That’s a beautiful idea, that the messiness, mistakes, contradictions, lack of clarity, and faults of self governance are the point of it all. Thanks for the insight.
This is an old story. Most are not really aware that early colonists depended on native Americans for basic lessons on living in this very different set of lands. Our Founders knew these relations quite intimately, and were inspired by solutions evolved over at least 10,000 years of habitation. The colonists depended a lot on the home countries, but had an independent streak that took native lessons to heart. Enlightenment thinkers of Europe were famously impressed with native kindness, generosity, and clarity of thinking, while so many colonists left the inverse impression. The Founders specifically took note of the longhouse tradition of talking issues to death with sophisticated argument, in order to reach consensus - not majority rule.
We are indeed impatient, not to mention emotionally disturbed these days -- beset with sociopathy -- but the allure of self-rule under laws of equality is a magnet we prize, and our woebegotten culture has imploded to your famous examples of Silicon Valley, only currently rejuvenating our resolve to work toward a more perfect union. Our differences are unfortunately fortified by emotionally-disturbed authoritarian impulses, and it is deeply encouraging that a substantial crowd of normal people have awakened to the need for greater insistence on correcting this with a love of our original impulses toward the difficult but civilized arts of working out our differences by listening empathetically and creatively, taking a page from our indigenous predecessors.
Just noticed that I pivoted to a more general point but I wanted to acknowledge what you said about the indigenous practice of talking out issues to arrive at consensus. It's built into our constitution and it's a big reason for its longevity. I think we can learn a lot from the indigenous communal way of life. Humans are inherently social so this seems to be how we were meant to be.
Well stated! One big part of our fucked-upness is that the US started out dominated by white men who killed and enslaved other groups, who were nonetheless made important contributions to our success as a country. The 1619 Project really nails this.
We've made progress towards justice but it's always been messy--look at the civil war and reconstruction, for example.
We need to acknowledge that the darkness in our past has led us to the dark place where we are now, but history also teaches us that we have renewed ourselves in the past and can do so again.
We keep calling it “the American experiment,” but the experiment was never politics. It was consciousness. Can a species wake up enough to govern itself without kings, gods, or billionaires pretending to be both?
The mess was always the method. The noise is how freedom sounds when it’s still learning to sing.
Well said. I wanted to say much the same thing, but you beat me to it, and did it better. This is a great piece of writing that's approachable, memorable, and heartwarming.
"The primitive fathers of the United States began by preferring abstract moral principle to the letter of the law and the spirit of the Constitution. But they went farther. Not only was their grievance difficult to substantiate at law, but it was trivial in extent. The claim of England was not evidently disproved, and even if it was unjust, the injustice practically was not hard to bear. The suffering that would be caused by submission was immeasurably less than the suffering that must follow resistance, and it was more uncertain and remote. The utilitarian argument was loud in favour of obedience and loyalty. But if interest was on one side, there was a manifest principle on the other—a principle so sacred and so clear as imperatively to demand the sacrifice of men's lives, of their families and their fortune. They resolved to give up everything, not to escape from actual oppression, but to honour a precept of unwritten law. That was the transatlantic discovery in the theory of political duty, the light that came over the ocean. It represented liberty not as a comparative release from tyranny, but as a thing so divine that the existence of society must be staked to prevent even the least constructive infraction of its sovereign right."
(John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, "Lectures on the French Revolution")
However much "America the implementation" may falter, "America the ideal" remains something to be admired.
Two sentences above resound like thunder within my heart, mind and soul:
They resolved to give up everything, not to escape from actual oppression, but to honour a precept of unwritten law.
It represented liberty not as a comparative release from tyranny, but as a thing so divine that the existence of society must be staked to prevent even the least constructive infraction of its sovereign right."
Tonight, during an excellent broadcast by Jen Psaki (who has far more testicular fortitude than Schumer) I heard mention that Americans are upset with Trump not living up to his promises of a better economy. Apparently, this issue was upsetting to enough Americans to supposedly account for the Democratic victories on Nov 4th.
For me, in what I have seen of Trump, the GOP Congress and Trump's misfits in his Cabinet, this rape of Democracy, this immersion into fascism, this belligerence of Trump towards other countries, military incursion into cities, abuse of due process, all the violations of the Constitution, and the almost certain plans for Trump and Hegseth to invade Venezuela (not for fentanyl containment) but for oil and other motives based on greed, these are the issues I see at the forefront. This is why the first two quotes in this commentary so strongly resonate with me.
