Something Old, Something New

Ideas grow and ideas evolve. And it is usually impossible to guess the shapes and forms that an idea will take during the process of its growth. It is like planting a seed that you have never seen before and not knowing what will grow from it. Countries begin as ideas. I think it would be interesting to study how the ideas that drive a country have manifested themselves. I am speaking in part about about America because i think that few countries have had its driving ideals expressed and translated so directly and so clearly at its outset. While I think that other countries would provide an equally interesting study, I happen to be in america so I am biased. How have the ideas that founded this country manifested themselves in our generation?

(disclaimer:Since I don't have the time to do vast amounts of research most of my information will be scrupulously gleaned from wikipedia)

The founding fathers were dedicated to the idea that America would be a republic. John Adams said it like this

"a government, in which all men, rich and poor, magistrates and subjects, officers and people, masters and servants, the first citizen and the last, are equally subject to the laws"

Similarly, Thomas Jefferson describe a republic in this manner:

"a government by its citizens in mass, acting directly and personally, according to rules established by the majority; and that every other government is more or less republican, in proportion as it has in its composition more or less of this ingredient of the direct action of the citizens."

...Fast Forward 2 Hours...

I started this note with the idea that America had morphed and deviated from its original principles a great deal. When I set out to look up what those founding ideals were I realized that the ideas haven't changed as greatly as I thought. The same debates still continue: The Jeffersonian private yeoman farmer tending his business versus Alexander Hamilton's vision of the industrialized commerce friendly nation. Our government is a government of balance. Our government is least effective when the balance is tipped in one direction or another. So we need both the industrialist and the farmer working and understanding each other for the system to work.

It isn't the elected officials that have lost sight of what america's ideological ancestory is made of; it is the people who have forgotten. Politicians pander and patronize us just to get elected. I don't blame the politicians, we made them that way through our own ignorance. We look at politicians as tools to carryout our own personal agendas. We see them as nothing more than vehicles for bringing our personal versions of what we think the world should be into existence. Too many people believe that they are better than the other people around them. These " better" people believe that due to their "betterness" they have the right to determine what is best for "lesser" "unenlightened" peoples. People who think that their way is the best, and only, way have forgotten what America is. America is not a "one-way" place, it is a "any which way you can" kind of place. There are many roads to life, liberty, and pursuing happiness. We need to keep as many open as possible.

First Post Since the Last Post

I figured it was time to open a new blog. Its been over a year since the last post and I figured it is time to start fresh. If you would like to visit the original "Army of the Five Monkeys" blog and learn such useful information as the origin of the name or maybe something about me it is available in the list of links.

My last post was July of 2006 . A recap of the last 14 months would be seriosuly ridiculous. Part of me would find it funny to write it just so that I could picture someone reading it then realizing that it is several thousand words long and giving up after a couple paragraphs. But I won't do that.

Instead, I will use some quotes from famous people to describe July 2006 to July 2007:

"It was the best of times, It was the worst of times"

"Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours." Mark Twain

"Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future, without fear." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"The future, according to some scientists, will be exactly like the past, only far more expensive." John Sladek

"The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time" Friedrich Nietzsche