Frank's Musings

What gave our Founding Fathers the confidence to submit their self-government choices to ratification by all their countrymen?  Were they overwhelmed by the logic of their collective intellect and by appreciation for the gift of clear thinking they possessed solely by divine right?  Or did they recognize in each other a common impatience with the shortcomings of autocratic rule for a community of people brought together because of their common belief that distance from tradition would allow them to find a better way to provide for themselves.

In either case, their action was not encumbered by political correctness.  The immediacy of modern communications no longer permits a cabal of superior intellects to formulate a plan to impose or even propose a set of rules that approximates universal welfare.  This is not to celebrate the efficiency of dictatorship; but it concedes that there is a price to be paid for recognizing the human rights of every individual.  Providing that incentive in return for everyone’s contribution to society’s productivity has resulted in achieving world economic, technological, political, and cultural leadership.

Today, the would-be heirs to the majestic Founders of the republic cannot believe that there is a near majority of the American voting public who have mistaken the ideal of democratic liberty for the freedom to choose what is in their individual short-term best interest.  Somehow, they have confused collective best interest with communism.  Dictatorship of the proletariat was never more than dictatorship in the name of the proletariat for those who were unwilling to accept outcomes determined by even a well-regulated market.  Likewise, MAGA Republicans distrust submitting their destinies to collective rules, most recently articulated by their bombastic leader when he disdained his followers’ welfare in the Las Vegas heat because he only wanted their votes.