* * * * *
Last Saturday a great historian, Joseph Ellis, was at our law school for a four hour discussion of his terrific new book, American Creation. The subjects that came up included the extent to which the founders were simply head and shoulders above the politicians, and the body politic, of our own day, and whether, if there were a true national conversation on the subject (and a plebiscite, I guess), Americans would choose to continue or to drop the imperialistic foreign policy we have so long and so disastrously indulged. I think Joe Ellis may be more sanguine about some of these matters, and about America, than I am. When I read pieces like the Journal’s long article about the so-called nonprofit, charitable hospitals, or about the greed and misconduct that are everyday matters, or about the warmongering that is a common style of our national politics, or about the ever renewing history of the wealthy screwing over the poor, or when I hear or see the constant imbecility that passes for political discussion among the pols, in the mainstream media and on lots of blogs, it is very depressing. One wonders -- despairingly, to tell the truth -- whether we will ever have a decent society run on the private and public sides by honest, competent, fair minded people. One wonders whether many of us who think, write and hope about these things are nothing but naifs, hopeless idealists, wasters of time and energy who foolishly can’t stop themselves from hoping for what is impossible in this country in this time -- or ever?
The foregoing paragraph cries out for a stirring, hope inducing peroration, does it not? I have none to offer. *
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