American Lion

Consider this passage toward the end of Jon Meacham's biography of Andrew Jackson.

Speaking of Jackson in death, alluding to the crisis with South Carolina in 1832-33, George Bancroft said: "The moral of the great events of those days is this: that the people can discern right, and will make their way to a knowledge of the right; that the whole human mind, and therefore with it the mind of the nation, has a continuous, ever improving existence; that the appeal from the unjust legislation of to-day must be made quietly, earnestly, perseveringly, to the more enlightened collective reason of to-morrow; that submission is due to the popular will, in the confidence that the people, when in error, will amend their doings; that in a popular government, injustice is neither to be established by force, nor to be resisted by force; in a word, that the Union which is constituted by consent, must be preserved by love."

I have believed in the truth of that statement all my life, with the possible exception of my Ayn Rand period somewhere around my sophomore year in high school. I've always believed that the history of the world is the story of Good outlasting Evil. I've always believed that William Golding was wrong. People, if left to their own devices on a deserted island, would not become feral cannibals worshipping a boar's head. People would instead synergistically seek the Good, form a society, and keep perfecting that society.

It is hard to keep believing that nowadays, but reading Jackson's biography gives me a little hope. The acrimony today, the ranting heads on Fox News, the tearful fearmongering of Glen Beck, the unapologetic hatred spewed by Rush Limbaugh, comes at us at such a level that it is impossible to believe it has ever been this bad before. It is therefore comforting to see the same poisonous atmosphere in the Washington of Andrew Jackson. It is even reassuring to note that Henry Clay gave Jackson a much more formidable adversary than any that Obama has to face. So it has been ever thus. Congress isn't beyond repair; it has always worked that way. It makes you wonder how anything has ever been accomplished, but history tells us that the system works. At least that is one message I pulled from the book.

However, all of the screamers in Jackson's day shared one major quality: they selflessly and unwaveringly loved their country. I'm not sure the same can be said today. Isn't it obvious that the only disappointment the right wing pundits felt over the recent terrorist incident on the airplane from Amsterdam was that the attack wasn't more successful. That would have given them even more capital in their cynical use of the incident to attack Obama. It is just a matter of time before the incident will somehow be linked to Obamacare. I'm sure Sarah Palin is tweeting* something about it even as I type this.

I don't think a love of the conservative movement is synonymous with a love of country. Where is the patriotism in a default republican position that says to block any move/appointment Obama makes as a matter of course and then to scream that our country is less secure because Obama has yet to make the necessary appointments to Homeland Security?!

I believe in the primacy of Love, but I fear that primacy is currently undergoing its sternest test.

* The one hundred and forty character limit is the perfect vehicle for Palin's entire philosophical base.