Thanks for the meet-up yesterday. I much enjoyed the laid back format where we just got to discuss our opinions and insight.

I look forward to doing it again.

Absolutely awesome.

Nathan, myself and Mike Wilson are meeting today at 3:30pm (October 23).

And, I sent a quick late notice e-mail to Will and Coleman. Even if they can’t make it today, they are committed to sitting down.

I know I sound completely naive and idealistic, but if we can agree to not name call and sit down – anyone can.

It doesn’t mean we will agree on every point, or we will be able to convince each other of anything. Not the point.

But, it is the first step towards civil conversations and legitimate debate, not just random name calling from any side.

I said it above, and I’ll say it again – if we can do this, why can’t our elected officials?

They block each other from meetings, and very rarely open up dialogue with each other. They just shoot attacks at each other through the media. So childish.

If, We the People, need to start the process of sincere dialogue and work towards the fix without them, so be it. We’ll pull them along with this process!

Thoughts on the content?

Just looking to keep the content dialogue going.

We have plenty of time to dig into all the think tanks that crank out info for everyone.

Doesnt mean the article isnt accurate.

Side note – trying to catch Nathan Friday afternoon if you are around. You can confirm through e-mail. i sent you a message already.

AEI scholars are considered to be some of the leading architects of the second Bush administration’s public policy. More than twenty AEI scholars and fellows served either in a Bush administration policy post or on one of the government’s many panels and commissions.

You’re poibt would be better servered if you chose a less NeoCon source.

The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”

Really strong quote made almost 200 years ago by Tocqueville, so not a new radical here. Maybe one of the most well respected historians and travelers of all time, he completed a series of writings compiled as “Democracy in America.”

Without getting in too deep and trying to play amateur scholar, the foundations of our nation in a big way revolved around writings by his mentor Montesquieu (friend of Voltaire) in many series of books (credited with the many ideas behind natural law, balance of power, post Roman democratic Republics, etc), one of which was the “Spirit of Laws”. Montesquieu points out that virtue is almost unnatural in man, so when given power, the temptation is often too great to remain virtuous. It’s one of the reasons he argues against empires and monarchies as a form of government.

Much of the later analysis on his work focuses on the idea that a free nation naturally becomes at war with itself (in the same way we are right now) because prosperity brings a sense of comfort, and comfort brings entitlement (imagine rich people thinking they are entitled to special privileges after living a certain way for so long), and entitlement invites despotism because it can preserve, most easily and without effort, that staus quo.

I feel we lie in this area right now. We are at a cross roads in this country where the sense of what is deserved has crossed the point where some are willing to give up liberty to maintain comfort, and that only leads to one conclusion – the very soft despotism of Europe (not by a man, but a system). It is a society, much of which is no longer capable of sucking the marrow out of life.

So its not actually Communism or Socialism that we fear. Those are political constructs. Its that very soft despotism that results with rule of a few or rule by an entity so large that it commands dependency, even through rule of law.

Rather than summarizing another author, let me suggest an article – Charles Murray at the American Enterprise Institute lays out some of my basic issues with this direction. The article is: The European Syndrome and the Challenge to American Exceptionalism.

By “American Exceptionalism,” he means the unique American spirit that drives people to over-achievement.

It looks at things from a completely cultural perspective removing the debate over costs or rights. Just simply compares the cultures.

And, he does address the idea of what government’s central role should be.

In this way, its not just my fear, its history. Its happened. I dont want to repeat it.

Hope you enjoy: http://american.com/archive/2009/march-2009/the-europe-syndrome-and-the-challenge-to-american-exceptionalism