Comment on The Belmont Club"We the chosen"

If Americans and the English are as Shaw said "two peoples separated by a common language" then how much more surprising is it when we find ourselves defining terms like "Rights" at cross purposes with the Australians. It is the assumption that we are speaking the same tongue that makes us fail to observe more closely. We think of each other as siblings and when we fail to communicate we can get impatient. Perhaps that is why people get angrier with family members then with strangers and civil wars are more horrible then foreign expeditions. Many Americans are just waking up to the realization that almost a third of the population of their own country agree with Sunstein and do not accept the most basic principles of our system that were taught in public schools when we were children.

Some here have used the acronym TWANLOC to refer to them but I reject that notion. They are and remain our countrymen. If we claim the right to deny them then we would be granting them the right to deny us and it follows then that we would helpless before them if they can but hold onto power. This struggle will continue and it may even cross many lines but at the end we must seek to reeducate those who have erred and to restore the Constitution as it was intended to be.

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Robohobo,
(whose father was a communist)
Please do not assume that our positions are incompatible. Nothing I said implies that I doubt the danger posed by Mr Ayers and Mr Emanuel and the potential risk that the struggle could end in a resort to force. Even in the worst case, which I pray does not happen, even if there was another Civil War they would at the end of it be Americans. They may be casualties or in prison or they could deny their heritage and emigrate but we must treat them a priori as citizens and our equals. Lincoln was right about this. If those we disagree with are not our fellow citizens at the end of the day, even if they seek to deny us, then we must allow and even encourage them to peacefully separate or we must depart. While some here have groused about separating Red from Blue I would oppose that now as America opposed that 150 years ago.

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Robohobo,
Please do not assume that our positions are incompatible. Nothing I said implies that I doubt the danger posed by Mr Ayers and Mr Emanuel and the potential risk that the struggle could end in a resort to force. Even in the worst case, which I pray does not happen, even if there was another Civil War they would at the end of it be Americans. They may be casualties or in prison or they could deny their heritage and emigrate but we must treat them a priori as citizens and our equals. Lincoln was right about this. If those we disagree with are not our fellow citizens at the end of the day, even if they seek to deny us, then we must allow and even encourage them to peacefully separate or we must depart. While some here have groused about separating Red from Blue I would oppose that now as America opposed that 150 years ago.

Sep 8, 2009 - 4:15 am