go to ImaginativeConservative.org
There you will find Brad Birzer’s review of Mike Churches new movie "The Spirit of 76", but it’s also a lot about the country. It’s a lot about the people. And as Birzer points out, the term “republic” comes from the Greek “res publica.” And that was Greek for that which is good. This is why the Greeks organized republics, because they thought they were good. We think that they’re good. We don’t have a republic anymore. And Birzer was recounting, and I found this amazing, being the history buff that I am. that as early as 1805, there were Mike Churches in 1805. Her name was Mercy Otis Warren. Yeah, I know. Go ahead and laugh.
Mercy Otis Warren was an early historian of the early country, of the early republic. And 1805, a mere 30 years, or 29 years after the American Revolution commenced in earnest, she was already seeing the beginning signs of the decay of the republic, the decay of republicanism. And she resolved, and Birzer quotes her here, to go ahead and write down what it was that the struggle for independence meant, what it was that drove and inspired the men that instigated it, that fought for it, that executed it, that stood by it, that pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to it and what have you. She did all these things. And she wrote them down, and it’s a history of the American Revolution, I believe is what – I think you can get it at Google Books. It’s probably in print, too. Mercy Otis Warren.
And what Birzer was recounting is that we have tried every remedy – and I just thought this was just so poignant and so relevant to today’s discussion. The people in this country have tried every remedy. We have bought every snake oil remedy there is out there. We bought porkulus. We bought stimulus. We bought tax cuts. We bought new presidents. We bought new congresses. We bought new policies. We created agencies. Why, we managed the air, we managed the land, we managed the sea, we managed everything. We regulated banks. We regulated stocks. We did this. We traded with the world. We entered world leagues. Hell, we fought the entire world. We fought terrorism. We did all these things, and we’re still continuing to do all these things. We managed our crops. We paid people to not grow crops. We ruined free trade in our own hemisphere. We tried that. We’ve tried everything. We’ve subsidized industries.
We’ve tried everything except – and this is Brad Birzer’s brilliant, salient point here. We have tried everything to fix our current malaise except republicanism. That gift, that glowing, burning, beautiful gift that those men called the Founders left us. We tried everything except that. That’s the only thing that is left on the damn table unused. That’s criminal. And there are some of us that see that as our escape hatch, as our way out of this. And there are some of us that recognize that it is not the best laid plans of men that lead to success, that lead to prosperity, that lead to happiness.
He also points out that, back in the Founders’ day, happiness was not to be found in an iTunes download. Happiness was not to be found in just abject economic prosperity. Happiness was not to be found at the end of a rainbow filled with gold coins. Happiness was being free. Happiness was having the liberty to govern yourselves. Happiness was having the liberty to move about the countryside without having to show ze papers. Happiness was knowing and was resting comfortable that you had finally established a government that was going to protect and safeguard your liberties, protect the value of your earnings through hard money, gold and silver coins. Happiness was being able to go to your town hall, your church, and debate amongst your friends and your peers and determine the answers to the great questions of that day. Not have them settled for you by nine bandits in black robes. That’s what they thought happiness was. None of this crap that we think it is.
So we’ve tried everything, Brad points out, except what the Founders left us. “Your probably asking why should we do what the fuddy-duddy idiot slave owners in the 17th, 18th centuries did, you idiot?” Well, dropping the slave-owning part, I would say that they were far more successful than Obama has been. I would say they are far more successful than any president in the modern era has been. Yes, that includes Ronald Reagan. I would say that a return to at least those ideals and at least those principles has to yield better results than Obama’s council of economic advisors, which is now poised to leave all of us high and frickin’ dry.
Why, there was going to be a new era, a new green energy economy we’re all going to prosper under so mightily. And the men and the women that designed this nightmare and engaged in it and forced us through the compulsion of government to participate in it, now that it hasn’t worked, now that it’s an unmitigated, inarguable disaster visited upon the good people of these states, now, what are they doing? They’re running for cover back in their universities. They’re running for cover. They get to go back and cash in. Do you get to cash in? What are we left with?
Thanks, Austan Goolsbee. Thanks, Christina Romer. Thanks, Lars Summers. Thanks, Peter Orszborg, Orszag. They’re all gone. They’re all making millions and millions of dollars – gee, I wonder how that happened – back in the “private sector.” But it’s really not the private sector any longer. They did just fine. What they did to us didn’t hurt them one iota. As a matter of fact, they benefited it from it mightily. Boy, talk about serving your country. Hah. How about serving yourself?
To restore and uphold the sovereignty and rights of the individual States as guaranteed by the tenth amendment of the United States Constitution, which states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
