Ancient Advice for Modern Times

    So many people today ignore the words of men who lived centuries, even millennia, before us. This is such a shame, for they offer words of wisdom that should well be heeded. Their words echo from ages past with advice we could well use today.

    One of these great thinkers in particular comes to mind. Pericles was a renowned Greek general, politician and orator. He made a speech to the people of Athens in honor of the men who had recently fallen in battle, and he said something in that oration that applies to us today in America. He said:

 

"We cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge without effeminacy; wealth we employ more for use than for show, and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining the struggle against it. Our public men have, besides politics, their private affairs to attend to, and our ordinary citizens, though occupied with the pursuits of industry, are still fair judges of public matters, for, unlike any other nation, regarding him who takes no part in these duties not as unambitious but as useless, we Athenians are able to judge at all events if we cannot originate, and instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling block in the way of action, we think it an indispensible preliminary to any wise action at all."

 

    These are words which many of our Founding Fathers would most likely have been familiar with, as they were all intimately aware of what the ancients had said, and were well versed in the classics. Some probably had even read Thucydides, from whose writings we have the account of what Pericles said. And it should have an impact on us today as it did to those men over two hundred years ago. America could very well look to the example of the ancient Greeks as to how we should live today, and how we should be involved in all things that pertain to society and politics.

    Since its founding, America has come to be one of the most prosperous nations on earth, as was Greece in the days of Pericles. This nation has a better standard of living than many other modern nations, and that is a great blessing. However, Americans can be prosperous without showing it off. This has become a habit for those who have come into money. But we do not need to buy multi-million dollar homes and $100,000 cars to show off our prosperity. There is just no need for it. It shows that Americans are putting precedence on material wealth, and not on the good things that wealth brings and the responsibility it holds. By showing off ones prosperity, it shows that a person is immature and likes to show off, and not do good things with the blessings they have been bestowed with. Do not think that what is being said here is that prosperity is a bad thing, because it is not. What is being said is that living an opulent life is not a necessity, for it gets a person nowhere. You can't take it with you when you die. Instead, use wealth for good and not show. You can live a comfortable life, and have nice things, but extravagance is unnecessary.

    When it comes to poverty, the real disgrace is not being poor, but in not doing all one can to get out of it. So many Americans today throw themselves a pity party because they don't have enough to live comfortably, and instead of trying to work hard to rise above their current economic level by using their God given capacity to overcome, they attempt to pass the blame on to others. They complain that because there are others who have more, those people are in some way being unfair and not giving them their fair share of the American dream. People who do this need to stop wallowing in their self-pity, for this is a nation of vast opportunities. Stop complaining, pick yourself up, get to work and make a better life for yourself. Many Americans have had to work difficult, low paying jobs before they have been able to climb out of the hole of impoverishment. One should not think that they are above working in a low wage job. If that is what it takes to climb to the next level, then that is what must be done. One cannot start climbing a tree in the middle. He or she has to start from the bottom to get to the top.

    When it comes to public matters, we should all be involved in some way. This goes beyond dragging ourselves to the polls in November. Pericles spoke of the Athenians as a people who all had a stake in the government of their city-state. Now, we live in a different day with a similar, yet not entirely the same, form of government. But we should all still be involved in one way or another. We vote for a person to represent us in Congress, but we should continue to make our voices heard after the election is over. All civic minded citizens should pay attention to what is going on in Washington D.C. and voice their opinions. That is what the Founders envisioned. They wanted the people to be involved, because they understood that the everyday citizen knew what he or she wanted and what was best for them better than any politician sitting at a desk, in a capital a thousand miles away. When the people voice their opinions, the government should listen accordingly. Though republican in representation, this is still a democracy; the people still have a say.

    And finally, there is the idea of the free flow of ideas and opinions. This can in no way be stifled or impeded. It is the exchange of thoughts in a free forum that makes a government like that which the Founders created work, and it keeps a nation free. When one person or party attempts to put a stop to another person or party from voicing their views on a matter, it is the beginning of tyranny. Some will claim that halting dissenting voices will put a stop to divisiveness. Others will claim that it will in fact help to encourage instead of hinder the free flow of ideas. Both are wrong, for where one begins to put walls around a person's right to free speech, it breeds discontent and makes only one opinion freely available to the people instead of many. It is like a farmer growing crops. The crop he is planting is liberty. Crops need both sunlight (one opinion on an idea) and water (the opposite opinion) in order for the plant to grow. If either sunlight or water is withheld (the voicing of an opinion is silenced), then the plant liberty cannot grow. Both are a necessity. No matter how much people may disagree on a subject, no person or party has the right to deprive others of the right to voice their disapproval or dissent. As Pericles said in his speech, the free flow of ideas is necessary in order for wise actions to be taken by those who make the decisions that affect our lives.

    Listen to the words of the ancient philosophers and orators. Much of what they said pertaining to virtue, government and freedom still applies today. Their words influenced the men who founded this nation, and they should be an influence on all Americans today as well.

Let the Fear Mongering Begin

Well, it looks as if the new administration has it out for anybody who is opposed to their policies. In a newly declassified report put out by the Department of Homeland Security, their is a "possible" threat of an increase in right-wing extremist groups taking action now that the Democrats have regained power and the White House. The problem is, there is no credible threat.

In a recently declassified and released DHS Intelligence assessment, it was stated that the Department of Homeland Security has "no specific information that domestic rightwing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence, but rightwing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about several emergent issues." These "emergent issues" include the economic downturn and the election of Barack Obama to the presidency.

