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- Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!paladin.american.edu!auvm!SUADMIN.BITNET!EBEDGERT
- Message-ID: <POLITICS%92122215502869@OHSTVMA.ACS.OHIO-STATE.EDU>
- Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
- Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 13:47:00 ET
- Sender: Forum for the Discussion of Politics <POLITICS@UCF1VM.BITNET>
- From: "Ellen.Edgerton" <EBEDGERT@SUADMIN.BITNET>
- Subject: Re: Cross controversy?
- In-Reply-To: The letter of Tuesday, 22 December 1992 1:21pm ET
- Lines: 60
-
- Brett, wow, just what I always wanted...an America full of little
- enclaves and sub-territories where everybody gets to do exactly what
- they want all the time.
-
- It always cracks me up when people contend that America was founded so
- that people could do whatever they want. Likewise, it always cracks me
- up when people say that America was founded because we all had to work
- collectively for the greater good.
-
- In order to win the right to be able to do whatever we wanted to, the
- people who started this country had to form a government and draw up
- ground rules so that these rights could be kept safe. In other words,
- they all banded together to make a better place on earth than had
- existed before.
-
- Yet, if they did not have the freedom of thought and movement and speech
- to assemble and make these plans -- in other words, the freedom to do
- whatever they wanted -- then they never would have had the opportunity to
- make these plans for the greater good, which are the plans that insured
- the freedom for people to theoretically do more or less whatever they
- wanted.
-
- And if these people had never banded together to make colonies in the
- New World, working together for a greater good, they probably never would
- have had the opportunity to get out from under the Crown's thumb and do
- whatever they wanted, which in turn gave them the opportunity to make
- these plans for the Revolution...
-
- Need I go on, Brett?
-
- What came first, Brett -- the chicken or the egg?
-
- Has it ever occurred to anyone that America is about BOTH of these things,
- always has been, and always will be? Individual freedom and working for
- common goals. I know it's a tough concept for a lot of people to grasp.
-
- It cracks me up how the Libertarians espouse individual freedom, yet they
- want a whole lot of people to organize and vote them into office. I know
- they stand for less government influence, but deep down the premise is
- one of uncurtailed individual freedoms. Yet in order to do this, they
- want people to organize and work together for a common goal, so that
- things can be made better.
-
- In this country, at least, you cannot separate the two forces. So many
- people just do not understand that, it seems. (I'm not saying you don't,
- Brett, but I think a lot of people don't.)
-
- To quote Henry Louis Gates Jr., whose "A Pretty Good Society" is one of
- the most brilliant essays I have ever read on American government and
- society (it was in the Nov. 16 issue of TIME):
-
- "Down with either-or. Up with both-and."
-
- And if you look very carefully, you'll see that that statement also
- contains a contradiction in itself.
-
- It's the American way. :)
-
-
- Ellen
-