"The Reign of Witches" ending.
Posted by Scott Harrop
November 5, 2008 10:15 AM EST | Link
Filed in US election 2008 , US foreign policy
210 years ago on June 4th, Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Taylor, with words of wisdom that speak as clearly to recent ills as to Jefferson's day. Jefferson then was worried that American had abandoned its principles, most egregiously in the "Alien & Sedition Acts," that America was in danger of being torn to shreds by foreign entanglements and wars. Jefferson was fearful for his own freedom to criticize such things openly, and implored Taylor not to let a single sentence be "got hold of by the Porcupines" who would use them to "abuse & persecute me in their papers for months." (think Murdoch media, 18th century style)
Yet Jefferson remained the optimist in that dark hour:
A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to it's true principles. It is true that in the mean time we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war & long oppressions of enormous public debt.... If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, & then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are the stake. Better luck, therefore, to us all; and health, happiness, & friendly salutations to yourself.
Just over two years after penning these words, Jefferson was elected America's third president, amid a stark election that historian's today characterize as Jefferson's second revolution.
This lesson hardly is meant as a partisan invocation of Jefferson. Our Republican friends must be thinking long and hard about where and how the party of Lincoln and Eisenhower had gone so far off course, how principles both "republican" (as Jefferson used the term) and "American" could have been so cavalierly abandoned.
"Better luck" to us all indeed, in reclaiming the best principles of what it means to be America.
Paul Krugman has blogged something similar this morning. Here is his entire text:
Last night wasn’t just a victory for tolerance; it wasn’t just a mandate for progressive change; it was also, I hope, the end of the monster years.
What I mean by that is that for the past 14 years America’s political life has been largely dominated by, well, monsters. Monsters like Tom DeLay, who suggested that the shootings at Columbine happened because schools teach students the theory of evolution. Monsters like Karl Rove, who declared that liberals wanted to offer “therapy and understanding” to terrorists. Monsters like Dick Cheney, who saw 9/11 as an opportunity to start torturing people.
And in our national discourse, we pretended that these monsters were reasonable, respectable people. To point out that the monsters were, in fact, monsters, was “shrill.”
Four years ago it seemed as if the monsters would dominate American politics for a long time to come. But for now, at least, they’ve been banished to the wilderness.
Didn't election night feel like a big score for Sanity?
Let's commit ourselves to Sanity. Let's never let our internal monsters of hate and fear dominate. Let's never let those monsters and witches who wish to corrupt power attain power again!