I would have hoped that the Democrats in Congress would have written the $$ for their paid vacation in the House and Senate into a fund for those truly hurting for food. A national telethon could have been set up to show the unity of the nation. But I must say, as a physician interacting with patients and physicians from around the US, that the only time I have seen malnutrition or starvation is in the homeless population or in those admitted to the ER who are addicts. I have seen gaunt and starved people in my life in China and Vietnam and Cambodia, but not since my days as an intern and resident at LA County-USC Medical Center (LAC-USC MC) have I seen anyone starving.
I recall being hungry, which is not to say I was malnourished, as a med student. I did alter my diet and mastered SPAM. I did try to figure out a way to eat pig's feet and okra, but not successfully. I did donate blood and got $25 to buy a steak at the local market. But there is no way that what I see in America comes close to malnutrition. Perhaps a bad choice of the quality of what food is eaten. But terms like "food insecurity" as used by John Fetterman as rationale to vote with the Republicans is, for me, lame, pathetic and misinformed.
The USDA categorizes the severity of food insecurity:
• Low Food Security: Reduced quality, variety, or desirability of diet, but little indication of reduced food intake [1.6].
• Very Low Food Security: Disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake due to lack of money and resources [1.6].
By the above definition, I would have had months of "very low food security."
Remember, many have accused me of being a bleeding heart liberal. I am not that. I am for a work ethic, responsibility to my family and taking care of myself. Have you seen an interview of any American adult and child that is not overweight, if not obese?
Mike, you're the kind of American that I am proud to stand next to. This is the kind of testicular fortitude that I equated with the American constituency. This is the "Invictus" personality of William Ernest Henley that fires my spirit, and generates hope. Now the test becomes, "Are we the Bob Marley's of this time in America?" Do we stand up and speak up for our rights, and that which is right? Are we to be governed by the sickness of a fascist like Trump and his band of sickophants (sic)? More importantly, for elders such as myself, do I wish to see younger Americans grow up under the iron heel of a Putin-like regime?
For starters, I say we, the people, voice our disgust with the current minority Speaker of the Senate and ask for him to be replaced by someone with strong, not tenuous, moral fiber. We need leadership, not a wuss so gullible to believe anything that comes out of the rectal orifice of the GOP.
When I was a kid, I belonged to an organization that held the public schools as, "the foundation of our country's greatness."
Too many Americans do not value education, but also do not appreciate its powers. Through education, every citizen should know that the inefficiencies of government are not a relic of bad design or old technology, but a feature intended to prevent any one part of government from amassing too much power. When each part needs to gather its own information, government can not easily mount a united front against its citizens by combining knowledge about us that exists in other parts.
The regime, through DOGE, recently collected all of our data from everywhere throughout the government for they purpose of amassing it into one huge comprehensive database. That will be more efficient, but also is an existential danger, especially with that data now in private hands, yet we no longer hear anything about this in the news.
Spot on. Thank you for writing what so many of us have yearned to hear from our "leaders" but have seen instead disappointment time after time. Count me in on the wait line at the DMV. Better the mess than chains. Keep going. Spur people on. You write like a wizard and cast the spell of truth. Thank you.
I take exception to the notion that Mu卐kRat, Theil and Yarvin are somehow intellectually superior - they're not. They just lucked out into huge piles of cash, which they used to steal even more. They're not elite, they're thieves.
Aside from that, you're right on the money, so to speak.
This is one of your best essays IMO. I also think we should be led by these ideals. Yet from a practical standpoint, doesn't the process that you describe require us to agree on a common set of objective facts (that are carefully distinguished from beliefs and opinions)? Public discourse today is contaminated by a ridiculous amount of lying, disinformation, and gaslighting. Under these circumstances, I'm not sure any length of time in the mosh pit of political discussion can ever be enough to overcome those malign influences. What do you think?
"I’d rather wait in line at the DMV with missing ceiling tiles than take a knee before these men." Agree.
That’s a beautiful idea, that the messiness, mistakes, contradictions, lack of clarity, and faults of self governance are the point of it all. Thanks for the insight.
