Governments do not make ideals, but ideals make governments. This is both historically and logically true. Of course the government can help to sustain ideals and can create institutions through which they can be the better observed, but their source by their very nature is in the people.
The people have to bear their own responsibilities. There is no method by which that burden can be shifted to the government. It is not the enactment, but the observance of laws, that creates the character of a nation.
Calvin Coolidge’s whole speech is worth reading, so here it is. A sample:
About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.
Tonight in Corpus Christi, there were six cars idling in line at the Starbucks drive-through. I went inside and there was no line whatsoever, but still there were people willing to idle their cars for fifteen minutes in line to buy $4 drinks.
Posited: Here, at least, we are not in a recession, and gas is not sufficiently expensive to alter daily activities.
I thought this ad was funny—not because it was lampooning conservatives, but because I know some liberals who actually think we think like this.
I happen to think that the conservative answer to this ad would have Peter Paul & Mary’s Kumbaya playing in the background. Any suggestions as to what the people on the street would be saying?
Well this is fantastic. $300 billion - i.e. $1000 from every man, woman, and child in America - going to bail out people who can’t pay their mortgages.
If you were responsible, if you thought twice before buying a home you couldn’t afford, if you bought a smaller home or a home in a not as nice neighborhood so that you could make the payments, if you stayed in your apartment for another year while you saved up for a down payment: Congress will take your money and subsidize the home purchases of people who chose to be irresponsible. Hope you enjoy your smaller home, or living in apartment that additional year, because the irresponsible are sure going to enjoy living it up in their nicer houses thanks to the money taken from your paycheck. P.S. And if you want to move up to a nicer house, fat chance, because part of the purpose of government spending this $300 billion is to jack up home prices.
This is about as unjust as government spending gets.
The Latin motto is “Vero Possumus,” which the New York Times translates as “Yes we can.” My knowledge of Latin isn’t great, but it looks to me like it says, “Truly, it is possible for us.” Any other possible translations?
Boston is celebrating the Celtic’s championship win with a parade that’s going by my office. As part of the celebration Old South Church’s bells have been ringing for the last hour. Though odd, it sort of made sense to play ‘Danny Boy’ a couple of times. But the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’? ‘America the Beautiful’? Now Beethoven? Sheesh!
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) - Sen. John McCain is calling for construction of 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030 and pledging $2 billion a year in federal funds to make clean coal a reality. He says the measures will reduce American dependence on foreign oil.
Unless I’m mistaken, most of our power comes from coal, but building nuclear power plants is a plumb good thing.
EDIT: Title was originally “Fuse, Fuse, Fuse!” Either I was being optimistic about the prospects of Cold Fusion, or I was thinking about the fact that I had a date.
