Op-Ed: Hear what the founders are saying (via latimesopinion)
I’ve been hearing voices from the past, more specifically the founding era. Obviously, all the founders are busy being dead, and the voices I hear are my own creation, rooted in my reading of the treasure trove of letters and documents left behind by Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison and Franklin.
All that said, let me share what I hear the founders’ voices saying in our own deeply divided moment in American history.First, Thomas Jefferson. He wants us to know that he would wear a mask when a pandemic raged. His bottomless belief in what he called “self-government” presumed that each individual would voluntarily internalize the collective interest of society. So mandatory enforcement by government would be unnecessary.
John Adams devotes most of his remarks to complaining that there is no Adams monument on the Mall or in the Tidal Basin. In the same vein, he suggests the creation of a Mount Rushmore for demagogues, proposing Aaron Burr from his generation and Donald Trump from ours. His remarks feature long quotations from Cicero and Tacitus about the vulnerability of democracies to fake prophets.
Finally, the foundingest father of them all maintains a stoic silence. An angel, presumably serving as Washington’s aide, hands out fliers. “His Excellency is always with you,” they read, “on the dollar bill in your wallet, and on the quarter in your pocket.” Given our Trumpian troubles, I had expected to hear something more relevant from the president who walked away from power, the man who would not be king, the anti-Trump.
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