This is an old story. Most are not really aware that early colonists depended on native Americans for basic lessons on living in this very different set of lands. Our Founders knew these relations quite intimately, and were inspired by solutions evolved over at least 10,000 years of habitation. The colonists depended a lot on the home countries, but had an independent streak that took native lessons to heart. Enlightenment thinkers of Europe were famously impressed with native kindness, generosity, and clarity of thinking, while so many colonists left the inverse impression. The Founders specifically took note of the longhouse tradition of talking issues to death with sophisticated argument, in order to reach consensus - not majority rule.
We are indeed impatient, not to mention emotionally disturbed these days -- beset with sociopathy -- but the allure of self-rule under laws of equality is a magnet we prize, and our woebegotten culture has imploded to your famous examples of Silicon Valley, only currently rejuvenating our resolve to work toward a more perfect union. Our differences are unfortunately fortified by emotionally-disturbed authoritarian impulses, and it is deeply encouraging that a substantial crowd of normal people have awakened to the need for greater insistence on correcting this with a love of our original impulses toward the difficult but civilized arts of working out our differences by listening empathetically and creatively, taking a page from our indigenous predecessors.
Just noticed that I pivoted to a more general point but I wanted to acknowledge what you said about the indigenous practice of talking out issues to arrive at consensus. It's built into our constitution and it's a big reason for its longevity. I think we can learn a lot from the indigenous communal way of life. Humans are inherently social so this seems to be how we were meant to be.
Well stated! One big part of our fucked-upness is that the US started out dominated by white men who killed and enslaved other groups, who were nonetheless made important contributions to our success as a country. The 1619 Project really nails this.
We've made progress towards justice but it's always been messy--look at the civil war and reconstruction, for example.
We need to acknowledge that the darkness in our past has led us to the dark place where we are now, but history also teaches us that we have renewed ourselves in the past and can do so again.
We keep calling it “the American experiment,” but the experiment was never politics. It was consciousness. Can a species wake up enough to govern itself without kings, gods, or billionaires pretending to be both?
The mess was always the method. The noise is how freedom sounds when it’s still learning to sing.
Love this: “Can a species wake up enough to govern itself without kings, gods, or billionaires pretending to be both?”
Perfect!!
WOW! Amazing piece of writing. You’ve said everything that’s been jumbled up in my brain - so clearly. Thanks for this
Of all the pieces you’ve written - work that has challenged, informed, annoyed, and satisfied my mind and heart - I feel this one the most.
Well done my fellow, sometimes frantic, defender of democracy!
Well said. I wanted to say much the same thing, but you beat me to it, and did it better. This is a great piece of writing that's approachable, memorable, and heartwarming.
"The primitive fathers of the United States began by preferring abstract moral principle to the letter of the law and the spirit of the Constitution. But they went farther. Not only was their grievance difficult to substantiate at law, but it was trivial in extent. The claim of England was not evidently disproved, and even if it was unjust, the injustice practically was not hard to bear. The suffering that would be caused by submission was immeasurably less than the suffering that must follow resistance, and it was more uncertain and remote. The utilitarian argument was loud in favour of obedience and loyalty. But if interest was on one side, there was a manifest principle on the other—a principle so sacred and so clear as imperatively to demand the sacrifice of men's lives, of their families and their fortune. They resolved to give up everything, not to escape from actual oppression, but to honour a precept of unwritten law. That was the transatlantic discovery in the theory of political duty, the light that came over the ocean. It represented liberty not as a comparative release from tyranny, but as a thing so divine that the existence of society must be staked to prevent even the least constructive infraction of its sovereign right."
(John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, "Lectures on the French Revolution")
However much "America the implementation" may falter, "America the ideal" remains something to be admired.
Two sentences above resound like thunder within my heart, mind and soul:
They resolved to give up everything, not to escape from actual oppression, but to honour a precept of unwritten law.
It represented liberty not as a comparative release from tyranny, but as a thing so divine that the existence of society must be staked to prevent even the least constructive infraction of its sovereign right."
Tonight, during an excellent broadcast by Jen Psaki (who has far more testicular fortitude than Schumer) I heard mention that Americans are upset with Trump not living up to his promises of a better economy. Apparently, this issue was upsetting to enough Americans to supposedly account for the Democratic victories on Nov 4th.
For me, in what I have seen of Trump, the GOP Congress and Trump's misfits in his Cabinet, this rape of Democracy, this immersion into fascism, this belligerence of Trump towards other countries, military incursion into cities, abuse of due process, all the violations of the Constitution, and the almost certain plans for Trump and Hegseth to invade Venezuela (not for fentanyl containment) but for oil and other motives based on greed, these are the issues I see at the forefront. This is why the first two quotes in this commentary so strongly resonate with me.
