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August 18, 2004
Baltimore, MD
We're at Eric's house now. He was my roommate in Mammoth for a year. Today we'll go in to the inner harbor and eat crab cakes.
We spent yesterday walking around DC. You could easily spend days in DC, but we didn't have days, so we saw as much as we could. We went to 2 of the Smithsonian's, Aerospace and American History. We also saw the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and other documents at the National Archives. We saw the WWII memorial and the Vietnam memorial. So much to see. I found it interesting how frequently, in our old documents, we refer to America as he great experiment. All of our founding fathers wrote about the success or failure of 'the experiment'. Opponents argued that by doing X or Y our experiment would fail. People thought the Louisiana Purchase would destroy the experiment by giving us too much land and people to govern, that our experiment wouldn't work over such a large area.
It is disconcerting to me that today we believe the experiment has been concluded and that all that is left is protecting the conclusion. By definition, conservatism is the attempt to 'preserve' what we have, with the thought that what we have is so good, it would be detrimental to change it. I do not believe, however, that this narrow mindedness is limited to conservatives. Both sides lack the desire to rock the boat too much, a validation that they believe the experiment is over, or at least slowed. AndrewSW would argue that change should happen slowly, and I agree on some level, but I also believe it is important to know whether that change is in the right direction. But who determines what is right? Once we accept that the experiment is ongoing we need to define what the experiment was and is. Was our experiment to see how much money a country can make, or how much resources we could consume? Or was it an experiment on equality? Was it an experiment to allow each individual to pursue life, liberty and happiness for him/her and their family? Or was it the latter, but with the idea being that individuals should be more than just 'allowed' to pursue these inalienable rights, but were encouraged and given all available tools to pursue them. In my mind, a lot of this comes to whether the experiment was focused on the individual vs. the government vs. corporations. Of course, corporations didn't exist and likely could not have been imagined at the scale they are today. Other questions also arise on whether the experiment was to ensure we had a Christian nation or whether it was to allow or even foster religious freedom.
How can we argue about our direction without defining the experiment? I believe the experiment is not over and it would be a travesty to try and protect what we have under the assumption that it is. The fellow from China we talked to in NE told us how good we have it, with our ability to travel, vote, make money, own land, and many other things. One could argue that we are so lucky, we should not complain. I mean, isn't that kinda looking a gift horse in the mouth? I argue that as the beacon of democracy for the world, as the most powerful nation in the world (economically and militarily), and as the most scrutinized nation in the world, we have a higher obligation. As we push the American Way on the rest of the world and claim we have discovered a more right way of governance, we have an obligation to hold ourselves to a higher standard. Yes, we have it lucky, but is that an excuse to not try harder, as a nation?
I am reminded of a quote I recently read in an article.
"The rich have the right to buy more homes than anyone else. They have the right to buy more cars than anyone else, more gizmos than anyone else, more clothes and vacations than anyone else. But they do not have the right to buy more democracy than anyone else."
The first step, thought, is to try and define the experiment. As citizens and thus owners of this experiment, it is your right and obligation to weigh in on this. So what do you think?
Posted by wonko at August 18, 2004 09:51 AM
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Comments
I'm twenty-seven, BITCH! My buddies and I at work toasted my birthday at midnight. They asked about my endeavors during twenty-seven years on the planet. Most of them were younger. "I've seen a lot of shit," I said, and we slammed back our beers.
In twenty-seven years, I have no assets and a small savings account. But I've learned that in a free-market society, people are encouraged to make as much money as they can, and to protect their financial interests as shrewdly as the law can be adjusted to allow. This often results in legislation that quietly keeps the lower and middle classes from becoming successful themselves. So I define the experiment as an Aristocracy, a government in which wealthy families make the rules. But "the experiment" hasn't turned out to be completely rotten. Like your Chinese friend says, we can move around as much as we want. So instead of working hard to save up money, only to find out I don't have enough money at all, I move to beautiful, expensive towns in the mountains, and rent. The soul withers as the desire for more money takes over. On top of a mountain, with no one but friends around, looking down on 3000 vertical feet of powder, my soul flourishes.
After all, they're giving away land in Kansas, but who the fuck wants to live there?
Posted by: Brando at August 22, 2004 12:14 PM
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