militia, tree of liberty? I'm looking around and I see what your departures from those ideals led to. The obsessive "government vs individual" polemic, focusing so much on the government itself instead of society, claiming it has a "monopoly" on force, etc. are what shift responsibility away from the people and prevents them from making the needed corrections.
If there was any shortcoming with the Founders, it's that they didn't do enough to secure their ideals.
like, they should have been MORE authoritarian?
Sure. And placed more emphasis on nationalism, at least. They put slightly too much trust in society to maintain its own principles. Hindsight is 20/20 obviously, they knew the power of newspapers and were already seeing some of the industrial revolution's affects on society, but I don't think they could've imagined how far it would go.
We do know that though, so there's no excuses now.