I would have hoped that the Democrats in Congress would have written the $$ for their paid vacation in the House and Senate into a fund for those truly hurting for food. A national telethon could have been set up to show the unity of the nation. But I must say, as a physician interacting with patients and physicians from around the US, that the only time I have seen malnutrition or starvation is in the homeless population or in those admitted to the ER who are addicts. I have seen gaunt and starved people in my life in China and Vietnam and Cambodia, but not since my days as an intern and resident at LA County-USC Medical Center (LAC-USC MC) have I seen anyone starving.
I recall being hungry, which is not to say I was malnourished, as a med student. I did alter my diet and mastered SPAM. I did try to figure out a way to eat pig's feet and okra, but not successfully. I did donate blood and got $25 to buy a steak at the local market. But there is no way that what I see in America comes close to malnutrition. Perhaps a bad choice of the quality of what food is eaten. But terms like "food insecurity" as used by John Fetterman as rationale to vote with the Republicans is, for me, lame, pathetic and misinformed.
The USDA categorizes the severity of food insecurity:
• Low Food Security: Reduced quality, variety, or desirability of diet, but little indication of reduced food intake [1.6].
• Very Low Food Security: Disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake due to lack of money and resources [1.6].
By the above definition, I would have had months of "very low food security."
Remember, many have accused me of being a bleeding heart liberal. I am not that. I am for a work ethic, responsibility to my family and taking care of myself. Have you seen an interview of any American adult and child that is not overweight, if not obese?
Mike, you're the kind of American that I am proud to stand next to. This is the kind of testicular fortitude that I equated with the American constituency. This is the "Invictus" personality of William Ernest Henley that fires my spirit, and generates hope. Now the test becomes, "Are we the Bob Marley's of this time in America?" Do we stand up and speak up for our rights, and that which is right? Are we to be governed by the sickness of a fascist like Trump and his band of sickophants (sic)? More importantly, for elders such as myself, do I wish to see younger Americans grow up under the iron heel of a Putin-like regime?
For starters, I say we, the people, voice our disgust with the current minority Speaker of the Senate and ask for him to be replaced by someone with strong, not tenuous, moral fiber. We need leadership, not a wuss so gullible to believe anything that comes out of the rectal orifice of the GOP.
When I was a kid, I belonged to an organization that held the public schools as, "the foundation of our country's greatness."
Too many Americans do not value education, but also do not appreciate its powers. Through education, every citizen should know that the inefficiencies of government are not a relic of bad design or old technology, but a feature intended to prevent any one part of government from amassing too much power. When each part needs to gather its own information, government can not easily mount a united front against its citizens by combining knowledge about us that exists in other parts.
The regime, through DOGE, recently collected all of our data from everywhere throughout the government for they purpose of amassing it into one huge comprehensive database. That will be more efficient, but also is an existential danger, especially with that data now in private hands, yet we no longer hear anything about this in the news.
Love your inefficient nation!
Spot on. Thank you for writing what so many of us have yearned to hear from our "leaders" but have seen instead disappointment time after time. Count me in on the wait line at the DMV. Better the mess than chains. Keep going. Spur people on. You write like a wizard and cast the spell of truth. Thank you.
May love see us through.
I take exception to the notion that Mu卐kRat, Theil and Yarvin are somehow intellectually superior - they're not. They just lucked out into huge piles of cash, which they used to steal even more. They're not elite, they're thieves.
Aside from that, you're right on the money, so to speak.
Well, the point is, they think they are.
Granted. They do think they are.
They are self-appointed as intellectually superior. They live in a bubble and this makes them even more dangerous.
That's true.
This is one of your best essays IMO. I also think we should be led by these ideals. Yet from a practical standpoint, doesn't the process that you describe require us to agree on a common set of objective facts (that are carefully distinguished from beliefs and opinions)? Public discourse today is contaminated by a ridiculous amount of lying, disinformation, and gaslighting. Under these circumstances, I'm not sure any length of time in the mosh pit of political discussion can ever be enough to overcome those malign influences. What do you think?
Beautiful piece. A reminder of what our politics is really all about!
I wonder if you’ve heard of or read Walter Karp. You write in the same tradition. This piece echoes this interview of his on NPR in about 1968:
https://www.wnyc.org/story/walter-karp/
Good stuff.