What there is a lack of is proof of anything really happening. There is no real evidence that these extremist groups are planning anything on the scale of Oklahoma City in 1995, which was, by the way, only carried out by two men. Not really a "group" of right wing radicals bent on a violent overthrow of the government. It is just a ploy to say that anybody who is opposed to the policies of the president and Congress are, well, right wing radicals. There is no naming of specific groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, or specific militia groups. There is instead a broad generalization being made. It is not even saying ultra-right wing factions, just right wing. This includes conservatives, libertarians, Constution party members, and the like.

It is time for the government to stop playing on the peoples fears. It is pithy and wholly impolitical for them to be even doing this kind of thing. The left complained about wiretaps and the like during the previous administration, but now the new administration is looking like it is going to do the very thing they decried for eight years. Where is the logic in this? If we are not careful, this nation will turn into a police state, with one party controlling the actions of all citizens. I doubt that is what the Founding Fathers would have wanted for this country.

Link to DHS assessment: http://images.logicsix.com/DHS_RWE.pdf

True Representation Demands Total Responsibility

One thing that has made itself abundantly clear throughout these past years is that the American government is no longer responsible to the people that they represent. The men and women who have been elected to Congress have failed in their role as the representatives of the people of this nation, and instead have begun to take America down the path of government tyranny. And this is a path that America cannot afford to go down.

Today in the United States, the representatives and senators who sit in Washington D.C. have the idea that they have been elected to office so that they can pursue their own agenda of what they think is the path America should take, and that is an absolutely fallacious idea. The original intent of the role of representative was to be there to act in the national interest of the people of their district, and nothing else. Because the Founders realized that a true democracy, like that of ancient Greece, was wholly impractical in a nation the size of the newly formed United States, they formed a democratic republic, in which the people chose the person that they felt would best represent their interests in the national legislature. That person was to speak for them and their interests at a national level. All state level decisions, subsequently, were to be left to the state legislatures. These decisions are many and diverse, as Madison stated in Federalist 45 and were to reside with the states alone. The men who were to be elected to Congress were to decide on matters of a national nature only, such as foreign commerce, the military, the national budget and the like. That was what they were charged with.

In the present Congress, it seems that the men and women who are elected to sit there think that they need to have a hand in manner of business. We have seen in the past years the Congress hold hearings on issues such as steroids in sports, (baseball having gotten the most attention); and even more recently, there have rumors have arisen of backroom meetings discussing trying to get the Bowl Championship Series to change how they select the teams that are sent to play in the college football bowl games. Now, does this really need the attention of Congress when the United States is in dire economic straits? I think not. These are not matters of national importance. Yes, steroids in baseball are bad, but let the consequences be felt by the players who do them when they begin to see the physical effects of the drugs they are using on their bodies. Of course many college football fans hate the BCS system because it seems totally rigged, but let the NCAA figure out a better way to choose the teams. It does not take a congressional committee to decide these things. They are unimportant issues in the grand scheme of things.

Why is the American government acting this way? Why are they pursuing agendas that are harmful to the form of government set in place by the Patriot generation? The reason is that the government is no longer responsible to the people. And on top of that, the American people have become completely lethargic and apathetic when it comes to the government that affects their everyday lives. They don't pay attention anymore. They just go to the polls in November every two years and cast a ballot for their party candidate or the person who looks or sounds the best. They fail to pay attention to the issues. And believe me, these elected officials know it, and have played upon it for years. It is this political laziness in the citizens of America that has been the creator of these mass problems, because they just don't pay attention. And it is a poison that is slowly killing this country.

This is a disease that must be cured, and there is a sure remedy to it, an antidote to the poison, as it were. The people must demand of their representative complete responsibility, because only when the government once more becomes completely accountable to the will of the American people will these problems begin to disappear. The congressmen and women in Washington must understand that they have to listen to the will of the people that they were elected by, for, as has been stated in previous posts, if those people put them there, they can also remove them from their seats in Congress. When the people speak, the government must listen, not the other way around. The people are the political authority of the United States.

And in recent weeks, we have begun to see these demands being voiced by countless thousands around the nation. They are beginning to show that American's are becoming fed up with the unaccountability of the national government. People are gathering at modern day tea parties in the major metropolises of this great nation, and voicing their discontent. And this raises the question of whether the government will listen. And the answer I will give is this: It is highly doubtful. And what is the reason for this pessimism, one might ask? Because the men and women who have become part of the Washington government cabal are too entrenched in their love of power that they will not easily change. But there is one sure way to make them listen.

Vote them out of power my friends. When they are kicked out of Washington and replaced by men and women who actually have the welfare of the common American, and not just a certain minority or interest group in mind, then they will realize that they were there at the will of the people, and not there for their own power and self-aggrandizement. Only when people are elected to national office that hold the interests of the nation and their own constituents first in their minds will this nation begin to rise out of this quagmire that it has fallen into. We must choose men and women who are not just a part of the political establishment, but instead have a genuine desire to do what is best for the country as a whole. They are there because we the people cannot all be there. They are doing the work that all Americans should be willing to do, but can't feasibly do. And we should all be ready to step into the breech when our own elected official is not doing the job that they were selected to do. We cannot idly stand by and watch while the nation is destroyed by power hungry politicians. We must do something, just as the Revolutionary generation did when the tyranny of the British king and Parliament became too much to bear. They should be our examples. Look to them, for they had it right. They had the idea, and knew what they wanted. Follow their lead.