Thomas Jefferson was largely correct, but he got the French Revolution entirely wrong. He should have known better. Jefferson focused on protecting the potential that each and every individual is born with – the “unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” He thought the French Revolution was an expansion of the American pursuit. It wasn’t. The French version tried to dictate outcomes through legislative pronouncements – “Liberté, égalité, fraternité.” A collectivist dream perpetuated by lawyer-tyrants like Robespierre who was no better than the hereditary-tyrants he executed. France wasn’t a principled revolution: it was a mob hit. And the Russian Revolution was the same. Just look at the outcomes.
France today is similarly deluded. I must admit jealousy at the fact they riot over a two-year increase in the retirement age, phased in over seven years, to the ripe age of 64! It shows that France’s financial education and understanding of government Ponzi schemes is even worse than the United States’. The peasants are still angry and deluded that there is some source of governmental wealth beyond what is stolen from the populous.
More critically, there is still a strange belief in the reified government, as if there is an “it” above the parasites who inhabit the structure. Those inhabitants are not moral agents – Plato’s philosopher kings – rather they are the same stuff of muck and guile that the rest of us are.
The current noise in the news at both the federal and state level serve as poignant reminders. The OLCC liquor scandal, Secretary Smokin Shemia Fagan, Clarence – Long Dong Silver – Thomas are guilty of naked self-interest. (And in Thomas’ case, I would think criminal tax evasion.) Ethics violations do immeasurable damage to the public trust. But that trust was always misplaced because it was predicated on the moral superiority of those who seek power. Lord Acton will always have it right.
Protective Arts 